Taliesin's Map

The Great Lunar Cycle: The Horse Twins and the Grail: Part 12 of 12 < Part 11 The Grail Question          A mysterious question famously becomes central to the success of Perceval's quest in Chretien's poem. This question is of course, “whom does the Grail serve?”, which Perceval at first fails to ask, but which is said (by the weeping maiden he encounters holding her dead lover) to bring the Fisher King great succor if asked. Much confusion has surrounded this question in the scholarship, and perhaps it will remain mysterious for awhile more. However, in the Indian version we have discussed, specifically the version of the tale found in the  Satapatha Brahmana , there in fact is a magical, riddling question associated with allowing the Asvins' to accede to the  soma  rite. Indeed, there are two such questions which come in succession. Despite this seemingly miraculous correspondence of there being key questions in these vastly distant branches...

The Great Lunar Cycle: The Horse Twins and the Grail: Part 11 of 12 < Part 10     Part 12 > Welsh Myth and The Story of the Grail            The encounter of Pryderi with the golden bowl in the mysterious fort is itself reminiscent of the grail encounter in several ways. The fort seemed to appear where there had previously been no fort, a feature common to the mystical castles of the grail legends. Pryderi finds in the fort a marble fountain and a golden bowl suspended by chains in the air. When he touches the bowl, his speech and movement are frozen. This episode follows the “wasteland” enchantment of the land in which all the people and domestic animals vanish, and during which the fields which Manawydan and Cigfa sow are repeatedly destroyed, and after Pryderi has married his shining bride and Manawydan has married his now widowed mother Rhiannon. This enchantment comes as a result of Pryderi occupying the sacred mound Gorsedd Arberth, bu...