Students of the subject are well aware that the tradition of
ancient pre-Christian rites and ceremonies lingered on in the East
long after they had been banished by the more practical genius of the
West. It may well prove that so far from the Grail story being a
reminiscence of the Byzantine rite, that rite itself has been affected
by a ritual of which the Grail legend preserves a fragmentary record.
In my view a Christian origin for Lance and Cup, as associated
symbols, has not been made out; still less can it be postulated for
Lance and Cup as members of an extended group, including Dish, Sword,
and Stone.
On this point Professor Brown's attempt to find in Irish tradition the
origin of the Grail symbols is distinctly more satisfactory.[5]
I cannot accept as decisive the solution proposed, which seems to me
to be open to much the same criticism as that which would find in the
Lance the Lance of Longinus--both are occupied with details, rather
than with ensemble; both would find their justification as offering
evidence of accretion, rather than of origin; neither can provide us
with the required mise-en-scene.
But Professor Brown's theory is the more sound in that he is really
dealing with a group of associated symbols; in his view Lance and
Grail alike belong to the treasures of the Tuatha de Danann (that
legendary race of Irish ancestors, who were at once gods and kings),
and therefore ab initio belong together.
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