Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/236

210 which represents the hero seeking service of a powerful magician, from whom he hopes to learn the spells and charms that may guard him against his foes. Here, as in many other portions of the Ossianic saga, Fionn is strikingly like a Red Indian medicine man, or the corresponding wizard among other savage tribes. It is more to our purpose to note that this tale contains the fullest presentment of Fionn as hero of the Expulsion and Return Formula, and that a similar incident is to be found in the lives of other heroes of the formula (notably Siegfried: the Adventure with Mimir.) Now, as we have already seen that Peredur-Perceval is a formula hero, there is nothing remarkable in finding an analogous incident in his sage. A formal connection is thus at once made out. But we must look into the matter a little closer, as the incident found in the romances is but a faint echo, and that in part distorted by alien conceptions, of the original story.

The unspelling quest in one form resolves itself ultimately into the hero's search for riches, power, or knowledge, in prosecution of which he penetrates to the otherworld. This is figured in the Grail romances both by Brons' or Alain's (who here answers to Fionn) catching the wonderful fish, and by Peredur-Perceval coming to the house of Brons, the Fisher King (who here answers to Finn-eges), winning from him the mysterious vessel of increase, and learning the secret words which put an end to the enchantments of Britain. In the Grail romances the idea of wisdom is not associated with the Grail, the vessel, at all; it is either bound up with the fish, as in the Irish tale, or is the possession of the Fisher King as the wonder-working spells are the possession of Finn-eges.

But in the Welsh tradition which corresponds to that of Fionn and the salmon, it is the vessel, the cauldron, or rather the drink which it holds, which communicates the gift of wisdom and knowledge. I allude, of course, to the story of Gwion, set by Ceridwen to watch the cauldron of inspiration, inadvertently tasting its contents, becoming thereby filled with knowledge, pursued by Ceridwen, who swallows him, and in whom he re-incarnates himself as Taliesin, the Allwise Bard. Campbell had already (Vol. IV., p. 299) drawn attention to the similarity of the two stories, and equated Fionn, father of Oisin, with Gwion, father of Taliesin;