[30]
Thus our English survivals of these early Vegetation ceremonies
preserve, in a more or less detached form, the four symbols discussed
in the preceding chapter, Grail, Sword, Lance, and Pentangle, or
Dish. It seems to me that, in view of the evidence thus offered, it
is not a very hazardous, or far-fetched hypothesis to suggest that
these symbols, the exact value of which, as a group, we cannot clearly
determine, but of which we know the two most prominent, Cup and Lance,
to be sex symbols, were originally 'Fertility' emblems, and as such
employed in a ritual designed to promote, or restore, the activity of
the reproductive energies of Nature.
As I have pointed out above an obvious dislocation has taken place in
our English survivals. Sword Dance, Mumming Play, and Morris Dance,
no longer form part of one ceremony, but have become separated, and
connected, on the one hand with the Winter, on the other with the
early Summer, Nature celebrations; it is thus not surprising that the
symbols should also have become detached. The fact that the three
groups manifestly form part of an original whole is an argument in
favour of the view that at one moment all the symbols were used
together, and the Grail chalice carried in a ceremony in which Sword,
Lance, and Pentangle, were also displayed.
Pages:
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146