applied also to other members of the family, does not appear to need explanation, being entirely in keeping with the art of the narrator.
Some incidents of the story are parallel to those recited in the Perceval romances. That the Grail is made to emigrate from the castle of the quest to a home beyond the waves is in correspondence with the narrative of the Pellesvaus. The latter also mentions the red-cross shield, but as belonging to Joseph, who, being a soldier, might well leave such a relic to a descendant. The appearance of Galahad at court is quite correspondent to that of Perceval in the prose romance. Speaking more generally, the idea of a quest after the holy vessel is identical in both classes of tales. That the Galahad story is essentially a recast of that relating to Perceval may perhaps be thought evident from the alteration of time and insertion of additional generations of ancestors; but it does not follow that the extant Perceval romances can be shown to be earlier.
In the Queste, the description of the Grail shows a tendency to become more talismanic and less symbolic. From the chamber in which it is kept it proceeds to the hall of the palace, exactly how does not appear. Here Galahad finds it on the silver table; it seems an inconsistency that the spear (and, in the French text, a napkin) has to be carried in procession from the chamber. From this residence the Grail proceeds through Britain, on errands of healing and mercy.
In the final and most important part of the story the celebrant is Josephe, and reference is made to his consecration as first Christian bishop, a mention showing that the author had in mind the Grand St. Graal, which introduces this personage. Ritually considered, the account of the Queste is unintelligible. The bleeding lance is said to be placed in such manner as to exude into the Grail, filling it with blood; presently, in obvious contradiction, it is stated that the vessel serves as depositary of the sacramental bread. Over the lance-head and the Grail is laid a napkin; but in the second service we read that the vessel is covered by a paten, an arrangement only proper for the eucharistic cup. In the first ceremony Christ himself rises from the bread and feeds the communicants, so that the vision is complete; in the second, only a partial glimpse of the Redeemer is obtained: thus we have bathos where climax is intended. The words put into the mouth of Christ are of childish simplicity; they answer to Christ’s admonition to the newly consecrated bishop in the antecedent romance, where they possess some applicability. It would seem that the writer of the Queste modelled his relation on the story of the ordination as related in the Grand St. Graal; what there is reasonable and intelligible, regarded as a mystic account of an ecclesiastical rite, in the brief imitation of the Queste becomes
