Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/102

76 affords the strongest proof against the homogeneity of that part of the Conte du Graal which goes under Gautier's name), there would be an unbroken chain of testimony as to the food-giving power of the Grail on the part of the earlier A versions, supported by the Queste in opposition to the spiritual gifts insisted on by the B and E, Grand St. Graal, forms. It is in any case difficult to believe that if the writer of the Queste, with his strong tendency to mystic allegory, had had before him the highly spiritual presentment of the Grail-power found in B, he would have neglected it in favour of the materialistic description he uses. In one point this version differs from all others, the dumbness with which the Grail strikes those to whom it appears.

Name of Grail.

Whilst the majority of versions afford no explanation of the name of the Grail, B and C attach a curious punning meaning to it, thus B I, Metr. Jos.:

and C, Didot-Perceval, "Et por ce l'anpelon-nos Graal, qu'il agrée as prodes homes" (p. 483). E, Grand St. Graal, seems to follow these versions in Nasciens' words, "Car tout mi pense sont accompli, puis ke ie voi chou qui en toutes choses me plaist et m'agrée" (I, 212). Is such a punning explanation more consonant with the earliness or the lateness of the versions in which it is found? If the meaning of "Gréal" as cup or vessel was a perfectly well-established one, it is difficult to see why in the first treatment of the subject it should have been necessary to explain the word at all.

Arrival of the Grail in England.

Neither A I, Chrestien, nor A II, Gautier, give any indication how the Grail came to England; not until we come to A IIA,