Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/425

 Glastonbury and the Grail. 1 1 7

apply to Glastonbury, both past and present — even Perlesvaus" " lesser castles " all agree here. Their names are significant. " Eden " suggests the apples of Avalon. " The Castle of Souls," so-called " because none ever passed away therein but his soul went straight to Paradise," parallels William of Malmes- bury's indulgence to persons dying in Glastonbury.

On Arthur's grave a pyramid — an accepted Life Cults symbol — bore the names " Bregored " and " Logwor." Bregored, a form of Miss Weston's " Bledri," suggests an early member of a clan of hereditary " questers." He was the last Celtic abbot. Logwor was a Celtic chief who, before Saxon days, gave Glaston- bury land at Montacute. Montacute is named from a " pointed hill " exactly parodying a small Glastonbury Tor, and claims to be the burial place of Joseph of Arimathea, the only possible patron for Christianized Life Cults — suggesting that Logwor, by his gift, meant to affiliate the smaller cults with the greater. I suspect the rites were banished from Glastonbury by King Ine, probably withdrawing to the district indicated by Miss Weston.

' Moyis AciUus ' supports Professor Rhys's definition of Cor- benic ; but may I suggest Caer Vannawg as mistaken for some Oriental word akin to that represented by " Corbenic," not vice versa } There were Phoenician influences near Glastonbury. Some years ago the British Museum pronounced as Phoenician a piece of blue porcelain found in the abbey below all the succes- sive foundations.

Miss Weston challenges my conclusions as to " Bridge Perilous," as the combat would be .a grave bar to initiation; but this legend, found in differing forms everywhere, preserves the primitive form of election to the kingship, and its con- nection with rain-making show the king as the agricultural- spirit's human avatar, i.e. the Grail King. I cannot see that it is a worse hindrance to initiation than to the kingship.

I am guiltless of confusing Other World associations and head-gods with the Grail. The parallel Egyptian cults had them, and there is the head in Perceval. Though this is a minority-form, the general kinship of Grail and Adonis rites shows that British head legends had such associations ; and if they