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Ireland and the Grail
This is the first book-length study of the origins of the Grail legend to have been undertaken by a specialist in medieval Irish literature. Drawing on a detailed reexamination of the relevant texts in Irish, Welsh, Latin and French, extensive sections of which are presented in new translations, the author argues that the roots of the Grail legend are to be sought in the lost Old Irish manuscript known as the Book of Druimm Snechtai .
Table of Contents
Foreword; In the Grail Castle; The Trance at the Feast; The Book of Druimm Snechtai; `I was with Brân in Ireland'; The Horn of Brân Galed; Kaer Sidi ; The Land of Enchantment; The Epistle of Pwyll and Pryderi; Taliesin and the Irish Scholars; The Rich Fisherman; The Path Through Water; The Spear That Bleeds; The Ruining of the Land; The Knight in the Glass Barrel; The King of the Deep Folk; The Head and the Fish; The Wanderings of Bleddri; The Service of the Grail; The Secret of the Grail; An Imagined Book; Afterword; Places Mentioned in the Ireland; Wales; France and Environs; Patrons of the Grail Legend; Bibliography; General Index; Index of Scholars
Table of Contents
Foreword; In the Grail Castle; The Trance at the Feast; The Book of Druimm Snechtai; `I was with Brân in Ireland'; The Horn of Brân Galed; Kaer Sidi ; The Land of Enchantment; The Epistle of Pwyll and Pryderi; Taliesin and the Irish Scholars; The Rich Fisherman; The Path Through Water; The Spear That Bleeds; The Ruining of the Land; The Knight in the Glass Barrel; The King of the Deep Folk; The Head and the Fish; The Wanderings of Bleddri; The Service of the Grail; The Secret of the Grail; An Imagined Book; Afterword; Places Mentioned in the Ireland; Wales; France and Environs; Patrons of the Grail Legend; Bibliography; General Index; Index of Scholars
- GenresNonfiction
396 pages, Paperback
First published December 30, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 23, 2009
Hrmmm...what to say about this one. It started out so promising, but my eyes were glazing over by the end of it. And this is coming from a Celticist-in-training; I wouldn't recommend anyone looking for a casual encounter with Celtic literature to pick this one up. It may have something to do with the fact that I'm not familiar with the primary sources that he analyzes. Grail studies have never really captivated me, so I never really explored the late medieval French romances.
Many of Carey's conclusions also seem a bit wayward and incomplete, but again this might be due to a lack of interest in the primary sources on my part, and I may have simply glossed over the important supporting evidence. There was some significant overlap with my own research in the discussions of Irish and Welsh sources, and some new possibilities to explore, but again I zoned out when I reached the French material and this ruined the book for me. Maybe it's just not my bag, baby.
One thing that really stood out appeared in the last pages of the Afterward. In speaking about the mysteries of Ireland's past, Carey writes "At Tara, symbolic locus of the island's sovereignty, a sacred landscape first configured in the Stone Age is about to be sliced open by a giant motorway, spawned by the 'Celtic tiger' and by the demands of Meath's Dublin-bound commuters." This, as some of you know, is a cause very close to my heart: the destruction of Ireland's ancient archaeological sites by the construction of the new M-3 motorway. The motorway is going ahead as planned; there is little hope of halting the project. It is comforting to see that someone as respected as John Carey in the world of Celtic Studies is paying attention and mourning this horrific loss. And, if he had sustained this kind of colorful writing in his approach to the literary sources throughout the rest of the book, this would probably be a four-star review.
Previous Review:
John Carey is my kindred spirit in the (tiny) world of Celtic-Arthurian scholars. Although he focuses on the grail legend where I focus on Avalon, we think very similarly and draw from the same primary material to support our arguments for the borrowing of Irish material in the development of Arthurian legend. There are so many parallels here with my thesis, it's uncanny! I had used Carey's publications as secondary sources for my research, but this book was published after I had finished the writing process. It feels so great to know that I can produce thesis work that is on the same caliber as John Carey!!
Many of Carey's conclusions also seem a bit wayward and incomplete, but again this might be due to a lack of interest in the primary sources on my part, and I may have simply glossed over the important supporting evidence. There was some significant overlap with my own research in the discussions of Irish and Welsh sources, and some new possibilities to explore, but again I zoned out when I reached the French material and this ruined the book for me. Maybe it's just not my bag, baby.
One thing that really stood out appeared in the last pages of the Afterward. In speaking about the mysteries of Ireland's past, Carey writes "At Tara, symbolic locus of the island's sovereignty, a sacred landscape first configured in the Stone Age is about to be sliced open by a giant motorway, spawned by the 'Celtic tiger' and by the demands of Meath's Dublin-bound commuters." This, as some of you know, is a cause very close to my heart: the destruction of Ireland's ancient archaeological sites by the construction of the new M-3 motorway. The motorway is going ahead as planned; there is little hope of halting the project. It is comforting to see that someone as respected as John Carey in the world of Celtic Studies is paying attention and mourning this horrific loss. And, if he had sustained this kind of colorful writing in his approach to the literary sources throughout the rest of the book, this would probably be a four-star review.
Previous Review:
John Carey is my kindred spirit in the (tiny) world of Celtic-Arthurian scholars. Although he focuses on the grail legend where I focus on Avalon, we think very similarly and draw from the same primary material to support our arguments for the borrowing of Irish material in the development of Arthurian legend. There are so many parallels here with my thesis, it's uncanny! I had used Carey's publications as secondary sources for my research, but this book was published after I had finished the writing process. It feels so great to know that I can produce thesis work that is on the same caliber as John Carey!!
June 3, 2019
Please read about my experience at Celtic Scholar's Reviews and Opinions
May 5, 2019
John Carey is Professor of Early and Medieval Irish at University College Cork and as such is the first Celticist in decades to both “present a detailed and text-based case for a Celtic background to the Grail legend” and also “to propose a new interpretation based on the Irish evidence”.
In 1913 the great early twentieth century Arthurian scholar Jessie L. Weston published a book simply entitled The Quest of the Holy Grail, in which she summarised what she considered to be the three most important theories on the origins of the legend: which she characterised as the Christian, Folk-lore and Ritual Theories. While giving the Christian Theory short shrift, she acknowledged that the advocates of a Folk-lore origin had put forward “a much stronger, and better reasoned, case.”
It was indeed in what Weston called Folk-lore (or what Carey calls “the traditions of the Celtic peoples”) that a solution to the riddle of Grail Origins has been sought by many scholars in the decades after her death; and it is the Celtic Hypothesis, rather than the Ritual Theory which she herself championed, which gained ground in the late twentieth century. As Carey points out, although scholars of comparative religion such as A.K. Coomaraswamy welcomed her theory, the same cannot be said of medievalists, for whom the Celtic and “eucharistic” approaches are the only ones that are widely given serious consideration now.
Nevertheless, as Carey argues, almost none of the advocates of the Celtic Hypothesis have been Celtic specialists, meaning that some of its supporters may have harmed rather than helped their case. In particular, Carey singles out Roger Sherman Loomis for his “capricious and uncritical” use of second-hand Celtic source material; but he does acknowledge that it was Loomis who, in his first Arthurian book of 1926 (Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance) pointed out the “suggestive resemblances” between the Otherworld adventure in an Irish text (‘The Ecstasy of the Phantom’) and the first encounter of Perceval with the Grail in French literature.
In successive chapters of this book, Carey builds a powerful, thoroughly researched case for the transmission of “a complex of Irish tales” to France via Wales, where they were “absorbed” by a literary tradition associated with the poet Taliesin; and went on in turn to influence the development of the first three Branches of the Mabinogi. Some British readers may be disappointed to discover that Carey argues that these Branches are so dependent on Irish sources that they cannot “be regarded as being even approximate reflections of indigenous Welsh legend, let alone of earlier myth.”
Notwithstanding, Wales lies at the heart of the Grail legend’s transmission from Ireland to continental Europe. In fact, it is fair to say that Carey is as interesting and insightful about Welsh literature as he is about Irish, praising the Four Branches of the Mabinogi “as some of the finest prose narratives of the European Middle Ages.”
Nor is Carey unaware of the danger of such forensic scholarship’s “devaluing, or at the least obscuring, the very object of one’s investigation.” The Grail legend is “a drama of knowledge withheld” both because Perceval fails to ask about what he sees in the Fisher King’s castle and because Chrétien de Troyes’ original poem was left unfinished; but also because scholars have been arguing about its true origin and significance for over a hundred years. Carey’s work is an important contribution to unearthing the Celtic origins of the stories; but their significance lies, as he has written elsewhere, in the Grail Quest’s being “one of the great initiatic myths of the West” whose riches are inexhaustible.
If you enjoyed this review, you might also be interested in my blog: Myth Dancing (incorporating the Twenty Third Letter)
In 1913 the great early twentieth century Arthurian scholar Jessie L. Weston published a book simply entitled The Quest of the Holy Grail, in which she summarised what she considered to be the three most important theories on the origins of the legend: which she characterised as the Christian, Folk-lore and Ritual Theories. While giving the Christian Theory short shrift, she acknowledged that the advocates of a Folk-lore origin had put forward “a much stronger, and better reasoned, case.”
It was indeed in what Weston called Folk-lore (or what Carey calls “the traditions of the Celtic peoples”) that a solution to the riddle of Grail Origins has been sought by many scholars in the decades after her death; and it is the Celtic Hypothesis, rather than the Ritual Theory which she herself championed, which gained ground in the late twentieth century. As Carey points out, although scholars of comparative religion such as A.K. Coomaraswamy welcomed her theory, the same cannot be said of medievalists, for whom the Celtic and “eucharistic” approaches are the only ones that are widely given serious consideration now.
Nevertheless, as Carey argues, almost none of the advocates of the Celtic Hypothesis have been Celtic specialists, meaning that some of its supporters may have harmed rather than helped their case. In particular, Carey singles out Roger Sherman Loomis for his “capricious and uncritical” use of second-hand Celtic source material; but he does acknowledge that it was Loomis who, in his first Arthurian book of 1926 (Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance) pointed out the “suggestive resemblances” between the Otherworld adventure in an Irish text (‘The Ecstasy of the Phantom’) and the first encounter of Perceval with the Grail in French literature.
In successive chapters of this book, Carey builds a powerful, thoroughly researched case for the transmission of “a complex of Irish tales” to France via Wales, where they were “absorbed” by a literary tradition associated with the poet Taliesin; and went on in turn to influence the development of the first three Branches of the Mabinogi. Some British readers may be disappointed to discover that Carey argues that these Branches are so dependent on Irish sources that they cannot “be regarded as being even approximate reflections of indigenous Welsh legend, let alone of earlier myth.”
Notwithstanding, Wales lies at the heart of the Grail legend’s transmission from Ireland to continental Europe. In fact, it is fair to say that Carey is as interesting and insightful about Welsh literature as he is about Irish, praising the Four Branches of the Mabinogi “as some of the finest prose narratives of the European Middle Ages.”
Nor is Carey unaware of the danger of such forensic scholarship’s “devaluing, or at the least obscuring, the very object of one’s investigation.” The Grail legend is “a drama of knowledge withheld” both because Perceval fails to ask about what he sees in the Fisher King’s castle and because Chrétien de Troyes’ original poem was left unfinished; but also because scholars have been arguing about its true origin and significance for over a hundred years. Carey’s work is an important contribution to unearthing the Celtic origins of the stories; but their significance lies, as he has written elsewhere, in the Grail Quest’s being “one of the great initiatic myths of the West” whose riches are inexhaustible.
If you enjoyed this review, you might also be interested in my blog: Myth Dancing (incorporating the Twenty Third Letter)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews