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• "almost every culture eventually develops a corpus of stories that serves to explain the culture's origins"

 

 

 

 

• "in Great Britain the comparable body of work is a literary cycle known as the Matter of Britain"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the Matter of Britain is made up of exactly what you would think it would be:"

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "all of the most important works about the Arthurian mythos"

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the Canterbury Tales, tales about the early semi-mythical kings of Britain, and everything in between"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the works are of various genres, including romances, poetry, satirical comedies, songs, and allegedly scholarly documents"

 

 

 

 

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• "the different works span several centuries, dating from the 9th, but going as far back as the 6th"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "this is an impressively extensive compilation of stories that reveals much about King Arthur, his comrades"

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "Celtic mythology, and medieval European cultural values"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

historical Works:

• "the bulk of the Matter of Britain is comprised of romances and chansons de geste (literally "songs of quests")"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "a certain Ambrosius is often seen as being one of the most likely candidates for the historical King Arthur"

 

 

 

 

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• "assuming that he is an actual historical figure, he would have lived in the 5th century after the end of the Roman occupation of Britain in 410"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "in addition to ruling Britain as an idyllic utopia from Camelot"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "Arthur comes into conflict with a Roman emperor named Tiberius, who demands that Britain return to the Roman fold"

 

 

 

 

 

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• "he himself is mortally wounded and carried off to Avalon to recuperate until he can make his return"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pre-Arthurian Influences:

• "the origins of the Arthurian legend can be found in the Matter of Britain"

 

 

 

 

 

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• "probably the most important works of this type are the ones written about the heroic knight Ywain (Chretien de Troyes)"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "and stories relating to the Welsh myths (the Book of Taliesin, the Mabinogion)"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "about hunting for the Holy Grail"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "and about relationships between men and women (Tristan and Iseult, Lancelot and Guinevere, and Sir Gawain and his host's wife)"

 

 

 

 

 

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• "of whom the latter two are knights of the Round Table who quested after the Holy Grail"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "it is in the Welsh Mabinogion - a collection of native Celtic / Brythonic stories"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "that we find the earliest references to Arthur"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the character of Yvaine (alternately spelled Ywain, Owain, Owen) is important to the Welsh part of the cycle"

 

 

 

 

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• "he is based on an historical figure called Owain mab Urien who ruled as a regional king in the 6th century"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the Holy Grail:

• "of course, what most people really think about when they're reminded of the Arthurian stories"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "is the quest for the Holy Grail"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "to put it more accurately, "the quests for the Holy Grail""

 

 

 

 

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• "actually, it seems like grail questing was pretty much the hobby of all the knights of the Round Table"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "almost all of Arthur's really important knights go after it at some point, but there is never any suggestion that Arthur himself should find it"

 

 

 

 

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• "likewise, accounts that are simultaneously considered canonical feature mutually exclusive discoveries of the Holy Grail by various knights, especially Perceval"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "there's absolutely no consensus as to what the grail actually is"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "Chretien's Perceval says the grail is a bowl while Wolfram's version says that it's a stone that fell from heaven"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "tied up with the idea of the grail is a figure known as the Fisher King"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the Fisher King is the hospitable but powerless ruler over a formerly great domain. The kingdom is a wasteland and the king is frail"

 

 

 

 

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• "his name comes from the fact that he leads a boring, fruitless existence, idly filling his days by fishing"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the Fisher King is kept alive solely by the sustenance he receives from the grail"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "identified as a magically regenerating communion wafer"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the Fisher King is the protector of the grail in its various incarnations"

 

 

 

 

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• "and the health of the Fisher King is intimately tied to that of the land"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "Perceval, Galahad, and Bors all encounter the Fisher King in their quests for the grail, sometimes together, sometimes separately"

 

 

 

 

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• "the main point of these quests is not so much in physically locating the Holy Grail"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "as it is healing the king and thus the land"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the title character fails to heal the king and thus does not attain the grail"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the Fisher King is being healed, by asking "who does the grail serve ?""

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "regardless of what the grail really is or who actually gets it, the salient point is"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "that winning it leads to spiritual completion"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "for the attainment of a perfect soul"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the wisdom required to acquire the grail"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "is more important than actually getting it"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "this is ultimately the lesson and meaning behind the Holy Grail"

 

 

 

 

 

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• "which explains why the concept of a physically cohesive grail failed to solidify"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "Perceval could not win the grail because he was too restrained, while Gawain and Lancelot were too passionate"

 

 

 

 

 

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• "Galahad, depicted as the most virtuous knight ever conceived, was the only "grail champion""

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion:

• "these stories all derive from a set of ideas that extends back to the pre-Christian era"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the early stories about the Holy Grail and the Fisher King"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "are derived from ancient Celtic beliefs"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the characters all speak to us because they were not in the slightest bit perfect or complete"

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "showing that people have had the same concerns about the world and one's place in it for a very long time"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the Holy Grail stands for a spiritual form of enlightenment"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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