Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

355More remotely still the cauldron represents the Sun, whichappears in the earliest Aryo-Indian myths as a golden vesselwhich pours forth light and heat and fertility. The lance isthe lightning-weapon of the Thunder God, Indra, appearing inNorse mythology as the hammer of Thor. The quest for theseobjects represents the ideas of the restoration by some divinechampion of the wholesome order of the seasons, disturbed bysome temporary derangement such as those which to this daybring famine and desolation to India.Now in the Welsh “Peredur” we have clearly an outlineof the original Celtic tale, but the Grail does not appear init. We may conjecture, however, from Gautier's continuationof Chrestien's poem that a talisman of abundance figured inearly Continental, probably Breton, versions of the legend.In one version at least—that on which Wolfram based his“Parzival”—this talisman was a stone. But usually it wouldhave been, not a stone, but a cauldron or vessel of some kindendowed with the usual attributes of the magic cauldron of Celticmyth. This vessel was associated with a blood-dripping lance.Here were the suggestive elements from which some unknownsinger, in a flash of inspiration, transformed the ancient taleof vengeance and redemption into the mystical romance whichat once took possession of the heart and soul of Christendom.The magic cauldron became the cup of the Eucharist, the lancewas invested with a more tremendous guilt than that of thedeath of Peredur's kinsman. 249 Celtic poetry, German mysticism, [412]Christian chivalry, and ideas of magic which still cling to therude stone monuments of Western Europe—all these combinedto make the story of the Grail, and to endow it with the strangeattraction which has led to its re-creation by artist after artist for249 The combination of objects at the Grail Castle is very significant. Theywere a sword, a spear, and a vessel, or, in some versions, a stone. These arethe magical treasures brought by the Danaans into Ireland—a sword, a spear, acauldron, and a stone. See pp. 105, 106.