Chretien's Story -- Lecture 2

Assuming you may not know Chretien’s story, I give it to you here in summary form. Even if you do know it, a refresher might be of help.

He was a Mama’s boy. They lived in the woods together, away from the death-dealing world. His Daddy and his two older brothers were dead. His Mama looked to save him from their fate by keeping him at home. One day, while playing in the woods, he met a band of warriors. From their bearing and their outfits, he thought they were gods. They talked with him a bit and went on. From then on, he wanted to go. He left his Mama, took off, looking back only once to see that she was lying as if dead at the threshold to his new world. 

He had adventures and always won out though he did not know what he was doing, simply following his nose. He seemed to follow two basic rules: treat women well and never back down. He thought sometimes of his Mama but kept on rolling. 

The highlight of his life came but he did not know it. He was the overnight guest of a wounded king in a castle and was served several courses of an excellent meal. At the beginning of each course, a procession moved through the banquet hall, the same file of folk every time. 

A  squire carried a lance with a drop of blood at its tip. The blood dripped on the carrier’s hand. Two young men followed him. Each carried a candelabra.  A beautiful young woman carried a grail which shed a radiant light making the other lights in the hall seem dim and as nothing. A  young woman walking behind the grail carrier held a silver platter. They went each time into another room.

Our hero noticed this of course. How could he not? And yet he always turned his attention back to the delicious food. He thought he would ask questions about it later, especially the question: Whom does the grail serve? The meal was over. He went to bed. He awoke in the morning and no one was there. The place was deserted. He mounted his horse and as he left, the castle disappeared. 

He was told later that if he had asked his question, the castle owner would have been healed of his wound and the land itself would have been brought back from polluted squalor. From then on, his life was one of trying to atone for his mistake. He continued questing for another chance with the castle and the grail.

This portion of the Grail story has five major parts: The Seeker, The Wounded King, The Lance And Its Blood, The Grail With Young Woman, The Hidden One Whom The Grail served. 

As you float within the story capsule, these five entities work upon you, transform your consciousness, your being. You may more easily identify with one more than another. Rest assured, they are all you.

U of G Course 101: The Story of the Holy Grail -- Lecture 1

The original Grail story was written by Chretien de Troyes in the late 12th century. He never finished it (he died in 1191). In the story, Perceval, a young inexperienced knight out on his sojourn, stumbles into an invited entry into an enchanted castle. He is welcomed to a sumptuous meal of many courses by the wounded Fisher King. Between each course a strange procession passes through the dining hall and goes into an adjacent room. Perceval notices but says nothing. The Grail is the highlight of the procession.

No Christian symbology is presented by Chretien in this original description of the Grail procession. He adds it later in the story after Perceval meets a Christian hermit who retells the story according to his own world view.  So it has been ever since, from Wolfram von Eschenbach to Monty Python. I will be no different.

My world view shines out from what has been termed “cosmic consciousness,” a consciousness that does not adhere to any fixed dogmatic standard, a consciousness that knows no bounds, where “God is a circle with no circumference whose center is everywhere,” a consciousness that continues unfolding out of this eternal now.

[END NOTE -- Studying the original Grail story off and on during the night and seeing that it has no Christian or Celtic or Pagan or other popular point of view allusions. These are all added in later by those with such viewpoints. The original Grail story is like a Rorschach test in which viewers reveal their own psychological frame.]