Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/323

Rh worked up by Robert de Borron (twelfth century) in terms of a corresponding traditional esoteric Christian mystery. The procession with Grail, etc., was the presentation of the mystery, its meaning being divulged according to the degree of initiation; but though the quester is the initiate, yet he fails in his Quest.$55$ The present writer is wholly unable to believe that such mysteries and initiations existed among the barbarous Celts or that they survived until the early middle ages, or that lance and cup have a phallic significance—"life symbols of the lowest plane"—or that there was a traditional esoteric Christianity, save in the minds of cranks of all ages. Why, again, should a mystery known only to initiates have been the subject of a story .^ Were initiates likely to reveal it? To regard the Grail story from a phallic, occult point of view and to interpret it by means of a mystic jargon is to degrade it. If the modern occultist possesses a divine secret, the world does. not seem to be much the better for it; and such secrets are apt to be mere "gas and gaiters." The truth is that occultism renders squalid whatever it touches, be that Christianity, or Buddhism, or the romantic stories of the Grail.

In spite of the numerous and important characters who enter into the saga, Arthur is the central figure, the ideal hero of Brythonic tribes In the past, to whom leadership at home and abroad might be assigned, and whose presence in all battles might be asserted. Originating as a champion, real or mythical, of northern Brythons in southern Scotland, his legend passed with emigrants to Wales, where it became popular. Like Fionn among the Goidels, so Arthur among the Brythons was located in every district, as numerous place-names show; and if Fionn was at first a non-Celtic hero adopted by Goidels, so Arthur was a Brythonic hero adopted by Anglo-Normans as their truest romantic figure.$56$