Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/381

Rh clear what Heir Wechssler really means by this attempted concession to the Celtic school. Does he mean us to believe that such a heathen talisman ever played a part in the Joseph legend? If not, why drag it in at all? The legend of Joseph of Arimathea is throughout a Christian and ecclesiastical legend, without a trace of pre-Christian heathendom about it. Either we find that Joseph was miraculously released from prison (Gospel of Nicodemus), or that during an imprisonment of forty years he was miraculously sustained and comforted by God (Vindicta Salvatoris); that is all the genuine early legend tells us. The amplified legend introduces the vessel of the Last Supper as the means thus divinely employed. Where in this story is there room or occasion for a heathen talisman, a Wunsch-ding? The step from the im-mediate action of the Deity to the employment as a medium of a vessel previously used by the Deity is a short one, and a writer conversant with Scripture could well take it without any need for help from folklore or fairy tale. Reference in this connection to Celtic legend means nothing, and only creates unnecessary confusion.

Having thus accepted the legend of Joseph of Arimathea as the kernel of the story, it is not surprising to find that the writer accepts the romances pertaining to what Mr. Nutt has called the Early History of the Grail as representing the primitive form of the story, though he admits that they only exist now in comparatively late redactions—i.e., for him the original Grail-winner is Galahad, not Perceval.

Here the radical unsoundness of Herr Wechssler's new "combination" method comes out in sharp relief. The scholars who adhere to the belief that the Perceval quest represents the older version have drawn attention to the many archaic features in that hero's story, features paralleled in the pre-Christian literature of many lands. This is an argument which has never yet been satisfactorily met and answered. How does Herr Wechssler meet it? He calmly selects certain features, undeniably archaic, of the Perceval story, attributes them to Galahad, and then presents us with the resultant as being the original Grail story! The method is very simple—admirably so; it requires nothing but a certain amount of ingenuity—and a large amount of audacity.

But, lest it be thought I am doing injustice to the writer, he shall speak for himself.