The truth about Arthurian legends

The truth, (one probable truth) about the Grail.

Arthur and the legends

Later stories about the Grail quests of Arthur and his “Knights of the round table” are based on the idea that the “Grail” is the cup used by Jesus at the last supper before his arrest. Other versions claim the Grail is the cup that was used to collect the blood of Jesus as he was physically bleeding to death on the cross.

The ancient Celtic tribes did not use a written language, their traditions and rules were memorized by “Druids” who were free to roam from tribe to tribe and spread their knowledge. Just before the birth of Christianity, the Romans invaded Britain to claim the silver, gold, lead and tin that was mined there. They also wanted slaves and the skins of the indigenous sheep, goats and wolves. The second such invasion turned into an occupation, this was intended to not just take what they could carry but to settle and rule the land. In order to do this they needed to destroy the druids and their control over the indigenous tribes. The ancient Celtic civilization was spread over much of what is now known as Europe and it is thought it lasted more than 4000 years but so little is known for certain, because they did not write their own records, their own history. The Romans used physical force to kill the druids but they also needed to destroy their legacy and the peoples belief in the stories the druids had told them. To do this they made their own history of life under druid control, they wrote down the “history” in a way that was intended to make the enslaved population grateful to the Romans, for delivering them from the evil druids.

Even after the Roman enslavement and occupation, of what is now called Britain, and also after the Romans left and the Saxon tribes took over and engaged in generations of fierce physical conflict with Nordic tribes, who were themselves descended from Celtic ancestors. These invaders are often referred to as the Vikings; especially in Hollywood versions of “historical fiction.” Viking was a term for sea born raiders and those becoming Vikings were from several different locations, Eventually Britain became a mostly Saxon nation, in truth a mixture of Celts, Saxons, Norse, Danes and Franks. The Normans were descended from this same mixture but had evolved their own language, customs and hereditary leaderships. In 1066 they invaded and imposed their rule. All of this conflict was spread over more than a thousand years. During all this history, some outposts of the much older Celtic traditions still survived, mostly in the mountains of what is now Wales and in the far south western moorlands of England and also in the island we now call Ireland. From these places have emerged fragmented and often contradictory accounts of the glory days of Celtic life, before the Romans came. It is in these stories that Arthur and Merlin are found.

In Welsh mythology, the Pair Dadeni, known as the “Cauldron of Rebirth,” appears in the second branch of the Mabinogi. It could return the dead to life but without the power of speech. The Cauldron of Dynwych appears in the list of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain. It has the unusual attribute of being able to distinguish between a brave man and a coward. Transfer these powers to the much later stories about the magical property of the “Grail.”

From what little we do know it would seem that the Celtic Druids believed in the existence of natural forces that controlled the basic elements of life, they saw the power of nature and lived in a much closer harmony, with these forces, than we do now. The stories of Merlin's visions of life being depicted by a conflict between two dragons and the conflict being necessary for the sustainment of life itself. Translate this into the need to have a combination of two forms of energy, the Ethereal and the Physical. The positive physical creative energy of Earth is represented by gold. The positive ethereal energy of Heaven is represented by silver and this combination emerges as a positive creative force and the energy needed to fuel creation itself and drive on the ever expanding universe in all its forms; in other words Creation itself. The stories about the Grail are stories about seeking to return to helping in the union of physical and ethereal creative energies, in order to fuel and power Creation

Consider that in the Celtic myths, the “Cauldron of Britain” is where fusion takes place and Arthur is actually the land and the land is Arthur. The Celtic belief in all things being “spiritual” in the sense that all things have a spirit, a connection to the whole; then calling the land, which is the physical strength of the nation, “Arthur” and building the stories around his powers makes sense. Then the cauldron of Britain, becomes the place where the creative energy needed to drive and sustain creation itself is formed.

Gold and Silver have always been the metals of greatest value, yet they have the least practical use, being too soft for use as tools or weapons. They do have one big advantage over other metals, within human experience, they do not decay. Thus their being representative of “cosmic” powers is understandable. Amalgamating the silver ethereal creative force and the gold physical energy of Earth, results in creative power. Power that seems eternal. Electrum is the alloy made by fusing gold and silver; it is naturally occurring as white gold. White gold is associated with Welsh gold mines. It is worth noting that during this same historical period, the ancient Chinese developed the Taoist philosophy and in the Tao; humans stand between heaven and earth. They also developed the concepts of Yin and Yang, two energies that unite to form everything, that is they form the power of Creation.

The Grail quests, used in much later stories, are the retelling of very ancient desires to reunite the land, the people and the belief in the unity of everything, into one effort to direct and prolong creation, without a human directed control system. Yet in the “modern” stories they were used to promote the power of one such human controlled organisation.