In this little book of upwards of two hundred pages we have again an attempt, careful and elaborate, backed up by wide reading and abundant reference, to solve the enigma of the origin and growth of the Grail cycle. The distinctive feature of this, the latest essay in a much debated field, is that Herr Wechssler professes to adhere neither to the party of those who see in the Grail a distinctively Christian symbol nor to that of those who are advocates of a pagan (=Celtic) origin, but claims to have found a via media, which shall reconcile both views. Now if this claim were grounded on fact, and the writer could indeed show us that more excellent way by which two apparently contradictory theses, each advocated by scholars of weight and standing, could be shown capable of agreement, all students of the Grail literature would unfeignedly rejoice; but has Herr Wechssler really done what he sets out with the professed intention of doing? Honestly, I do not think he has; rather do I believe he has imported fresh and unnecessary confusion into a question already more than sufficiently obscure. His views lack the definiteness which frank adherence to one side or the other would give, and are supported by a method open to the very gravest objections. As a matter of fact the via media only exists in the writer's imagination; so far as the origin of the Grail cycle is concerned he is really an adherent of the school represented by Birch-Hirschfeld, though he differs from that scholar on the question of the relationship between Chrétien and Wolfram. In other words, for Herr Wechssler the Grail is ab initio a Christian talisman, and the germ of the whole cycle the legend of Joseph of Arimathea.
True, Herr Wechssler endeavours to "hedge" by saying that the first suggestion of the sustaining power of the Grail was due to the reminiscence of a heathen talisman, a "Wunsch-ding—Ein märchen-kundiger Bearbeiter der Legende dachte an ein Wunschgefäss, an die allgemein geläufige Vorstellung von einem Gefäss, das nach Wunsch Speise und Trank spendet." But it is not quite
