Alfred Trubner Nutt

The Fisher King in the Conte du Graal, in the Queste, and in Borron and the Grand St. Graal—The accounts of latter complete each other—The Fish is the Salmon of Wisdom—Parallel with the Fionn Saga—The nature of the Unspelling Quest—The Mabinogi of Taliesin and its mythological affinities—Brons, Bran, Cernunnos—Perceval’s silence: Conte du Graal explanation late; explanation from the Fionn Saga—Comparison of incident with geasa; nature of latter; references to it in Celtic folk-tales and in old Irish literature, Book of Rights, Diarmaid, Cuchulainn—Geasa and taboo.

The Conte du Graal, as we have seen, offers no satisfactory explanation of the Fisher King. By Chrestien he is represented on Perceval’s first meeting with him as angling from a boat steered by his companion (v. 4,187); he directs Perceval to his castle. Perceval is afterwards informed that, being wounded and consequently unable to mount on horseback, fishing is his only solace, whence the name applied to him (vv. 4,681, et seq.). This is practically all the Conte du Graal has to say about him, as the continuators, whilst repeating the epithet, add no fresh details. Indeed in none of the after-visits of Perceval is the King represented as fishing, or is there the slightest reference to, let alone insistence upon, this favourite occupation of his. It is another proof of the inadequacy of Birch-Hirschfeld’s theory of the development of the legend, that it represents Chrestien, who, ex hypothesi, divested Borron’s poem of its religious character, as retaining this feature due wholly to religious symbolism, whilst the continuators with their obvious fondness for such symbolism entirely neglected it. The Queste, which in so far as the quest portion is concerned is formally connected with the Conte du Graal, says nothing about the Fisher, nor does that section of the Grand St. Graal which presents the same Early History as the Queste. In Borron’s poem, on the other hand, and in that later section of the Grand St. Graal which agrees with it, an explanation is given of the epithet. According to Borron, Brons catches a fish at Joseph’s bidding; Joseph, having placed the vessel on the table and covered it with a towel, takes the fish and lays it opposite the vessel; the people are then called together, and it is possible to distinguish the sinners from the righteous (vv. 2,500-2,600). Joseph is afterwards told by an angel, that, as Brons was a good man, it was the Lord’s will he should catch the fish (vv. 3,310, et seq.), and he is to be called the Rich Fisher (v. 3,348). In the Grand St. Graal (Vol. II., pp. 248, et seq.) not Brons but his son Alain is bidden by Joseph to fish, and this with a view to providing food for the sinners of the company whom the Holy Vessel leaves unsatisfied. Alain fishes from a boat with a net. He catches but one fish, and there are at first murmurs, but Joseph, by virtue of Alain’s prayers, multiplies the fish so that it feeds the host, and thus Alain wins the name of Rich Fisher.

These accounts complete each other. Chrestien dwells upon the continued act of fishing which, for aught to the contrary we learn from him or his continuators, is always fruitless. Borron and the Grand St. Graal dwell upon the one successful haul, and especially upon the miraculous properties of the one fish caught. Reading the two accounts together, we find that the Fisher King passes his life seeking for a fish which, when caught, confers upon him the power of distinguishing good from evil, or enables him to furnish an inexhaustible meal to his men.

The Conte du Graal has been shown to derive more of its substance from the feud quest—the Didot-Perceval from the unspelling quest. Borron’s poem, as far as its primitive Celtic elements are concerned, is probably to be ranged with the Didot-Perceval, to which many links unite it. We may, therefore, turn to Celtic stories belonging to either of these formulas for parallel features. The inexhaustible nature of the fish at once recalls the pigs of Manannan Mac Lir (supra, p. 194); they, too, can feed a multitude. But it is in stories formally connected with the feud quest that we find what I venture to suggest is an adequate explanation of the nature of the Fisher King and of the fish. The latter is, I think, the Salmon of Wisdom,[131] which appears so often and so prominently in Irish mythic lore; and the former is that being who passes his life in vain endeavours to catch the wonderful fish, and who, in the moment of success, is robbed of the fruit of all his long toils and watchings. I am prepared to admit that the incident as found in Borron’s poem has been recast in the mould of mediÆval Christian symbolism, but I think the older myth can still be clearly discerned and is wholly responsible for the incident as found in the Conte du Graal.[132]

Let us first look at the Irish story. This is found in an account, to which allusion has already been made, of the Boyish Exploits of Finn Mac Cumhail.[133] It is there told how Finn seeks his namesake, Finn-eges, to learn poetry from him, as until then he durst not stay in Ireland for fear of his foes. Now Finn-eges had remained seven years by the Boyne, watching the salmon of Linn-Feic, which it had been foretold Finn (himself as he thought) should catch and know all things afterwards. Finn, who conceals his name, takes service with him and the salmon is caught. Finn is set to watch it while it roasts, but warned not to eat of it. Inadvertently he touches it with his thumb, which he burns, and carries to his mouth to cool. Immediately he becomes possessed of all knowledge, and thereafter he had only to chew his thumb to obtain wisdom. Finn-eges recognises that the prophecy has been fulfilled, and hails his pupil as Finn.

It is needless to dwell upon the archaic features of this tale, which represents the hero seeking service of a powerful magician, from whom he hopes to learn the spells and charms that may guard him against his foes. Here, as in many other portions of the Ossianic saga, Fionn is strikingly like a Red Indian medicine man, or the corresponding wizard among other savage tribes. It is more to our purpose to note that this tale contains the fullest presentment of Fionn as hero of the Expulsion and Return Formula, and that a similar incident is to be found in the lives of other heroes of the formula (notably Siegfried: the Adventure with Mimir.) Now, as we have already seen that Peredur-Perceval is a formula hero, there is nothing remarkable in finding an analogous incident in his sage. A formal connection is thus at once made out. But we must look into the matter a little closer, as the incident found in the romances is but a faint echo, and that in part distorted by alien conceptions, of the original story.

The unspelling quest in one form resolves itself ultimately into the hero’s search for riches, power, or knowledge, in prosecution of which he penetrates to the otherworld. This is figured in the Grail romances both by Brons’ or Alain’s (who here answers to Fionn) catching the wonderful fish, and by Peredur-Perceval coming to the house of Brons, the Fisher King (who here answers to Finn-eges), winning from him the mysterious vessel of increase, and learning the secret words which put an end to the enchantments of Britain. In the Grail romances the idea of wisdom is not associated with the Grail, the vessel, at all; it is either bound up with the fish, as in the Irish tale, or is the possession of the Fisher King as the wonder-working spells are the possession of Finn-eges.

But in the Welsh tradition which corresponds to that of Fionn and the salmon, it is the vessel, the cauldron, or rather the drink which it holds, which communicates the gift of wisdom and knowledge. I allude, of course, to the story of Gwion, set by Ceridwen to watch the cauldron of inspiration, inadvertently tasting its contents, becoming thereby filled with knowledge, pursued by Ceridwen, who swallows him, and in whom he re-incarnates himself as Taliesin, the Allwise Bard. Campbell had already (Vol. IV., p. 299) drawn attention to the similarity of the two stories, and equated Fionn, father of Oisin, with Gwion, father of Taliesin; and, as Professor Rhys has now (Hibbert Lectures, p. 551) given the equation his sanction, it may be accepted as philologically sound.

I have hitherto refrained in the course of these studies from making any use of the Mabinogi of Taliesin, or of references to the cauldron of Ceridwen of a like nature with those contained in that tale; but it will, I think, be admitted now that the Welsh Mabinogi, however late in form, and however overlaid it may be with pseudo-archaic bardic rubbish, does go back to a primitive stratum of Celtic mythology.

In connection with this myth the name Brons is of high import. This catcher of the fish, this lord of the Grail, at once suggests Bran, who is also a guardian of the magic cauldron. Professor Rhys (pp. 85-95) shows reason for looking upon Bran (as he is presented in the Mabinogi of Branwen) as the representative of an old Celtic god, Cernunnos, that Celtic Dis from whom, as CÆsar reports, the Gauls claimed descent, and who, as god of the otherworld and the shades was also god of knowledge and riches. We are thus brought back again to the fundamental conception of the Grail quest.

It is to this tale that I would turn for one of the possible explanations of Perceval’s silence at the Court of the Fisher King. That the romance writers did not understand this incident is evident from the explanation they give.

Gonemans’ moral advice to his nephew on the evil of curiosity may have its foundation in a possible feature of the original, about which I shall speak presently; or it may simply be an expedient of Chrestien’s or of his immediate model. In either case its present form is obviously neither old nor genuine. The silence of Perceval may, perhaps, be referred to the same myth-root as Fionn’s concealment of his name whilst in the service of Finn-eges.[134] This prohibition might extend not only to the disclosing of his name by the mortal visitor to the realm of the shades, but to the utterance of any words at all. As he might not eat or drink in the underworld, so he might not speak lest he lose the power to return to the land of the living. One tale we have seen (supra, p. 195) does contain this very injunction to say no word whilst in company of the dwellers in the Bespelled Castle. In this case we should have to assume that two varying redactions of the theme have been maladroitly fused into one in the romances—that, namely, which bids the visitor to the otherworld abstain from a certain act, and that which, on the contrary, bids him perform a certain act, failure of compliance with the injunction being punished in either case. The positive injunction of one form of the story is used as an explanation of the hero’s failure in another.

An alternative hypothesis is that whilst the hero’s unreadiness of speech, the cause of his want of success at his first visit, comes wholly from the unspelling quest, the motive by which the romances seek to account for that unreadiness comes from the feud quest. The latter, as has been shown, is closely akin to many task-stories; and it is a frequent feature in such stories, especially in the Celtic ones, that the hero has to accomplish his quest in spite of all sorts of odd restrictions which are laid upon him by an enemy, generally by a step-mother or some other evil-disposed relative. In the language of Irish mythic tradition Perceval would be under geasa to ask no questions, and Gonemans’ advice would be the last faint echo of such an incident. The form which such prohibitions take in Celtic folk-tales is very curious. The gess is generally embodied in a magical formula, the language of which is very old and frequently unintelligible to the narrators themselves. As a rule, the hero, by advice of a friendly supernatural being, lays a counterspell upon his enemy. Thus, in “How the Great Tuairsgeul was put to Death” (Scot. Celt. Rev. I., p. 70) the magician “lays it as crosses and charms that water leave not your shoe until you found out how the Great Tuairsgeul was put to death.” The hero retorts by laying the same charms that the magician leave not the hillock until he return. In Campbell, No. XLVII., Mac Iain Direach, the stepmother, “sets it as crosses, and as spells, and as the decay of the year upon thee; that thou be not without a pool of water in thy shoe, and that thou be wet, cold, and soiled until, etc.;” and the hero bespells her, “that thou be standing with the one foot on the great house and the other foot on the castle: and that thy face be to the tempest whatever wind blows, until I return back.” The formula in Campbell, No. LI, the Fair Gruagach is very archaic. “I lay thee under spells, and under crosses, under holy herdsmen of quiet travelling, wandering woman, the little calf, most feeble and powerless, to take thy head and thine ear and thy wearing of life from off thee if thou takest rest by night or day; where thou takest thy breakfast that thou take not thy dinner, and where thou takest thy dinner that thou take not thy supper, in whatsoever place thou be, until thou findest out in what place I may be under the four brown quarters of the globe.”

These instances will suffice to show the nature of the gess in Celtic folk-lore, but some references to older Irish literature are necessary to show its great importance in the social and religious life of the race. O’Donovan (Book of Rights, p. xlv.) explains the word geasa as “any thing or act forbidden because of the ill luck that would result from its doing;” also “a spell, a charm, a prohibition, an interdiction or hindrance.” This explanation occurs in the introduction to a poem on the restrictions (geasa) and prerogatives (buada) of the Kings of Eire, found in the Book of Ballymote (late fourteenth century) and Book of Lecan (early fifteenth century). The poem is ascribed to Cuan O’Lochain (A.D. 1024), and, from the historical allusions contained in it, O’Donovan looks upon it as in substance due to that poet, and as embodying much older traditions. Some of these geasa may be quoted. For the King of Eire, “that the sun should rise upon him on his bed in Magh Teamhrach;” for the King of Leinster, “to go round Tuath Laighean left hand-wise on Wednesday;” for the King of Munster, “to remain, to enjoy the feast of Loch Lein from one Monday to another;” for the King of Connaught, “to go in a speckled garment on a grey speckled steed to the heath of Luchaid;” for the King of Ulster, “to listen to the fluttering of the flocks of birds of Luin Saileach after sunset.”[135] Even these instances do not exhaust the force or adequately connote the nature of this curious institution. In the Irish hero-tales geasa attach themselves to the hero from his birth up, and are the means by which fate compasses the downfall of the otherwise invincible champion; thus it is a gess of Diarmaid that he never hunt a swine, and when he is artfully trapped into doing it by Fionn he meets his death; it is a gess of Cuchulainn’s that he never refuse food offered him by women, and as he goes to his last fight he accepts the poisoned meal of the witches though he full well knows it will be fatal to him.[136] But, besides this, geasa may also be an appeal to the hero’s honour as well as a magic charm laid upon him, and it is sometimes difficult to see by which of the two motives the hero is moved. Thus Graine, wife of Fionn, lays geasa upon Diarmaid that he carry her off from her husband, and though he is in the last degree unwilling he must comply.[137]

Enough has been said to show that we have in the geasa a cause quite sufficient to explain the mysterious prohibition to ask questions laid upon Perceval, if the first explanation I have offered of this prohibition be thought inadequate.