Gawain's character of Healer
belongs to him in his role of Grail Winner.
Some years ago, in the course of my reading, I came across a passage
in which certain knights of Arthur's court, riding through a forest,
come upon a herb 'which belonged to the Grail.' Unfortunately the
reference, at the time I met with it, though it struck me as curious,
did not possess any special significance, and either I omitted to
make a note of it, or entered it in a book which, with sundry others,
went mysteriously astray in the process of moving furniture. In
any case, though I have searched diligently I have failed to recover
the passage, but I note it here in the hope that one of my reader
may be more fortunate.
It is perhaps not without significance that a mention of Peredur
(Perceval) in Welsh poetry may also possibly contain a reference to
his healing office. I refer to the well-known Song of the Graves in
the Black Book of Carmarthen where the grave of Mor, son of Peredur
Penwetic, is referred to. According to Dr G. Evans the word penwedic,
or perfeddyg, as it may also be read, means chief Healer. Peredur,
it is needless to say, is the Welsh equivalent of Perceval, Gawain's
successor and supplanter in the role of Grail hero.
I have no desire to press the point unduly, but it is certainly
significant that, entirely apart from any such theory of the evolution
of the Grail legend as that advanced in these pages, a Welsh scholar
should have suggested a rendering of the title of the Grail hero which
is in complete harmony with that theory; a rendering also which places
him side by side with his compatriot Gwalchmai, even as the completely
evolved Grail story connects him with Gawain.
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