This version is again supported by extant parallels. In each
of these cases it seems most probable that the original ritual
(I should wish it to be clearly understood that I hold the Grail
story to have been primarily dramatic, and actually performed)
involved an act of substitution. The Dead King in the first case
being probably represented by a mere effigy, in the second being
an old man, his place was, at a given moment of the ritual, taken by
the youth who played the role of the Quester. It is noteworthy that,
while both Perceval and Galahad are represented as mere lads, Gawain,
whatever his age at the moment of the Grail quest, was, as we learn
from Diu Crone, dowered by his fairy Mistress with the gift of eternal
youth.[19]
The versions of Chretien and Wolfram, which present us with a wounded
Fisher King, and a father, or grandfather,[20] in extreme old age,
are due in my opinion to a literary device, intended to combine two
existing variants. That the subject matter was well understood by the
original redactor of the common source is proved by the nature of the
injury,[21] but I hold that in these versions we have passed from the
domain of ritual to that of literature. Still, we have a curious
indication that the Wounding variant may have had its place in the
former.
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