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Jessie L. Weston
From Ritual to Romance
Preface
In the introductory Chapter the reader will find the aim and objectof these studies set forth at length. In view of the importance andcomplexity of the problems involved it seemed better to incorporatesuch a statement in the book itself, rather than relegate it to aPreface which all might not trouble to read. Yet I feel that such ageneral statement does not adequately express my full debt of obligation.
Among the many whose labour has been laid under contribution in thefollowing pages there are certain scholars whose published work, orpersonal advice, has been specially illuminating, and to whom specificacknowledgment is therefore due. Like many others I owe to Sir J. G.Frazer the initial inspiration which set me, as I may truly say,on the road to the Grail Castle. Without the guidance of The GoldenBough I should probably, as the late M. Gaston Paris happily expressedit, still be wandering in the forest of Broceliande!
During the Bayreuth Festival of 1911 I had frequent opportunities ofmeeting, and discussion with, Professor von Schroeder. I owe to himnot only the introduction to his own work, which I found most helpful,but references which have been of the greatest assistance; e.g. myknowledge of Cumont's Les Religions Orientales, and Scheftelowitz'svaluable study on Fish Symbolism, both of which have furnishedimportant links in the chain of evidence, is due to Professor vonSchroeder.
The perusal of Miss J. E. Harrison's Themis opened my eyes to theextended importance of these Vegetation rites. In view of theevidence there adduced I asked myself whether beliefs which had foundexpression not only in social institution, and popular custom, but,as set forth in Sir G. Murray's study on Greek Dramatic Origins,attached to the work, also in Drama and Literature, might notreasonably—even inevitably—be expected to have left their mark onRomance? The one seemed to me a necessary corollary of the other,and I felt that I had gained, as the result of Miss Harrison's work,a wider, and more assured basis for my own researches. I was no longerengaged merely in enquiring into the sources of a fascinating legend,but on the identification of another field of activity for forceswhose potency as agents of evolution we were only now beginningrightly to appreciate.
Finally, a casual reference, in Anrich's work on the Mysteries, to theNaassene Document, caused me to apply to Mr G. R. S. Mead, of whoseknowledge of the mysterious border-land between Christianity andPaganism, and willingness to place that knowledge at the disposal ofothers, I had, for some years past, had pleasant experience. Mr Meadreferred me to his own translation and analysis of the text in question,and there, to my satisfaction, I found, not only the final link thatcompleted the chain of evolution from Pagan Mystery to ChristianCeremonial, but also proof of that wider significance I was beginningto apprehend. The problem involved was not one of Folk-lore, noteven one of Literature, but of Comparative Religion in its widest sense.
Thus, while I trust that my co-workers in the field of Arthurianresearch will accept these studies as a permanent contribution tothe elucidation of the Grail problem, I would fain hope that thosescholars who labour in a wider field, and to whose works I owe somuch, may find in the results here set forth elements that may proveof real value in the study of the evolution of religious