from these Master Walter Map drew to make his book of the Holy Grail for the love of King Henry his lord, who had the story translated from Latin into French. The story now is silent and tells no more concerning the adventures of the Holy Grail.[1]
Grand St. Graal.—(1) The writer salutes all who have faith in the Holy Trinity. He does not name himself for three reasons: lest his declaration that he received the story from God Himself be a stumbling block; lest his friends pay less honour to the book if they know the author; lest if he have made any blunder all the blame fall upon him.
(2) In the year 717 after the Passion of Christ, as the writer lies in his hut in one of the wildest parts of White Britain, on Good Friday Eve and doubts of the Trinity, Christ appears to him and gives him a little book not larger than a man's palm, and this book will resolve all his doubts; He Himself has written it, and only he who is purified by confession and fasting may read it. On the morrow the writer opens it and finds therein four sections, headed each as follows: This is the book of thy lineage; here begins the book of the Holy Grail; here is the beginning of the terrors; here begin the marvels. As he reads lightning and thunder come and other wonders. On Good Friday, as he is celebrating the service, an angel raises him in spirit to the third heaven, and his doubts concerning the Trinity are set at rest. When his spirit returns to his body he locks up the book; but on Easter Sunday, when he would read further, finds it gone; a voice says he must suffer to have the book back again, must go to the plains of Walescog, follow a wonderful beast to Norway, and there find what he seeks. He obeys, the beast leads him first to a hermit's, then past the pine of adventures to a knight's castle, on the third day to the queen's lake and a nunnery. After exorcising a hermit possessed of the devil, he finds the book, and on his return Christ commands him to make a fair copy before Ascension Day. He sets to work at once, on the fifteenth day after Easter.[2]
The book begins as follows: Few believe on Christ at
- ↑ B. H. agrees with F.
- ↑ It will be advisable to give here the well-known passage from the chronicle of Helinandus, which has been held by most investigators to be of first-rate importance in determining the date of the Grand St. Graal. The chronicle ends in the year 1204, and must therefore have been finished in that or the following year, and as the passage in question occurs in the earlier portion of the work it may be dated about two years earlier (Birch-Hirschfeld, p. 33). "Hoc tempore (717-719) in Britannia cuidam heremitae demonstrata fuit mirabilis quaedam visio per angelum de Joseph decurione nobili, qui corpus domini deposuit de cruce et de catino illo vel paropside, in quo dominus caenavit cum discipulis suis, de quo ab eodem heremita descripta est historia quae dicitur gradale. Gradalis autem vel gradale gallice dicitur scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda, in qua preciosae dapes divitibus solent apponi gradatim, unus morsellus post alium in diversis ordinibus. Dicitur et vulgari nomine greal, quia grata et acceptabilis
