More news on the Quest

Those of you who have read my book The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone will know that I have identified the king Evelake mentioned in The Quest for the Holy Grail as an English rendition of the Welsh name Afallach which I translate as Mistletoe (literally the lash of the apple-tree) - the symbol of the Celtic God Lud.  Today I found another mention of him in an ancient life of the Celtic saint Carantoc or Carannog (associated with Cornwall and Crantock but Welsh-born in Ceredigion).  The life contains an encounter between Carantoc and King Arthur which is almost certainly an old Druid myth relating to the God rather than the King although it is possible that the reference of a grant of land to Carantoc's church does refer to the real King.  But what caught my eye was the genealogy listed for the saint  in which he is listed as  the son of Ceredig the King of Ceredigion who is son of Cunedda, son of Ederyn, son of Padarn peis Rudawg, son of Tegid, son of Kain, son of Gwrgain, son of Doli, son of Gwrdoli, son of Dwfri, son of Gwrddofri, son of Amguoloid, son of Enwerydd, son of Onwedd, son of Dwfr, son of Brithgwern son of Owain, son of Afallach, son of Canalech, son of Beli and his mother was Anna who they say was a cousin [kinswoman/descendant] of the Virgin Mary.

The first section is the real genealogy and ancestry of Carantoc but in the section in bold italics we are into the realms of a mythical/religious past.  I had Owain down as a son of Bran (a water god) because that is how he is referred to in The Quest for the Holy Grail but here he is identified as the son of Lud/Afallach who is a sun/sky god. I have no idea who Canalech is, I have never come across this name before but Beli is one of the Trinity of Gods (jointly with his wife Don) and is the God who is the owner of the Sword of Truth, the judge of sinners.  What is also interesting from the point of view of my thesis that the Christian and Druid churches merged in the mid-fifth century is the fact that Carantoc's genealogy links him mythically not only with the Druid gods but also with the Christian church through his supposed descent through his mother from the Virgin Mary.  This clearly indicates the dual nature of the early Celtic Church so its quite an exciting discovery.

Grail Quest - another twist in the trail

In my book The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone I put forward the theory that the Christian version of the book was perhaps written by St Dyfrig but I now think I may have been mistaken.  In my last blog I mentioned the fact that the role of 'Keeper of the Book' was hereditary and in assuming that for monks this meant it passed from spiritual father to spiritual son I traced it back through Saints Illtud and Cadoc to Dyfrig.  However further research has revealed that Cadoc and Illtud were not of the School of Dyfrig as I had assumed.  Cadoc was tutored from the age of seven by Tathan (St Athan), an Irish contemporary of Dyfrig and so was of his school at St Athans, Glamorgan or Swent near Chepstow.  Illtud was trained by Cadoc and so is a scholar of his school at Llancarfan.  Applying the hereditary principle therefore it would seem that the originator of the Christian version of The Sword in the Stone was Tathan rather than Dyfrig.  He is also of the right age and location to fit the profile of the Christian writer. Having said that since there is no firm evidence to link the book to either of them directly any identification must remain speculative.

Quest for the Holy Grail

Regular readers of this column will know that I have embarked on my own Quest to find out who wrote The Quest for the Holy Grail.  I have have come up with three pieces of useful evidence which don't quite crack the case but get us closer to the answer and may help some of the other Grail-seekers out there.

The protector of the Book of Armagh was known as the Maor na Canoine or The Keeper of the Book. I mention in The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone that Saints Illtud and Cadoc are described as The Keepers of the Grail.  It follows then that I am correct in assuming that this means not the keepers of the cup but the keepers of the book which tells the story of Grail Quest.  The position in Ireland was hereditary so it also follows that they inherited the book rather than wrote it themselves taking the provenance back a generation so I am still reasonably convinced that the original Christian author was Dyfrig or one of his school.

A further piece of evidence to back up my claim that the book tells the story of a merger between the Christian and Druid churches in the mid fifth century comes from the Iolo manuscript which tells us that Illtud's foundation at Llantwit Major was divided into nine cells or colleges.  One of these was named after St David who must be a late arrival as he was a pupil of Illtud's school (their most illustrious so not surprising he had a college named after him).  However the other eight are quite illuminating.  Four are named after the four Christian Gospel writers - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John but the other four have Welsh names - Arthur, Morgan, Eugain and Amwn.  These four I surmise are the four principal Druid authorities - the original writers of The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone which is in four parts.  The first part tells us the origins of The Sword of Truth and The Ship of Faith and the very early history of Britain.  The second tells us the story of Balin and Balan.  The third section is the familiar story of The Sword in the Stone and the last is the story The Quest for the Holy Grail.   The names Arthur and Morgan are of course also the names of Celtic deities but in this case, given the symmetry of the names, I think these are writers named after the gods rather than referring to the deities themselves.  Both names have always been very popular in Wales. 

The names indicate a fifty-fifty division between the two churches suggesting a merger rather than a takeover or wholesale conversion.

My final clue - not really evidence as it relies on a tradition rather than a document - is that there is a story that Merlin was born near Carmarthen in 480 AD.  This seems a remarkably precise and rather late date for the arrival of the Celtic God but it does fit the timeline for the production of the book or perhaps a copy of it.  The principal saint who lived near Carmarthen is St Teilo who was one of Dyfrig's scholars trained by him at Henllan which puts him in the frame.

There still remains the question of which Christian writer did the rewrite to produce the text we have now but it does give us a very good provenance for the book.  I think we can say with some confidence where it originated and name at least some of the people who had a hand in it.