Bran, Odin, and the Fisher King: Norse Tradition and the Grail Legends

Abstract

NORSE mythology is virtually ignored by students of the Grail legends. It has long been assumed that the pagan antecedents of the Grail mythos are quintessentially Celtic, and this is apparently confirmed by the number of fine studies of the Grail that have appeared over the past thirty years or so-particularly those of Loomis,' Owen,2 and Goetinck,3 each of whom has succeeded in adding a new dimension to the foundations laid by a number of illustrious predecessors. However, they rarely step beyond the borders of Celtic tradition to further their explorations, except for the necessary forays into medieval romance. There are obvious reasons for this: the Grail stories are set in an Arthurian context, and Arthur was a Celtic hero; many of the themes parallel those in well-known Celtic tales; the Grail itself is recognisable as a version of the Celtic vessels of inspiration, plenty, and rebirth; and the Grail romances are the product of a region with a rich Celtic past. Is there any need to look further afield? After all, it does seem that all the evidence points towards the Grail being a purely Celtic phenomenon-lightly disguised by a thin coat of Christianity, to be sure, but Celtic nonetheless. The first objection to this particular view is that the evidence has been compiled almost entirely from Celtic sources, namely the extant texts of the medieval versions of much older material. Where research has looked outside the Celtic milieu, it has examined various areas of Christian tradition, both orthodox and heretical. The more wide-ranging studies, such as that of Jung and von Franz,4 draw in extra-Celtic material where it elucidates an essentially psychoanalytical approach, or-as in Weston's famous study'-supports a mainly personal view of certain aspects of comparative religion. The same is true of various occultists, who tend to impose their own philosophies on the Grail legends, and make use of extra-Celtic material as and when it suits them. The second objection concerns the transmission of the Grail from Celtic myth to medieval romance. It would be strange, considering that medieval Britain and northwestern Europe were dominated by peoples from a Norse or Germanic background, if nothing had been added to the Celtic elements of the Grail legends. England had been heavily settled by Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Scandinavians, then given an essentially Norse overlay in the shape of the Normans; France took its name from the Germanic Franks who came to succeed the Romans as rulers of the Gaulish lands; and Parzival, one of the finest examples of the Grail genre, was composed by a German. Furthermore, the Celts were closely related to the Norsemen and Germans, and each culture left its mark on large tracts of Europe in fairly rapid succession. The geographical home of the Grail legends had been first Celtic, then Norse/Germanic; it would be foolish not to assume that the two cultures became mingled to a greater degree than is generally acknowledged. Yet, even though there is a mass of evidence-in the form of folklore, toponymy and dialect-to show that this was so, historians still tend to draw a line