I believe
it to be essentially a Mystery tradition; the Otherworld is not a
myth, but a reality, and in all ages there have been souls who have
been willing to brave the great adventure, and to risk all for the
chance of bringing back with them some assurance of the future life.
Naturally these ventures passed into tradition with the men who risked
them. The early races of men became semi-mythic, their beliefs, their
experiences, receded into a land of mist, where their figures assumed
fantastic outlines, and the record of their deeds departed more and
more widely from historic accuracy.
The poets and dreamers wove their magic webs, and a world apart from
the world of actual experience came to life. But it was not all myth,
nor all fantasy; there was a basis of truth and reality at the
foundation of the mystic growth, and a true criticism will not rest
content with wandering in these enchanted lands, and holding all it
meets with for the outcome of human imagination.
The truth may lie very deep down, but it is there, and it is worth
seeking, and Celtic fairy-tales, charming as they are, can never
afford a satisfactory, or abiding, resting place. I, for one, utterly
refuse to accept such as an adequate goal for a life's research.
A path that leads but into a Celtic Twilight can only be a by-path,
and not the King's Highway!
The Grail romances repose eventually, not upon a poet's imagination,
but upon the ruins of an august and ancient ritual, a ritual which
once claimed to be the accredited guardian of the deepest secrets of
Life.
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