Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/149

Rh et in ardua sita est, summo et maximo Britonum Regi Arthuro vulgari nuncupatione est assignata." The Eildon Hills may be noted in the same connection, "in which all the Arthurian chivalry await, in an enchanted sleep, the bugle blast of the adventurer who will call them at length to a new life" (Stuart Glennie, "Arthurian Localities," p. 60). If the Grail King is Arthur, the bleeding lance is evidently the weapon wherewith he was so sorely wounded. And the Grail? this is originally a symbol of plenty, of a joyous and bountiful life, hence of Avalon, that land of everlasting summer beyond the waves, wherein, as the Vita Merlini has it, they that visit Arthur find "planitiem omnibus deliciis plenam." Of those versions of the romance in which the Christian conception of the Grail is predominant, Robert de Borron's poem (composed about 1200) is the earliest, and in it, maugre the Christianising of the story, the Celtic basis is apparent: the Grail host go a questing Avalonwards; the first keepers are Brons and Alain, purely Celtic names, the former of which may be compared with Bran; the empty seat calls to mind the Eren stein in Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelot, whereof (verse 5, 178) ist gesaget daz er den man niht vertruoc an dem was valsch oder haz. Admitting the purely Christian origin of the Grail leads to this difficulty: the vessel in which Christ's blood was received was a bowl, not an open or flat dish like that used in commemoration of the Last Supper. Evidently the identification of the Grail with the Last Supper cup is the latest of a series of transformations. Nor can the Christian origin of the legend be held proved by the surname of Fisher given to the Grail-keeper. True, neither Chrestien nor Wolfram explains this surname, whilst in Borron's poem there is at least a fish caught. But if the fish had really the symbolic meaning ascribed to it would not a far greater stress be laid upon it? In any case this one point is insufficient to prove the priority of Borron, and it is simpler to believe that the surname of Fisher had in the original Celtic tradition a significance now lost. Birch-Hirschfeld's theory supposes, too, a development contrary to that observed elsewhere in mediæval tradition. The invariable course is from the racial-heathen to the Christian legendary stage. Is it likely that in the twelfth century, a period of such highly