priate forms and connection by the miraculous power of the Graal; and the outline of the building is unexpectedly discovered upon a rock of onyx, which the day before had been cleansed of the weeds and herbage that encumbered it. The access to the sanctuary is rendered invisible to all, except the chosen few, by an impervious forest of cedar, cypress and ebony surrounding it. By the daily contemplation of the Graal, Titurel's life is prolonged to "more than five hundred years:" just as the glorious career of Jemshid was extended to nearly seven centuries from a similar cause; and he only sinks to the sleep of death, from omitting to visit it during the space of ten days. In Lohengrin, Montsalvaez assumes the place of the isle of Avalon in British romance; and forms the fabled place of retreat of Arthur and his followers. It is here that the British monarch awaits the hour of his re-appearance upon earth; but far from remaining insensible to those chivalric 133 The retreat of Arthur to the isle of Avalon forms an exact parallel to what Hesiod has sung of the heroes who fell in the Trojan war, &c. (Op. et Dies, 140.) The skolion of Callistratus relative to Harmodius and Aristogeiton shows how late this beautiful fiction continued to be a favourite with the Athenians. In the Islands of the Blest we hear of Semele being married to Rhadamanthus, and Helen to Achilles. The offspring of this latter union was a winged boy, Euphorion, who was destroyed by Jupiter in the island of Melos. (Ptolem. Hephæst. c. 4.) Mr. Owen has said of "Arthur the son of Uthyr Bendragon, that he was a mythological and probably allegorical personage, and the Arcturus or Great Bear" of the celestial sphere. It is to be regretted that the Welsh antiquaries have told us so little of this mythic Arthur. The Fins, one of the oldest European tribes, and whose deof stinies have been even more evil-starred e than those of the Celts, retain the foly lowing article of their ancient faith:When the soul is permitted to ascend the shoulders of Ursa Major, it passes into the highest heaven, and the last stage of felicity. (Mone, ubi supra, 62.) Something of this kind is absolutely necessary to make many parts of the Morte Arthur intelligible; for that in this we have to do with the mythological Arthur, would be clear even to those who had no knowledge of an historical British prince. Not that the compilers of these fictions were at all aware of the ground they were treading, any more than Homer when he described the contest between Vulcan and the Scamander, believed himself "to be philosophizing Orphically," to speak with Philostratus. (Heroic, p. 100. ed. Boissonnade.) The writers of romance, like the great Mæonian (si licet componere, &c.), appear to have poured forth in song the sacred lore of an earlier period, but which having already received a secular or historical cast, was uttered as such by them with the most unsuspecting good faith. 134 The doctrine of the metempsychosis, which formed so conspicuous an article of the Celtic creed, would be sufficient to account for the Breton tradition relative to Arthur's re-appear duties which rendered his court an asylum for injured beauty and distressed sovereigns, he still holds a communication with the world, and occasionally dispatches a faithful champion to grant assistance in cases of momentous need 135. Here also the Graal maintains the sanctity of its character; and becomes at once the register of human grievances and necessities, and the interpreter of the will of Heaven as to the best mode of redressing them. But even here its transcendent purity requires a similar degree of unblemished worth in those who consult its dictates: the attendant knights in Arthur's train are too corrupt and sensual to approach the hallowed fane; and the infant children of Perceval and Lancelot, and the daughter of the courteous Gawaine are alone considered fit to; ance upon earth. A similar belief was entertained respecting Ogier le Danois, whose identity with Helgi, a hero of Sæmund's Edda, has been already noticed. At the close of the song "Helgi and Svava" it is stated: that these persons were born again; and at the end of the second song concerning Helgi Hundings-bane, we have: It was believed in the olden time that men might be born again. Helgi and Sigrunr are said to have been regenerated. He was then called Helgi Haddingia-skate; but she, Kara Halfdens daughter." The compiler of this collection does not fail to add, that in his time this opinion was regarded as an old-wives' tale. The French Romances however have perpetuated the tradition. 185 The author of Lohengrin makes Eschenbach assert, that his information respecting Arthur's "residence in the mountain, the manner in which the British monarch and his hundred followers were provided with food, raiment, horses and armour, and the names of the champions whom he had dispatched to aid the Christian world," was obtained from St. Brandan. Lohengrin or the "Chevelere Assigne" was one of these heroes. In this Arthur assumes the duty allotted to Proserpine, who according to Pindar, "having cleansed the soul of its impurities, re-dispatches it to the upper sun, where it becomes distinguished for its wisdom or its power, and in after-time is ranked among the heroes of public veneration." See Plato's Meno 81. and Hermann's disposition of this fragment in the 3rd volume of Heyne's Pindar. In Germany this tradition respecting the Graal became localized: Four miles from Dann, St. Barbara's hill is seen to rise conically from the centre of a plain. By many infatuated Germans this hill is called the Graal, who also believe that it contains numerous living persons, whose lives will be prolonged till the day of judgement, and who pass their time there in a round of continued revelry and pleasure. Theodoric a Niem. lib. ii. de Schismat. c. 20. as cited by Prætorius, i. 395. 136 The distress of Elsam von Bra. bant is made known to Arthur by her ringing a bell, a subject upon which there is no space to dilate. But the reader will not fail to remember that a brazen vessel (or bell) is sounded when Simatha invokes Hecate (Theocritus, ii. 36.), and that a similar rite was observed at Athens when the Hierophant invoked the same Goddess as Coré or Proserpine. See Apollodorus, as cited by the Scholiast to Theocritus, and compare the preceding note. step within the sacred shrine. Perhaps this would be the place to connect these scattered fragments of general tradition, and to offer a few remarks upon the import of a symbol which has thus found its way into the popular creed of so many distant nations. But a history of romantic fiction forms no part of the present attempt, nor an exposition of those esoteric doctrines which, taught in the heathen temple and perpetuated in the early stages of the Romish church, have descended to the multitude in a less impressive but more attractive guise. There is, however, one point upon which it may be necessary to make a more explicit avowal, lest the general tendency of the preceding remarks should be construed into an acquiescence with opinions wholly disclaimed. Though the marvels of popular fiction, both in the ancient and modern world, have thus been referred to the same common origin, it is by no means intended to affirm, that the elements of fictitious narrative in Greek and Roman literature are no where to be found embodied in the productions of the middle age. Such an assertion would be at variance with the most limited experience of the subject, and might be refuted by a simple reference to the German tales of MM. Grimm. In the story of the "Serpent-leaf," the principal incident accords with the account of Glaucus and Polyidus, as related by Apollodorus 138; 137 Mr. Ritson has said, "Nothing seems more probable than that the composers of romance were well acquainted with the ancient Greek and Latin poets." (Met. Rom. iii. p. 324.) But here his own favourite figure in dialectic might certainly have been retorted upon him: Is it so nominated in the bond? 138 Compare Grimm's Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, No. 16, with Apollod. Biblioth. iii. 3. 1. There is perhaps no fable that has obtained a more extensive circulation than this. Another version of the story attributes the cure of Glaucus to Esculapius (Hyg. Astron. 14.): and according to Xanthus, as cited by Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. xxv. c. 5.), it formed a piece of Lydian history. A recent number of the Quarterly Review No.58.) has cited the following illustration of it from Roger Bacon's Opus Majus: "At Paris there was lately a sage, who sought out the serpent's nest, and selecting one of the reptiles, he cut it into small pieces, leaving only as much undissected membrane, as was sufficient to prevent the fragments from falling asunder. The dying serpent crawled as well as it could until it found a leaf, whose touch immediately united the severed body; and the sage, thus guided by the creature whom he had mangled, the cranes of Ibycus figure under another form in the tale of the "Jew and the Skinker; and the slipper of Cinderella finds a parallel, though somewhat sobered, in the history of the celebrated Rhodope 140. In another story of the same collection we meet with the fabled punishment of Regulus, inflicted on the persons of two culprits; Ovid's Baucis and Philemon may be said to have furnished the basis of the Poor and the Rich Man 142: the Gaudief and his Master contains the history of the Thessalian Erisichthon 143; the Boeotian Sphinx exerts her agency in a variety of forms 14; and the descent of Rhampsinitus, and his diceing with Demeter, is shadowed forth in a series of narratives 145. Another of Ovid's fables, the history of Picus and Circe, is in strict analogy with a considerable portion of the "Two Brothers;" other incidents may be said 150 Grimm, No. 115. Cic. Tusc. 4. c. 43. 140 Grimm, No. 21. Elian. Var. Hist. lib. xiii. c. 32. 141 Grimm, No. 13. Appian in Libycis. In the note to the "Three Mannikins in the Wood," it is stated from the Great Chronicle of Holland, that this punishment was inflicted on Gerhard van Velzen, for the murder of Count Florence V. of Holland (1296). After being rolled in the cask for three days, he was asked how he felt, when he intrepidly replied: Ich ben noch dezelve man, Die Graaf Floris zyn leven nam. I am still the self-same man, who took away the life of Count Florence' The same punishment is also mentioned in the Swedish popular ballads published by Geyer and Afzelius, i. No. 3: the Danish Kiempe Viser, No. 165: in Perrault's Fairy Tale" Les Fées," and the Pentamerone iii. 10. (Grimm.) 142 Grimm, No. 87. Ovid. Met. viii. 679, where the presence of a divinity is manifested by a miracle running through the fictions of every country: Intereà, quoties haustum cratera, repleri Sponte suâ, per seque vident succrescere vina, Attoniti, &c. Compare note 105. p. (67) above. 143 Grimm, No. 68. Ovid. Met. viii. 738. and Ælian. Var. Hist. i. 28. 141 The popular view of this subject in the ancient world is given by Pausanias, ix. c. 26. who represents the Sphinx as a natural daughter of Laius, intrusted with a secret delivered to Cadmus by the oracle at Delphi. The rightful heir to the throne was in possession of the solution to this mystery; the illegitimate pretenders were detected by their ignorance of it, and suffered the penalty due to their deceit. 145 Grimm, No. 82, and the note containing the several variations of the tale. Herodotus ii. 122. to have been borrowed from the account of the same enchantress in the Odyssey: the annual sacrifice of a virgin to the destructive dragon, forms a pendant to the story in Pausanias concerning the dark demon of Temessa; and the test of the hero's success, the production of the dragon's tongue, which also occurs in the romances of Wolf-dietrich and Tristram, is to be met with in the local history of Megara. The mysterious cave of "Gaffer Death" receives its chief importance from its resemblance to a similar scene in the vision of Timarchus; and the most interesting tale in the whole collectionwhether we speak with reference to its contents, or the admirable style of the narrative-the Machandel Boom 145-is but 148 Grimm, No. 60. Ovid. Met. xiv. 327. Od. x. 230-335. Comp. Ovid. xiv. 270. Pausanias vi. c. 6. (See note 57. p. (42) above.) Weber's Northern Antiquities, p. 123. Sir Tristram, fytte 2. st. 37. The scholiast to Apollonius Rhodius relates, on the authority of the Megarica, that Alcathous the son of Pelops, having slain Chrysippus, fled from Megara, and settled in some other town. The Megaraan territory being afterwards ravaged by a lion, persons were dispatched to destroy it; but Alcathous meeting the monster, slew it, and cut out the tongue, with which he returned to Megara. The party sent to perform the exploit also returned, averring the success of their enterprise; when Alcathous advanced, and produced the lion's tongue, to the confusion of his adversaries. Schol. in Apoll. Rhod. lib. i. v. 517. 147 Grimm, No. 44. "Gaffer Death... now led the physician into a subterranean cavern, containing an endless number of many thousand thousand lighted candles. Some were long, others half-burnt, and others again almost out. Every instant some of these candles became extinguished, and others lighted anew; and the flame was seen to move from one part of the cave to another. Look here! (said Death to his companion,) these are the vital sparks of human existence." In Plutarch's tract "De Genio Socratis," Timarchus is made to address his mysterious guide 149 This extraordinary tale will be found in the second volume of the German Stories, now on the eve of publication. To this the reader is referred, who will feel grateful that no garbled abstract of it is here attempted. The points of coincidence may be thus briefly stated. In the Cretan fable, the destruction of Zagreus is attributed to the jealousy of his step-mother Juno; and the Titans (those telluric powers who were created to avenge their mother's connubial wrongs) are the instruments of her cruelty. The infant god is allured to an inner chamber, by a present of toys and fruit (among these an apple), |