II. BOOK Athênê, the vehicle was carefully covered with a robe which no profane hand might touch, and carried in procession drawn by COWS.1 The Lotos. Goblets and horns. Scarcely altered, this vessel reappears in the Lotos of Hindu and Egyptian mythology, the symbol of the earth and its fecundation. In this form it is the seat of the child Harpichruti (Harpokrates) and of Bhayanana or Mahakali, the sanguinary deity of later Hindu worship and the patron goddess of the Thugs. The eating of the lotos is thus the eating of the forbidden fruit, and the Lotophagoi of the Odyssey are an example of unrestrained sensuality, and a warning to all who care for higher things not to imitate their selfish pleasures, and so forget their children and their home." In the folk-lore of the Deccan the vessel is represented by the can of the milkwoman, the kindly Dêmêtêr, into which the beautiful Sûryâ Bai falls in the form of a mango when the fruit is ripe. As a cup, this sign reappears in a vast number of myths. It is the golden cup into which Helios sinks when his journey is done. It is the crater or mixing bowl in which the Platonists spoke of the Demiourgos as mingling the materials of the future Kosmos. It is the horn of Amaltheia, the nurse of Zeus, who gave to it the power of supplying The against the carrying about of ploughs 1 These ships, chests, or boats are we see them in the chest or coffin of Osiris, "das Grab des verstorbenen Jahrgotts, der aber in der Idee nur stirbt, weil er vom Tode wieder aufersteht," in the Korykian cave in which Zeus is bound till Hermes (the breath of life) comes to rescue him, and in the boats in which the bodies of Elaine and Arthur are laid in the more modern romance.-Nork, s.v. "Arche." This prohibition to eat the lotus, suggests a comparison with the so-called Pythagorean precept to abstain from beans. Whether the word kúquos belongs to the same root which has yielded κύω, κυέω, κύημα, κῦμα, or not, the word paonλos shows clearly enough how readily the shape of the bean brought up the idea of a boat, or a boat-shaped vessel. Nor can we well omit to note the prohibition, also attributed to Pythagoras, to abstain from fish, in con nexion with the purpose especially as cribed to him, and the ascetic discipline which he is said to have established. It will scarcely be maintained that these precepts, in a peculiarly esoteric system, are to be interpreted literally. The technical meanings acquired by the words κύαμος and κυαμίζω seem to point in the same direction. CUPS AND MIRRORS. to its possessor all that he could desire to have. This horn reappears in the myths of Bran, and Ceridwen, and Huon of Bordeaux, to whom Oberon gives a horn which yields the costliest wine in the hands of a good man only. The talismanic power of this horn is still further shown in the prose romance of Tristram, when the liquor is dashed over the lips of any guilty person who ventures to lift it to his mouth, and in the goblet of Tegan Euroron, the wife of Caradoc of the strong arm. It is seen again in the inexhaustible table of the Ethiopians, in the dish of Rhydderch the Scholar, in the basket of Gwyddno, in which food designed for one becomes an ample supply for a hundred ; in the table round which Arthur and his peers hold high revelry; in the wishing-quern of Frodi; in the lamp of Allah-ud-deen, which does the bidding of its owner through the Jin who is its servant; in the purse of Bedreddin Hassan, which the fairy always keeps filled in spite of his wastefulness; in the wonderful well of Apollôn Thyrxis in Lykia, which reveals all secrets to those who look into it; in the magic cauldron which Thor got for Oegir, whose savoury contents went spontaneously to each guest, as he might wish for them. This mysterious mirror is the glass vessel of Agrippa, and of the cruel stepmother in the German tale of Little Snow-white, who, like Brynhild, lies in a death-like sleep, guarded under a case of ice by dwarfs until the piece of poisoned apple falls from between her lips; and we see it again in the cups of Rhea and Dêmêtêr, the milkwoman or the gardener's wife of Hindu folk-lore, and in the modios of Serapis. It becomes the receptacle of occult knowledge. Before the last desperate struggle with the Spartans, Aristomenes buried in the most secret nook of mount Ithomê a treasure which, if guarded carefully, would insure the restoration of Messênê. When the battle proclaimed his peace, he set two women 357 СНАР. II. BOOK of Leuktra justified the hopes of Aristomenes, the Argive Epiteles saw a vision which bade him recover the old woman who was wellnigh at her last gasp beneath the sods of Ithomê. His search was rewarded by the discovery of a water-jar, in which was contained a plate of the finest tin. On this plate were inscribed the mystic rites for the worship of the great gods.1 The same wonderful ewer or goblet of the sun was bestowed in the Persian legend on Jemshid, and explained the glories of his magnificent reign. The same vessel is the divining cup of Joseph; and in late traditions it reappears in the tale which relates how Rehoboam inclosed the book containing his father's supernatural knowledge in an ivory ewer and placed it in his tomb. The fortunes of this vessel are related by Flegetanis, who is said to have traced up his genealogy on the mother's side to Solomon; nor need it be a "matter of surprise to those who remember the talismanic effect of a name in the general history of fiction, that a descendant of this distinguished sovereign should be found to write its history, or that another Joseph should be made the instrument of conveying it to the kingdoms of Western Europe." This mystic vessel, the Sangreal of Arthurian legend, is at once a storehouse of food as inexhaustible as the table of the Ethiopians, and a talismanic test as effectual as the goblets of Oberon and Tristram. The good Joseph of Arimathæa, who had gathered up in it the drops of blood which fell from the side of Jesus when pierced by the centurion's spear, was nourished by it alone through his weary imprisonment of two and forty years; and when at length, having either been brought by him to Britain, or preserved in heaven, it was carried by angels to the pure Titurel and shrined in a magnificent temple, it supplied to its worshippers the most delicious food, and preserved them in perpetual youth. As such, it differs in no way from the horn of 1 Paus. iv, 20, 26. With this may Streamed upward to the chancel roof, 2 The same vessel in Taliesin imparts heir, and even raised the dead. It was in fact the counterpart of the Sangreal. The cruder form of the myth is seen in the legend of the Caldron of Ceridwen, the Keltic Dêmêtêr. This story is given by Mr. Gould (Curious Myths, ii. 335). who adds that "this vessel of the liquor of wisdom had a prominent place in British mythology.' Sir Walter Scott remarks, that in many Scottish legends a drinking horn will prove a cornucopiæ of good fortune to any one who can snatch it from the fairies and bear it across a running stream. As an emblem this cup is combined with the serpent in the representations of St. John. Introd. to Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry. THE SANGREAL. 359 Amaltheia, or any other of the oval vessels which can be traced back СНАР. to the emblem of the Hindu Sacti. We should be prepared, therefore, to find in the many forms assumed by the Arthurian myth some traces of its connexion with the symbol of the fecundating power in nature; nor is this expectation disappointed. The symbol of the sun has already appeared as a lance, spear, or trident in the myths of Abaris and Poseidôn; and in this form it is seen again in the story of the Holy Grail, when Sir Galahad is to depart with it from the Logrian land. As with his comrades he sups in the palace of King Pelles, he sees a great light, in which he beheld four angels supporting an aged man clad in pontifical garb, whom they placed before a table on which lay the Sangreal. "This aged prelate was Joseph of Arimathæa, 'the first bishop of Christendom.' Then the other angels appeared bearing candles and a spear, from which fell drops of blood, and these drops were collected by angels in a box. Then the angels set the candles upon the table, and 'the fourth set the holy speare even upright upon the vessel,' as represented on an ancient churchyard crucifix, in rude sculpture, at Sancreed in Cornwall." This mysterious spear is constantly seen throughout the legend. When Sir Bors had seen the Sangreal in the house of Pelles, he was led into a fair chamber, where he laid himself in full armour on the bed. "And right as he saw come in a light that he might wel see a speare great and long which come straight upon him pointlong." Indeed the whole myth exhibits that unconscious repetition and reproduction of the same forms and incidents which is the special characteristic of the Greek dynastic legends. Perceval, in the episode of Pecheur, the Fisher-king, answers to Sir Galahad in the quest of the Sangreal. In both cases the work can be done only by a pureminded knight, and Perceval as well as Galahad goes in search of a goblet, which has been stolen from the king's table. The sick king, whom he finds lying on his couch, has been wounded while trying to mend a sword broken by his enemy Pertinax, and Perceval alone can make it sound, as Theseus only can recover the sword and sandals of his father Aigeus. The title of the Fisher-king suggests a comparison with that of Bhekî in the Hindu legend and the Frogprince of the German story. The latter denotes the sun as it rests upon the water; and as Bhekî cannot reappear in her former beauty until the night is spent, so the Fisher-king cannot regain his health until Pertinax has been slain. He is avenged by Perceval, who bears away the holy vessel and the bleeding lance as the reward of his Mr. Gould, from whom these words are quoted, gives a drawing of this emblem.-Curious Myths, ii. 348. BOOK II. Gradual refinement of the myth. prowess. An earlier heathen version of this story is found in the legend of Pheredur, in which the boat-shaped vessel appears with the head of a man swimming in blood—a form which carries us to the repulsive Maha Kali of later Hindu mythology. In the myth of Erichthonios we have a crucial instance of a coarse and unseemly story produced by translating into the language of human life phrases which described most innocently and most vividly some phenomena of nature. In the myth of the Sangreal we see in the fullest degree the working of the opposite principle. For those who first sought to frame for themselves some idea of the great mystery of their existence, and who thought that they had found it in the visible media of reproduction, there was doubtless far less of a degrading influence in the cultus of the signs of the male and female powers and the exhibition of their symbols than we might be disposed to imagine. But that the developement of the idea might lead to the most wretched results, there could be no question. No degradation could well be greater than that of the throngs who hurried to the temples of the Babylonian Mylitta. But we have seen the myth, starting from its crude and undisguised forms, assume the more harmless shape of goblets or horns of plenty and fertility, of rings and crosses, of rods and spears, of mirrors and lamps. It has brought before us the mysterious ships endowed with the powers of thought and speech, beautiful cups in which the wearied sun sinks to rest, the staff of wealth and plenty with which Hermes guides the cattle of Helios across the blue pastures of heaven, the cup of Dêmêtêr into which the ripe fruit casts itself by an irresistible impulse. We have seen the symbols assume the character of talismanic tests, by which the refreshing draught is dashed from the lips of the guilty; and, finally, in the exquisite legend of the Sangreal the symbols have become a sacred thing, which only the pure in heart may see and touch. To Lancelot who tempts Guenevere to be faithless to Arthur, as Helen was unfaithful to Menelaos, it either remains invisible, or is seen only to leave him stretched senseless on the earth for his presumption. The myth which corrupted the worshippers of Tammuz in the Jewish temple has supplied the beautiful picture of unselfish devotion which sheds a marvellous glory on the career of the pure Sir Galahad.1 In the Arabian story the part of Sir Galahad is played by Allah-ud-deen, who is told by the magician that no one in the whole world but he can be permitted to touch or lift up the stone and go beneath it. The Eastern story tellers were not very careful about the consistency of their legends. The magician, it is true, singles out the boy for his " simplicity and artlessness; but the portrait drawn of the child at the outset of the tale is rather that of |