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, but apparently being found unworthy by it. As commentator Mike Ashley tallies the correspondences of this narrative to that of the grail legend: the enchanted land where crops are destroyed matches the Fisher King's wasteland; the mysterious fort matches the mysterious grail castle; the golden bowl of course is like the grail, which in its earliest form is a serving dish rather than a cup; and the sacred mound Gorsedd Arberth, which judges you and finds you worthy or unworthy, is like the seat known in the grail legends as the Siege Perilous, which has the same power of judgment (Ashley, The Mammoth Book of King Arthur).
The Grail King
The true, divine identity of the Grail King or Fisher King himself, then, is perhaps the most contentious detail of the comparison. A popular theory forwarded by John Rhys states that just as Peredur is the similarly named Pryderi, so the Grail King Pelles/Pellam is the similarly named Pwyll, father of Pryderi. This is quite an attractive theory considering the closeness of the names, the fact that Pwyll has the paternal role in the narrative in relation to Pryderi, that we have seen taken elsewhere by Chyavana and Njörðr, and most importantly the fact that Pwyll becomes the stand-in lord of Annwn, the Welsh Underworld, at the beginning of the tale “Pwyll, pendefig Dyfed,” and as such would be lord over the cauldron that is later said to be kept there, that cauldron which Arthur quests for in the Preiddeu Annwn and which is associated with the Mabon. However, as we have seen, the myth of Pwyll corresponds extremely closely to that of Samvarana rather than to that of Chyavana, and thus mythically we have connected him to the Gandharva of the Rig Veda rather than to Soma. Furthermore, Pwyll is already dead by the time of Pryderi and Rhiannon's otherworld abduction (not that this would need to affect a chief of the underworld). But due to the evidence of a combination of the Pryderi-Horse Twin myth and the Pwyll-Gandharva myth into one continuous narrative (which appears as the two branches of the Mabinogion, "Pwyll, prince of Dyfed," and "Manawydan, son of Llyr"), Pwyll and Pryderi each taking half of the same myth which in the Indian version is carried solely by Samvarana, we can deduce that certain elements of the Lunar Cycle were already being amalgamated into one tale within the Welsh tradition. It is possible, then, that as a Gandharva, who were known as guardians of the Soma, and having acquired a shared lordship of the underworld realm where the cauldron is kept (these perhaps being the same thing), Pwyll could have, in the Welsh tradition, taken on a more central role in relation to the liquid of immortality. Indeed it is even possible to speculate that Pwyll may have absorbed or been combined with the role of Soma in a particular way.
On the other hand, Robert de Boron's later version of the Fisher King is named Bron, generally equated to the similarly named Bran the Blessed. Bran takes a mortal wound to the leg just as Bron has an incapacitating wound to the thigh. However, the earliest grail legend, as found in Chretien's Perceval, features a head presented on a silver platter at the mysterious grail castle. The procession which presents this platter is overseen by the ailing Grail King/Fisher King. But it is Bran himself who in Welsh myth is beheaded and has his sacred head magically preserved, the head having the power to stop the aging of those who accompany it and the power to oversee and defend Britain from invasion. This would suggest that the Grail King then was not this Bran, but instead was the keeper of his head as a relic or ritual object. This confusion seems to come from the fact that there were so many different lords of the underworld in Indo-European myth, each with distinct roles in that realm. Over time these distinct gods became more and more conflated and confused as the religion was forgotten. Bran likely occupies an underworld role connected either to the mythos of the Vedic Yama or possibly Vayu, whereas the Soma and Gandharva underworld gods are more central to the Grail narrative.
If we take instead Soma, seen to be identical to the Norse Njörðr, as either the Grail King or the higher deity who is master of that king (with the king being only the grail's guardian, just as the Gandharva is guardian of the soma) then we perhaps find a better explanation for why the king is portrayed as a fisher. The name “Fisher King” of course comes from the fact that Perceval comes upon the mysterious king fishing while he is going to visit his mother and is then invited to stay at his castle. We find out later that this king's father is sustained by a single wafer of communion contained in the Grail, but also that the Fisher King himself is wounded and unable to leave his bed except to fish. Thus there are in fact two kings in fragile state in this castle, perhaps the younger having the role of guardian of the Grail corresponding to the role of the Gandharva and the other being a higher ruling divinity in line with the god Soma. But the act of fishing itself also connects directly to the examples of the Soma archetype we have encountered thus far. Njörðr, for instance, is explicitly lord over the wealth of the sea – that is, fish. Additionally, Chyavana, when first encountered in the Mahabharata version, is said to have begun “to practice austerities by the side of yonder lake” (Mahabharata, Vana Parva p. 259). Finally, we could consider the moon itself, pictured hanging above its ocean domain, as taking the part of a fisher there, both of the fish and crucially of souls, as the moon was believed to draw the souls of the dead to it for reincarnation in Vedic cosmogony. (On the common understanding of the moon as a primary afterlife destination, Mircea Eliade says, "This journey to the moon after death was also preserved in highly developed cultures (India, Greece, Iran), but some thing else was added. To the Indians, it is the "path of the manes" (pitryāna), and souls reposed in the moon while awaiting reincarnation, whereas the sun road or "path of the gods " (devayāna) was taken by the initiated, or those set free from the illusions of ignorance...the Elysian Fields, where heroes and Caesars went after death, were in the moon," and he notes further that "Everywhere in Europe the half-moon is to be found as a funeral symbol...in Gaul for instance, the moon was a local symbol in use long before any contact with the Romans" (Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 172, 174)).
A large amount of this confusion comes from the fact that we have not yet been able to identify the Welsh moon god "Soma" himself within the Welsh myths. However, due to the fact that we have been able to fit all of the other Welsh gods into their parallels within the Lunar Cycle, we should look to the one possibly relevant portion of the Welsh cycle that we have so far ignored. This is the opening section of the main four branches of the Mabinogion, the very first episode of "Pwyll, prince of Dyfed," which immediately precedes Pwyll seeing Rhiannon for the first time on her magical horse. In this episode, Pwyll, while hunting, encounters a pack of hounds chasing and then killing a stag. He then drives the hounds away from the dead stag to let his own hounds eat. Arawn arrives at the scene and declares that he has been affronted by the driving away of his hounds, and says that the only recompense he will take for it is that Pwyll must exchange places with him and become lord of Arawn's underworld kingdom, Annwn, for a year and a day, and must slay Arawn's hostile neighbor Hafgan at the end of the term. During this time, Pwyll will have the semblance of Arawn and will sleep in bed next to Arawn's wife. During the whole year and a day, Pwyll does not make love to the wife of Arawn. We read that every night, "The moment they got into the bed, he turned his face to the side, with his back towards her. From then until the next day, he didn't say a single word to her" (Mabinogion, Pwyll, prince of Dyfed).
If there have been any doubts about the identification of Pwyll with the Gandharva, perhaps due to his lacking clear musical associations in the existing myths, this scene should help dispel those doubts. For, as Grassman puts it, the Gandharva is known as "the guardian of virginity," and this is the role he plays in the sequence of husbands listed in the "Surya's Bridal" hymn. Ralph Griffith cites Grassman on this score in his famous Veda translation:
"As the typical bride Surya was first married to Soma, so the young maid originally belongs to him, then to the Gandharva, as the guardian of virginity, then to Agni as the sacred fire round which she walks in the marriage ceremony, and fourthly to her human husband" (Grassman, Griffith, Rig Veda).
This is of course likely the key to the meaning of the entire series of husbands found in the Lunar Cycle, but it is even more specifically illustrated in the case of Welsh Pwyll. There is a passage in the ancient Griha Sutra of Apastamba that lays out exactly the rites and actions a newly-wed couple is supposed to take, which are drawn specifically from the “Surya's Bridal” hymn, which is seen as the prototype of all human marriages. Upon coming home from their wedding to their home for the first time, the couple are expected to observe a period of chastity, during which they are to place a staff between them while they sleep. And, as Narayan Aiyangar explains, this staff is called a Gandharva-samit, and is believed to have within it the spirit of the Gandharva Visvavasu, the very same chief Gandharva we have spoken of previously, who is named in the “Surya’s Bridal” hymn. This period of chastity can last anywhere from three nights to a maximum of a full year, just as Pwyll's tenure is one year long. Thus it appears that Pwyll, in this myth, is enacting this exact ancient role of the Gandharva as preserver of virginity, lying chastely in bed with the bride for one year just as the Gandharva-samit staff does in the ancient marriage rite. When removing the Gandharva-samit, the couple must even recite a verse taken directly from the “Surya’s Bridal” hymn, verse 21-22, telling the Gandharva Visvavasu to leave the bride and “seek in her father’s home another fair one” (which Pwyll essentially does), one of the key verses we have discussed in relation to the myths in an earlier part.
At the conclusion of the year in Annwn, Pwyll slays Hafgan. For these deeds, Arawn and Pwyll declare their friendship, unite their kingdoms, and Pwyll is thenceforth known as Chief of Annwn.
Although this form of the "Marriage of Soma" story seems in certain ways to be the furthest of all from the other examples we have thus far analyzed, the role of Pwyll detailed above gives us very good reason to speculate that Arawn could be the moon god "Soma." Most obviously, Soma is the one missing deity from the larger Welsh cycle we have analyzed, and thus if Arawn were Soma it would complete the set of parallels. Arawn is also already married at the start of the series of Welsh myths, making his marriage the first in the sequence as Soma's is in the Vedic Hymn. We also see from the Vedic case that Soma is known as the teacher of the chief Gandharva, who becomes a stand-in and guardian for Soma, just as Pwyll becomes a stand-in for Arawn. The fact that the moon was often seen as one of the primary afterlife destinations, where souls go to be renewed before reincarnating, could then explain why Arawn is the lord of the "underworld" of Annwn (which in the Welsh conception was not necessarily spatially “under” at all). This very underworld also is where the great magical cauldron, sought by Arthur, is said to be stored, which cooks food though only for the brave. The swine that Pryderi trades to Gwydion, which are explicitly symbols of fertility and general third function powers (swineherds as a symbol of the activity of the pastoralist class, swine as a form of wealth, and seen as promoting fertility of the fields due to their rooting and fertilizing activity) originate in Annwn, as gifts from Arawn. It is said of Arawn's court that "of all the Courts upon the earth, behold this was the best supplied with food and drink, and vessels of gold and royal jewels" (Mabinogion, Pwyll, prince of Dyfed). Thus, these details would match, for instance, Njörðr seen as the origin of fecundating powers of land and sea that bring wealth, and his most common description as "wealthy." Finally, the physical description of Arawn could also imply a lunar role. He is said to appear at first "upon a large light-grey steed, with a hunting horn round his neck, and clad in garments of grey woolen in the fashion of a hunting garb," the light grey color of steed and horse, as well as the hunting horn (a crescent shape), possibly being lunar symbolism, and his hounds also being the lunar color white, with red ears (Mabinogion, Pwyll, prince of Dyfed). Recall, the animals wagered by Irish Soma god Midir: grey horses with red heads and cows with red ears. Of the fight between Hafgan and Pwyll (disguised as Arawn) it is said, "Each claimeth of the other his land and territory," which, while a broad and general statement, would accord with the idea that this is a fight between the Moon god and a hostile aspect of the Sun god – Hafgan indeed means "summer-bright" and in his role equates to the hostile and solar Thjazi – just as moon and sun seem to battle for lordship of the sky at the borders of night and day, or the waters of the moon (rain) with the drought of summer on another level. While Hafgan desires Arawn's lands rather than a golden object of regeneration as Thjazi does, it is true that he too is in possession of some kind of magical regenerating ability, perhaps similar to the power of the Norse golden apples, and the power of which Pwyll finally nullifies by striking him once with his sword and not more.
If we need more proof that Irish Midir and Welsh Arawn are the same god, Midir himself is suggested to be an underworld lord by his depiction with three cranes, likely symbols of death, who guard his castle and can steal the will to fight from any warrior. Midir is also known to have a cauldron, which is one of the treasures of the Tuatha De Danann, and it is stolen by Cuchulainn. The Welsh underworld (or otherworld) Annwn, whose lord is Arawn, is also said to be guarded by three cranes, and the cauldron of Annwn that is sought by Arthur would then align with the cauldron of Midir taken by Cuchulainn.
Thus, if, despite its altered form, we are satisfied with the identification of Arawn with the Soma Moon god, then we have completed the picture of the Welsh Lunar Cycle. Furthermore, Arawn and Pwyll as co-chiefs of Annwn would nicely match the fact that there are two ailing kings of the Grail castle. If the parallel is accepted, then the younger king, who is known to go fishing, and who is called Pelles, would be Pwyll, the Gandharva, and guardian of the Soma. The elder grail king would be Arawn, or Soma, the actual master and overseer of the grail/soma and the castle in which it is found, though the two, as we see in the myth of Pwyll and Arawn, have combined kingdoms and become essentially interchangeable. The presence of Bran as another lord of the otherworld would be felt in the severed head and in the name attached by later writers to the grail king, the separate otherworld lords gradually becoming confused.
The detail of the virginity-preserving Gandharva staff, in particular, makes it seem that the episode between Pwyll and Arawn, rather than being a late malformation of the Lunar Cycle, appearing in a relatively late manuscript (12th-14th Century) as it does, actually has claim to the preservation of some of the most archaic details of all the versions we have examined. Indeed, if the series of husbands found in the myths are supposed to mirror those found in the ideal marriage rites of the "Surya's Bridal" hymn of the ancient Rig Veda, then we would expect Soma to marry first, then the Gandharva to appear as a temporary pseudo-husband, guarding the chastity of the bride, which is what seems to happen with Pwyll and Arawn's episode. The marriage of Manawydan as Agni should then come after Pwyll's marriage to Rhiannon, but Pryderi the Horse Twin's instead comes just before it. However, these two marriages happen in such close succession that it's possible that it was not seen as necessary to stress their strict order as much. The Horse Twin's marriage had to be fit in somewhere and makes a natural sequel to his father's marriage. It is remarkable to contemplate the fact that here, in the latest of the mythic versions of the Lunar Cycle, we may have an example of something close to the proper order of myths as they appeared in the earliest times, not absolutely complete by any means, and showing some serious alterations, but at least linked together into one relatively unified narrative.
Furthermore, within this narrative, in a very altered form, we can see the key elements of the "Soma" narrative as found in the other branches. First is the affront that needs recompense, Pwyll offending Arawn by driving away his hounds. This would parallel the poking of Midir and Chyavana's eye, or the killing of Skaði's father Thjazi. In the Welsh case, the recompense is significantly different, but the structural element of an offense requiring recompense is the same at its core. Next is the motif of the outsider getting in the middle of the marriage of the older god and his wife, which is of two types and corresponds to two separate portions of the Vedic Hymn: the Gandharva as second “husband” and preserver of virginity and the Horse Twins as wooers. That is: Pwyll sleeps next to Arawn's wife during the whole of the year and a day, but in the end he does not make love to her, and Arawn's marriage simply continues happily. In the case of Chyavana, the Asvins first attempt to woo his wife Sukanya before ultimately helping to renew his youth and, in the Rig Vedic hymn, "leading the train" of their wedding. Aengus, too, temporarily becomes a pseudo-husband to Midir's wife Etain while she is in the form of a fly, but only acts as a noble custodian to her, perhaps even more reminiscent of the case of Pwyll. We see the same theme of getting in the middle of a marriage repeat, as we will see, with Perceval and the Knight of the Tent. Next, the hostile neighbor of Arawn who Pwyll has to defeat seems to be in the position of the hostile Norse figure Thjazi, thief of the golden apples, who is killed to return the magical rejuvenating fruit to the gods. This seems even more likely given the fact that (as we will see in more detail) a similar figure occurs in the Grail legend as the Red Knight, the hostile, warring neighbor of Arthur who steals a golden cup (not the grail) from Arthur, and who is finally killed for Arthur by the interloping Perceval, while Hafgan is killed for Arawn by the interloping Pwyll.
The Grail Quester Perceval and The Lunar Cycle
Many additional parallels can be adduced between the stories of Perceval and Pryderi, but also between Perceval and the Horse Twin mythos in a broader sense. Perceval, like Pryderi, is deeply shaped by separation from his mother. Perceval initially is raised in the forest by his protective mother, but leaves her to pursue a career of knighthood. It is only later that he thinks of her condition and begins a journey back to her. It is on this journey that he encounters the Grail Castle and several other adventures. Pryderi is also raised away from civilization, though this is due to his abduction as an infant, which separates him from his mother. Thus when he grows to adulthood he must be reunited with his mother. A theme of a general romantic dalliance is perhaps not a rare or surprising thing for any tale, but Perceval meets and falls in love with Blanchefleur at the midpoint of his journey and just before going to the Grail castle, while, in the same way, Pryderi is said to marry Cigfa at the midpoint between the tales that revolve around him, just before he goes on the adventure that leads him to the mysterious fort of the golden bowl. As the Asvins attempt to woo another man's wife when they encounter Chyavana's wife Sukanya, but fail, so Perceval also has this very character trait, as at the beginning of Chretien's poem he naively forces kisses and a ring from a damsel whose husband (the Knight of the Tent) then returns, accuses her of unfaithfulness, and punishes her. She is only later vindicated to her husband, even though she tells him all immediately and honestly professes her innocence. In the Chyavana version, Sukanya immediately informs Chyavana of the Asvins' attempts to woo her, and he trusts her fidelity right away. In the Wooing of Etain, Aengus temporarily becomes the caretaker and pseudo-husband of Midir's wife, Etain, before she is again blown off course by Fuamnach. And in general, it is a recurring theme that the maidens wooed in several of the lunar cycle tales have a prior marriage or engagement that they tell the wooing stranger they would not like to give up for anything (Gerðr, Etain, Sukanya).
When Perceval arrives at court, another maiden sees him and laughs. It is then revealed that a prophecy had been pronounced that this maiden would not laugh until she laid eyes on the next supreme lord of the knights. The knight Kay strikes her for this prophetic outburst, and this abuse is the reason Perceval then desires revenge upon Kay later. If their eventual confrontation, as we will see, could be another version of the Aesir-Vanir War motif, then this prophetic woman, whose striking helps lead to the conflict, would occupy the same role here that we have seen elsewhere in the sorceress or seeress Gullveig, whose triple murder is considered one of the inciting incidents of the Aesir-Vanir War. Following this episode, Perceval pierces the Red Knight through the eye with his lance. We can say then that the eye piercing motif is by no means absent from the Perceval tale, and that Perceval's spear then stands in place of the “spit” or thorny twig which pierces the eyes of Midir and Chyavana. Though no other Horse Twin figures are directly responsible for the eye poking in the other branches, at least in the Irish case Aengus is held responsible for it by the wounded Midir as it is done by youths under Aengus' watch, leading Aengus to need to seek Etain to recompense Midir.
Not only this, but in fact we can recognize here just how similar Chretien de Troyes' version is to the Norse version of events. For the Red Knight who has his eye pierced has just stolen a golden cup from King Arthur and has threatened to steal his lands as well, leaving Arthur despondently musing while his wife, the queen, is said to be "well-nigh dead," it being said that it is believed she will not escape that fate, due to the shame and distress brought on by the theft of the cup. The loss of a simple cup should not have such a dramatic effect, unless of course it has a deeper significance or a magical power, and the fact that this cup fits the exact position that the golden apples do in the myth of Thjazi explains this mystery. The Red Knight, like Thjazi, steals the golden-colored food or drink related treasure from the king, and, as a result leaves the king and his family in a paralyzed, near-death state. The Red Knight, like Thjazi, is then both killed and pierced in the eye. Perceval picks apart and takes his armor after killing the Red Knight, perhaps similar to how Thjazi has his eyes picked out and placed in the sky after being killed. If the reader accepts the theory we have put forward, that Thjazi is related to a destructive aspect of the sun, then the red color of the Red Knight's armor may even be explicable, red being a common solar color.
Next, after the first Grail episode, Perceval goes again to Arthur's court, after defeating more of his knights, and there does battle with Arthur's knights Sagremor and Kay, impressively defeating both. Due to the fact that Perceval is then invited to join Arthur's court as a result of this episode (Arthur and his court considered as stand-ins for the high gods and their society), and does so, we can quite confidently say that this episode stands in the exact position of the Aesir-Vanir War. The Horse Twin hero Perceval fights the high knights (high gods) and then is accepted into their society/court. In the final portion of Chretien's romance dealing with Perceval, he learns who the grail serves (the Fisher King's father who he also learns is his own uncle), learns that the grail contains a single wafer of communion which is able to sustain this uncle, and then receives holy communion (which is now associated with the grail as its main contents) for the first time. The communion of course being the spiritual life-sustaining highest rite of Catholicism, it corresponds to the soma of the Vedics, Eleusinian Mysteries (or Dionysian wine) of the Greeks, and the Aesir's sacrifice of the the Norse, which the Horse Twins of each of the other branches are said to take part in for the first time at the end of their myths. In other versions of the Grail legend, such as Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal, written shortly after Chretien’s poem, Parzifal the grail quester is said to become the new keeper of the grail in the end, just as the Norse and Vedic Horse Twins crucially are said to become priests of the high rite in the outcome of the conflict.
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