Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/392

360 OK prowess. An earlier heathen version of this story is found in the • legend of Pheredur, in which the boat-shaped vessel appears with the head of a man swimming in blood — a form which carries us to the repulsive jSIaha Kali of later Hindu mythology.

Gradual In the myth of Erichthonios we have a crucial instance of a coarse refinement of the and unseemly story produced by translating into the language of human life phrases which described most innocently and most vividly some phenomena of nature. In the myth of the Sangreal we see in the fullest degree the working of the opposite principle. For those who first sought to frame for themselves some idea of the great mystery of their existence, and who thought that they had found it in the visible media of reproduction, there was doubtless far less of a degrading influence in the cultus of the signs of the male and female powers and the exhibition of their symbols than we might be disposed to imagine. But that the developement of the idea might lead to the most wretched results, there could be no question. No degrada- tion could well be greater than that of the throngs who hurried to the temples of the Babylonian jMylitta. But we have seen the myth, starting from its crude and undisguised forms, assume the more harm- less shape of goblets or horns of plenty and fertility, of rings and crosses, of rods and spears, of mirrors and lamps. It has brought before us the mysterious ships endowed with the powers of thought and speech, beautiful cups in which the wearied sun sinks to rest, the staff of wealth and plenty with which Hermes guides the cattle of Helios across the blue pastures of heaven, the cup of Demeter into which the ripe fruit casts itself by an irresistible impulse. We have seen the symbols assume the character of talismanic tests, by which the refreshing draught is dashed from the lips of the guilty; and, finally, in the exquisite legend of the Sangreal the symbols have become a sacred thing, which only the pure in heart may see and touch. To Lancelot who tempts Guenevere to be faithless to Arthur, as Helen was unfaithful to Menelaos, it either remains invisible, or is seen only to leave him stretched senseless on the earth for his pre- sumption. The myth which corrupted the worshippers of Tammuz in the Jewish temple has supplied the beautiful picture of unselfish devotion which sheds a marvellous glory on the career of the pure Sir Galahad.^

Sir Galahad is played by Allah-ud-deen, consistency of their legends. The who is told by the magician that no one magician, it is true, singles out the boy in the whole world but he can be per- for his " simplicity and artlessness; mitted to touch or lift up the stone and but the portrait drawn of the child at go beneath it. The Eastern story- the outset of the tale is rather that of
 * In the Arabian story the part of tellers were not verj' careful about the