MYSTICAL MENTORS
thighs. This deed was referred to as the Dolorous Stroke and it has exceedingly harsh consequences. The Grail King is severely maimed, the castle is destroyed and comes crashing down upon the heads of both Balin and Pellas, and the kingdom is transformed into a waste- land. After three days Balin is resurrected by being pulled out of the rubble by Merlin.
I must of necessity omit many of the sometimes con- flicting details in the stories. However, the overarching themes remain consistent. The idea of grievous wound inflicted upon the Grail guardian, his decline into impo- tence, the concomitant deterioration of the land and the quest by the Arthurian Knights for the instrument of restoration that can heal both the king and the land. In discussing these themes and their probable origin in Celtic traditions, Andrew Sinclair remarks in The Discovery of the Grail (1998):
“There was a strong Celtic influence in the legends of the Grail, particularly about an otherworld to which the dying heroes went – Arthur to Avalon, Bran to the blessed isles of the west rather than to Munsalvaesche or Mount of Salvation, on which the Grail Castle was built. All the marvels of that castle of the Fisher King were further to be found in the castle of the divine Lug, which had held the treasures of the Celtic gods, including a bleeding lance – this was also possessed by the Welsh Grail knight Peredur – a bottomless drinking vessel, a cauldron that could feed an army, an uncon- querable sword, and a stone fallen from heaven as in Parzival – a Stone of Destiny . . .”
Lug was an Irish deity/king whose exploits were recounted in various ancient Celtic legends. He had many similarities to King Arthur and the symbolism in his tales is quite startling in light of all of the matters being explored in this series of articles. Regrettably, however, an in depth examination of Lug must be post- poned for the time being.
Now the death of Arthur is placed by various historical writings in the period from 537 to 542 AD at the Battle of Camlann. It turns out that this date is very interest- ing for it gives us a temporal context for thinking about the peculiar events of the Grail quest and whether or not we can ascribe actual historicity to them. When we turn to the relatively sparse historical record from these times we come across some truly astonishing accounts. In The Syriac Chronicle Known as That of Zacharias the Mytilene, a work probably written down about A.D. 569, we read:
“In the eleventh year of Justinian, which is the year eight hundred and fifty of the Greeks (538/539 AD), in the month of December, a great and terrible comet appeared in the sky at evening-time for one hundred days . . .”
And in Geophysical Memoirs No. 70 for 1937 C.E. cniud pg 0
otne ae 1 Oracle 20/20 December 2013
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