Mr E. K. Chambers, in The Mediaeval Stage, remarks: "If the
comparative study of Religion proves anything it is, that the
traditional beliefs and customs of the mediaeval or modern peasant are
in nine cases out of ten but the detritus of heathen mythology and
heathen worship, enduring with but little external change in the
shadow of a hostile faith. This is notably true of the village
festivals and their ludi. Their full significance only appears when
they are regarded as fragments of forgotten cults, the naive cults
addressed by a primitive folk to the beneficent deities of field
and wood and river, or the shadowy populace of its own dreams."[1]
We may, I think, take it that we have established at least the
possibility that in the Grail romances we possess, in literary form,
an example of the detritus above referred to, the fragmentary record
of the secret ritual of a Fertility cult.
Having reached this hypothetical conclusion, our next step must be
to examine the Symbols of this cult, the group of mysterious objects
which forms the central point of the action, a true understanding of
the nature of these objects being as essential for our success as
interpreters of the story as it was for the success of the Quester in
days of old. We must ask whether these objects, the Grail itself,
whether Cup or Dish; the Lance; the Sword; the Stone--one and all
invested with a certain atmosphere of awe, credited with strange
virtues, with sanctity itself, will harmonize with the proposed
solution, will range themselves fitly and fairly within the framework
of this hypothetical ritual.
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