Wasteland and round Table: The Historical Significance of Myths of Dearth and Plenty in Old French Romance
R. Howard Bloch
N o ISSUE in the study of Old French literature has invited greater interpretative license than question sources Chretien de Troyes's Conte du Graal. Some explanations are indeed difficult to believe. Take following for example: that episode which Perceval visits a mysterious castle, meets an invalid king, sees graillike dish and bleeding lance, forgets ask what they mean, awakens find both castle king have vanished'-that this aventure is: part early Aryan literature, derived from ancient Babylonian cult, survival archaic Indian vegetation ritual or esoteric Islamic initiation ceremony; or, meal is, reality, Sephardic Jewish Passover seder, old is secret emissary Cathar faith, medieval version Egyptian god Thoth, historical image Baldwin IV afflicted with elephantiasis; finally, represents sex symbol immemorial antiquity, pearl Zoroastrian tradition, talisman heretical Albigensians worshiped caves Pyrenees, religious relic originating Hellenic Greece (and preserved corpus hermeticum), genuine Great Sapphire kept sacristy Glastonbury Abbey.2 And, further, we asked by scholarly workers at building site Babel believe all above Chretien's tale reached
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