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Galahad
Sir Galahad, the chaste son of sir Launcelot and the fair Elaine (king Pellês’s daughter, and thus was fulfilled a prophecy that she should become the mother of the noblest knight that was ever born.
Queen Guenever says that sir Launcelot “came of the eighth degree from our Saviour, and sir Galahad is of the ninth … and, therefore, be they the greatest gentlemen of all the world”. His sword was that which sir Balin released from the maiden’s scabbard and his shield belonged to king Euelake (Evelake), who received it from Joseph of Arimathy. It was a snow-white shield, on which Joseph had made a cross with his blood. After divers adventures, sir Galahad came to Sarras, where he was made king, was shown the sangraal by Joseph of Arimathy, and even “took the Lord’s body between his hands,” and died. Then suddenly “a great multitude of angels did bear his soul up to heaven,” and “sithence was never no man that could say he had seen the sangreal”.
Sir Galahad was the only knight who could sit in the “Siege Perilous,” a seat in the Round Table reserved for the knight destined to achieve the quest of the holy graal, and no other person could sit in it without peril of his life (pt. iii. 32). He also drew from the iron and marble rock the sword which no other knight could release (pt. iii. 33). His great achievement was that of the holy graal. Whatever other persons may say of this mysterious subject, it is quite certain that the Arthurian legends mean that sir Galahad saw with his bodily eyes and touched with his hands “the incarnate Saviour,” reproduced by the consecration of the elements of bread and wine. Other persons see the transformation by the eye of faith only, but sir Galahad saw it bodily with his eyes.
Then the bishop took a wafer, which was made in the likeness of bread, and at the lifting up [the elevation of the host] there came a figure in the likeness of a child, and the visage was as red and as bright as fire; and he smote himself into that bread; so they saw that the bread was formed of a fleshly man, and then he put it into the holy vessel again … then [the bishop] took the holy vessel and came to sir Galahad as he kneeled down, and there he received his Saviour … then went he and kissed sir Bors … and kneeled at the table and made his prayers; and suddenly his soul departed … and a great multitude of angels bear his soul to heaven. Le Morte d'Arthur By Sir Thomas Malory
"But there is reason to believe that Galahad, in Welsh "Gwalchaved", the "Falcon of Summer", is the same solar hero as Gawain, in Welsh "Gwalchmei", the "Falcon of May". Both are made, in the story of "Kulhwch and Olwen", sons of the same mother, Gwyar. Sir Gawain himself is, in one Arthurian romance, the achiever of the Grail.5 It is needless to attempt to choose between these two. Both have the attributes of sun-gods. Gwalchmei, the successor of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, and Peredur Paladrhir, that is to say, the "Spearman with the Long Shaft", may be allowed to claim equal honours. What is important is that the quest of the Grail, once the chief treasure of Hades, is still accomplished by one who takes in later legend the place of Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Lugh Lamhfada in the earlier British and Gaelic myths as a long-armed solar deity victorious in his strife against the Powers of Darkness." Celtic Myth and Legend Poetry and Romance by Charles Squire
‘And one there was among us, ever moved
Among us in white armour, Galahad.
“God make thee good as thou art beautiful,”
Said Arthur, when he dubbed him knight; and none,
In so young youth, was ever made a knight
Till Galahad; and this Galahad, when he heard
My sister’s vision, filled me with amaze;
His eyes became so like her own, they seemed
Hers, and himself her brother more than I.
Idylls of
the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The
Holy Grail
"Within fifty years (1180-1225) there were eight versions of the story in which the idea of the Grail was elaborated, and we know how the idea has been developed and enriched and idealised until our own time. "The vanished Vase of Heaven that held like Christ's own Heart an Hin of Blood," has been a marvellously fecund seed of inspiration to romancist and poet. Percival and Galahad are the highest human conceptions of purity, and their quest is the most exalting and ennobling upon which heroes can set forth." The Lost Land Of King Arthur By J. Cuming Walters
