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extremity of the table of the gods (the milky way). It is held by Ganymede or Aquarius, the guardian of the southern fishes (king Pecheur?); and it is only by a favourable lot from this urn of destiny, that the soul is enabled to find a passage through the portal of the gods (Capricorn) to the circle of eternal felicity.

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The sacred vessel of modern fiction is no less distinguished for its attributes. The seat reserved for it at the Round Table, was called "the siege perilous," of which a hermit had declared: "There shall never none sit in that siege but one, but if he be destroyed," [and that one] "shall win the Sancgreall 198❞ On the day this seat was to receive its ap

ing the cauldron of inspiration, till three drops of the precious compound alight on his finger. On tasting these, every event of futurity becomes unfolded to his view. This appears to be the "novum potum materialis alluvionis," the intoxicating draught which inspires the soul with an irresistible propensity to a corporeal existence. "Hæc est autem hyle, quæ omne corpus mundi quod ubicumque cernimus ideis impressa formavit." (Macrob. i. 12.) It is this which protrudes the soul into Leo, and furnishes it with a prescience of its future career, ("cum vero ad Leonem labendo pervenerint, illic conditionis futuræ auspicantur exordium." Ib.) Gwyon is now pursued by Ceridwen, and transforms himself successively into a hare, a fish, and a bird, while the goddess becomes a greyhound-bitch, an otter, and a sparrow-hawk. Despairing of escape he assumes the form of a grain of wheat, and is swallowed by Ceridwen in the shape of a black high-crested hen. Ceridwen becomes pregnant, and at the expiration of nine months brings forth Taliessin, whom she exposes in a boat or coracle. In this we appear to have the soul's progression through the various elements which supply it with the vehicles necessary for incorporation. "Tertius vero elementorum ordo, ita ad nos conversus, habeatur, ut terram ultimam faciat, et cæteris in medium redactis in

terram desinat, tam ima quam summa postremitas: igitur sphæra Martis ignis habeatur, aer Jovis, Saturni aqua, terra vero Aplanes, in qua Elysios campos esse puris animis deputatos antiquitas nobis intelligendum reliquit: de his campis anima, cum in corpus emittitur, per tres elementorum ordines, trina morte, ad corpus usque descendit." (Ib.) The pursuit of Ceridwen would then be a personification of that necessity, by which souls are compelled to descend, in order that the economy of the universe may be sustained. "For the sensitive life suffers from the external bodies of fire and air, earth and water falling upon it; and considering all the passions as mighty through the vileness of its life, is the cause of tumult to the soul." Procl, in Tim. as cited by Mr. Taylor, ii. p. 513. Another favourite figure of the same school is, that the soul is hurled like seed into the realms of generation. Ib. 510. The remainder of the tale is a piece of common mythology. Mr. Davies admits that the bardic lore was a compound of Pagan and Christian dogmas; and it therefore becomes a question, whether this Paganism was purely Druidical, or that syncretic system adopted by Pelagius from the Platonizing fathers of the Eastern church. The theological tenets of the triads (Williams's Poems, vol. ii.) are obviously derived from this source. 199 Morte Arthur, P. iii. c. 1.

pointed tenant, two inscriptions were found miraculously traced upon it: "Four hundred winters and four and fifty accomplished after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ ought the siege to be fulfilled:" and, "This is the siege of Sir Galahad the good knight." The healing virtues of the Graal are exemplified on the wounded persons of Sir Bors and Sir Percival 129, two of the knights destined to accomplish the Quest. A cripple of ten years suffering is restored to health by touching the table on which it is borne; and a nameless knight of perfect and unspotted life is admitted to kiss it, and finds an instantaneous cure for his maladies. But the courage, prowess and chivalric accomplishments of Sir Launcelot are rendered unavailing in the Quest, by his guilty commerce with Queen Guenever. He is permitted to see its marvellous effects upon the knight already mentioned, and who, less worthy than himself in earthly endowments, is yet uncontaminated by mortal sin; and once indeed he is suffered to approach the chamber containing it. But a voice forbids his penetrating to the interior of the sanctuary: yet, having rashly disregarded the admonition, he falls a victim to his fatal curiosity, and con

129 On this occasion Sir Percival "had a glimmering of that vessel, and of the maiden that bore it; for he was perfect and clene." (M. Arth. c. 14.) And again: "I wot wele what it is. It is an holy vessel that is borne by a maiden, and thereon is a part of the holy blood of our blessed Saviour." Ib. There is no clue in the romance to the genealogy of this damsel. But Mr. Creuzer has shown that "a perfect and clean maiden" who bore a holy vessel, was a well known character in Grecian story. Amymone, the blameless daughter of Danaus, was exempt from the punishment inflicted upon her father's children, because she had resisted the solicitations of a Satyr (sensual love). Hence she was permitted to draw the cooling reviving draught of consolation and bliss in a perfect vase. Her sisters who had yielded to temptation, who had

resigned themselves to Desire, were doomed to spend their time in fruitless attempts to fill a bottomless or broken vase, or a perforated sieve; and to become the standing types of the uninitiated, or souls wallowing in the mire of material existence. (The story of the murder was unknown to Homer and Apollodorus, and was doubtlessly a later fiction.) The Greeks also placed a vase upon the graves of the unmarried persons, as a symbol of celibacy; a practice that seems to illustrate the language of Joseph of Arimathy, to Sir Percival : "And wotest thou wherefore [our Lord] hath sent me more than other? for thou hast resembled me in two things; one is, that thou hast seen the Sancgreall, and the other is that thou hast been a clene maiden as I am." c. 103.

tinues in an almost lifeless condition for four-and-thirty days. A similar punishment is inflicted upon king Evelake, who having "nighed so nigh" to the holy vessel "that our Lord was displeased with him," he became "blasted with excess of light," and remained "almost blind" the rest of his life. The most solemn instance of its agency in the presence of a profane assembly, occurs on the day of Sir Galahad's assuming the siege perillous: "Then anon they heard cracking and crying of thunder, that hem thought the place should all torive. In the midst of the blast, entered a sunbeam, more clear by seven times than ever they saw day; and all they were alighted of the grace of the holy ghost. Then there entered

130 The punishment here inflicted upon Sir Lancelot and king Evelake, is founded upon an idea, which seems to have pervaded the mythology of most nations, that the person of the Deity is too effulgent for mortal sight, and that any attempt at a direct inspection, is sure to be punished with a loss of vision or the senses. Hence the stories of Tiresias and Acteon, of Herse and Aglauros, (Paus. i. 18.) of Eurypylus (lb. vii. 19.) and Maneros, (Plut. de İsid. et Osirid. c. 17.) and the explanation given to the disease called nympholepsy is clearly referable to the same opinion: "Vulgo autem memoriæ proditum est, quicumque speciem quan dam e fonte, id est, effigiem nymphæ viderint, furendi non fecisse finem, quos Græci vuoλrous, Latini lymphatos appellant." Festus. Hence also the eyes were averted on meeting a hero or heroical demon; and an Heroon was passed in silence. Schol. in Aristoph. Aves, 1490-3. The same opinion appears to have been current among the Germanic tribes who worshiped the goddess Hertha. Her annual circuit was made in a veiled car; but the servants who washed the body of the goddess on her return, and who conse quently must have gazed upon her person, were reported to have been "swallowed up quick" by the earth. When Hercules demanded an epiphany of

the god Ammon, we are told this divinity assumed a ram's vizor, a fiction which seems to be connected with the same common opinion. (Herod. ii. 42.) The numerous veiled statues seen by Pausanias in his tour through Greece, the veiled goblet carried in the Dionysic procession at Alexandria (Athen. lib. v. 268.), and the general introduction of the Graal (wherein was "a part of the holy blood of our blessed Saviour ") covered with samyte, may be considered as further illustrations.

131 In the ancient world a cup or goblet was not only considered as the most suitable kind of vessel for libations, but it was also regarded as an appropriate type of the Deity. This no doubt arose from the widely extended dogma, that the Demiurgus of the universe framed the world in his own image. The illustrations of this opinion, as exemplified in votive offerings, in the form of an egg, a globe, sphere, hemisphere, cup, dish, &c. would fill a volume; and happily Mr. Creuzer by his "Dionysus" has rendered further proof on the subject unnecessary. In Ægyptian processions a vase led the way as an image of Osiris (Plut. 496); a small urn was the effigy of Isis (Apuleius Metamorph. xi. p. 693); a bowl or goblet was borne on a chariot, as the emblem of Dionysus, in the festival described by Calixenus (Athe

into the hall, the holy Grale covered with white samite; but there was none that might see it, nor who bare it; and then was all the hall full filled with good odours; and every knight had such meat and drink as he best loved in this world; and when the holy Grale had been borne through the hall, then the holy vessel departed suddenly, that they wist not where it became." (c. 35.) But these are the mere secular benefits in the power of the sacred cup to bestow. To those allowed to share in its spiritual advantages, who by a life of purity and blameless conduct had capacitated themselves for a more intimate communion with it, it became a cup of eternal life and salvation. On its first epiphany to Sir Galahad and his fellows, the great mystery of the Romish church is visibly demonstrated

xaλxã, & nigaμov Tewixov. (Dion. Hal. i. 67.) With the true or fictitious history of Æneas we are not concerned; it is sufficient to know the form of those symbols which were acknowledged in Italy as suitable representations of the Penates. For an explanation of the caduceal figures we may refer to Servius: "Nullus enim locus sine Genio est, qui per anguem plerumque ostenditur." The Trojan bowl and Issedonian skull will illustrate each other. Livy has also said: "Galli Boii caput ducis (Postumii) præcisum ovantes templo-intulere: purgato inde capite, ut mos iis est, calvum auro cælavere: idque sacrum vas iis erat, quo solennibus libarent: poculumque idem sacerdoti esse ac templi antistitibus." It will be remembered that according to the Edda the skull of Ymir was converted into the canopy of heaven (Dæmesaga). Something is said on this subject at page xxxiv. below, which, though written without the passages above cited being in the Editor's recollection, he by no means wishes to retract, so far as the moderns are concerned. Through inadvertency the authorities for that note have been omitted, viz. Bartholin for the facts, and the "Transactions of the Scandinavian Society," page 323. 1813, for the correc

næus, v. 268); and hence the long catalogue of craters, tripods, &c. so common in the furniture of ancient temples. That the same symbol was acknowledged in other countries previously to any general intercourse with the Roman powers, is more than probable. Herodotus has stated of the Issedones, that they decorated the skulls of the departed with gold, reserving them as images (see Salmas. in Solin. p. 192.) of their ancestors, when they performed those annual rites which the Greeks called yviria. From this we may infer that the Issedones entertained the same notions of the dead, that we find prevailing in almost every ancient and modern nation in a Pagan state; and that they enrolled their deceased relatives among those domestic deities, who by a general system of euphemy have been called 9so xenoroi, Dii Manes, Gütichen and Guid Neighbours. As the guardians of the family hearth, and the household gods of their descendants, the same class of spirits was also termed by the Greeks and Romans to xaraxidio, Lares, Targa 9so, and Dii Penates. (See Salmasius Exercit. Plin. p. 46.) Now the images shown at Lavinium, as the identical statues of the Penates brought to Italy by Æneas, consisted of unguzia vidnation.

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before them. The transubstantiation of the sacred wafer is effected in their presence, palpably and sensibly; the hallowed "bread become flesh" is deposited in the cup; and the Redeemer of the world emerges from it to administer to his "knights servants and true children, which [were] come out of deadly life into spiritual life, the high meat which [they] had so much desired." Still they "did not see that which they most desired to see, so openly as they were to behold it in the city of Sarras in the spiritual place." Here Sir Galahad's vision of the transcendent attributes of the Graal is perfected; his participation in its hallowed contents is consummated to the full extent of his wishes; he has now obtained the only meed for which this life is worth enduring-a certainty of passing to a better: his earthly travails close, "his soul departs unto Christ, and a great multitude of angels" is seen to "bear up to heaven. Also his two fellows saw come from heaven

it

a hand, but they saw not the body; and then it came right to the vessel and took it...... and so bare it up to heaven. Sithence was there never no man so hardy for to say that he had seen the Sangreall."

In the Arabic version the holy vessel is delivered by an angel to Titurel, at whose birth another minister of heaven attended, and foretold the infant hero's future glory, by declaring that he was destined to wear the crown of Paradise. By him a temple is built for its preservation upon Montsalvaez, "a sacred mountain, which stands in Salvatierra12, a district of Arragon, and lying adjacent to the valley of Roncevalles and upon the high road from France to Compostella." The materials for this structure are of the most costly and imperishable description: they are all produced in their appro

13 This Montsalvaez in Salvatierra is in all probability the Salisberi of the Norman Romancers; the Mons salutis (Sawles-byrig?) of the Christian world.

This would account for the castle of
Luces Sieur de Gast being "pres de I
Salisberi," or adjoining the sanctuary
in which the Graal was preserved

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