The Grail Hallows and Harry Potter by Bandersnatch

In medieval tales about the search for the Holy Grail, the word hallows has been used to describe a set of four sacred or magical objects. These objects have been connected back to Celtic mythology, as well as to the Tarot deck. Is Rowling referring to them in the title of her final book in the Harry Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? The first three sections of this essay will present some information about hallows that may (or may not) be relevant to Book Seven. In the final section, I will follow Dumbledores lead and journey, as many fans have done, into thickets of wildest guesswork (HBP 10).

The Grail Hallows[1]

In many versions of the Grail story, the questing knight enters a castle in a barren wasteland. There he meets the Keeper of the Grail, sometimes also identified as the Fisher King, the Rich Fisher, or the Maimed King. He is an old man whose life has been unnaturally prolonged, but who is inflicted with a wound that will not heal. He lives in the castle with his attendants and guards the Grail. Within the castle are four objects of magical or religious significance, the Grail Hallows, which are usually displayed before the knight as he dines there. Their exact natures differ from story to story, and in some versions not all four are mentioned, but in general they are: 1. A sword, sometimes broken; often presented to the knight. 2. A spear or lance, dripping blood from its point; usually said to be involved in the Crucifixion tale and/or the weapon which wounded the Grail Keeper. 3. The Grail itself, described as a cup, chalice, or bowl; from it issues forth boundless food and drink. 4. A silver platter or serving dish (but in other versions it is a disk-shaped Eucharist dish, a dish with a severed head on it, a table, a stone, a stone chair, or even a magical chessboard). See this link for various versions of the Fisher King tale, each mentioning some or all of the Grail Hallows. They are most clearly portrayed in the version by Chretien de

Troyes.

The Treasures of the Tuatha de Danaan

Several scholars (such as folklorist Alfred Nutt and Arthurian academic Jessie Weston) have suggested that the four Grail Hallows originate from Celtic mythology, specifically from the four Treasures of the Tuatha de Danaan.[2] According to the tales, the Tuatha de Danaan were a race of mystical beings who came to Ireland in the distant past, bringing with them four magical objects: 1. The Sword of Nuada. 2. The Spear of Lugh. 3. The Cauldron of Dagda, from which came limitless food and drink. 4. The Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, which would roar with joy when stood upon by kings.[3] In Gods and Fighting Men, Lady Augusta Gregorys 1904 retelling of Celtic tales, the Treasures are said to have come from four cities, where they [the Tuatha de Danaan] fought their battle for learning. And in those cities they had four wise men to teach their young men skill and knowledge and perfect wisdom (from Part I, Book I).

The Tarot Suits[4]

Arthur Waite, the British occultist who (with illustrator Pamela Smith) published the Rider Pack of Tarot cards in 1910, was influenced by Nutt and other scholars. He was convinced that the symbols on the Tarot cards were an esoteric tradition passed down through the ages. He also decided that the four suits of the Tarot - swords, wands, cups, and coins - were derived from the Grail Hallows, and ultimately from the Celtic Treasures. To make this connection, he associated wands with the lance / spear, and cups with the Grail / cauldron. Waite also replaced the original suit of coins that appeared on earlier versions of the cards with the pentacle, and connected it to the platter / stone. (Waites Magician card, which has images of all four objects, depicts the five-pointed star etched on a disk.) Jessie Weston, who later wrote of the Grail Hallow / Tarot suit connection (without mentioning Waite), fantasized that this pentacle was a design on Gawains shield.

The Deathly Hallows - Some Speculations

In HBP23, Dumbledore explains to Harry that Lord Voldemort liked to collect trophies, and he preferred objects with a powerful magical history. Four objects from the four founders would, I am sure, have exerted a powerful pull over Voldemorts imagination. These relics, possessing magical properties, having once belonged to four great wizards and witches who sought to educate children in the ways of magic - these Voldemort wished to infuse with fragments of his maimed soul, granting him everlasting life (one of the gifts of the Grail). Fans have speculated that these objects will turn out to correspond to the four Grail Hallows, and their cousins, the Celtic Treasures and the Tarot suits. (See this fan essay in Scribbulus, for example, in which the author Erin Dolmage connected the four founders relics to the Tarot suits.) Hufflepuffs cup might correspond to the Grail, the Celtic cauldron, and the Tarot cup. Slytherins locket could perhaps connect to the Celtic stone or the Tarot coin / pentacledisk. The remaining two founders objects that Voldemort coveted are as yet unknown. Gryffindors sword (his only known relic) is a tempting choice, leaving fans to speculate that Ravenclaws object might be a wand, a spear, a staff, or the like. Voldemort may not have obtained his goal of collecting all four founders relics; Dumbledore, at least, is certain that Gryffindors sword was untouched. But the ones that he did acquire have been defiled by unspeakable evil, tainted with fragments of a murderers soul. Are they what Rowling means by deathly hallows? Whether this speculation is true or not, it seems clear that in the final book, Harry will go on a kind of anti-Grail quest, first seeking out these hallowed objects to purify them, and then denying immortality to The Dark Lord, who waits at the end of the journey as a sort of inverted Fisher King.

Disclaimer: I am not at all an expert in Arthurian lore, Celtic myths, or Tarot cards. In fact, I had never heard of the Grail Hallows and their cousins until Rowlings title inspired some internet research. Thanks to Donna Hosie for pointing me towards the first in a chain of interesting web sites. I also cannot pretend that the above speculations are original. The connections of the final four Horcruxes to the Treasures of the Tuatha de Danaan and the Tarot suits have been made by cleverer fans than I, even before the release of Rowlings final title. My hat is off to them.

(VI) HALLOWS: Many scholars agree that the four hallows carried in the Grail procession are likely derived from the four treasures of the Tuatha de Danaan, the tribe of the great Irish goddess Danu. And there is considerable grounds for the

comparison. The treasures of this early Celtic rite were the Sword of Nuada, the Lia Fail, the Cauldron of Dagda and the Spear of Lugh. Compare these to the broken sword, the silver serving dish, the Grail, and the bleeding Lance as found in Chr tien, and it becomes apparent that the argument is well-founded. Weston has suggested that the hallows can be reduced to the realm of sexual symbolism, with the male principle of the Blade (the Sword and the Lance) and the female principle of the Chalice (the Platter and the Grail), but as the Oxford medievalist attests in David Lodge's Small World, "This business of phallic symbolism is a lot of rot." No, it seems clear that an old Irish or Celtic ritual is the true source of the Hallows. A separate frivolous interpretation also links the four treasures with the suits of the Tarot, where Swords = the Broken Sword, Pentacles = the Serving Dish, Wands = the Bleeding Lance, and Cups = the Grail. The matter of the Sword falls into two main categories, Celtic and Christian. In Celtic lore swords were often believed to possess unique or extraordinary qualities that empowered the hero with superhuman abilities. Magic swords of this type are mentioned in both "The Spoils of Annwn" and "Culhwch and Olwen." In later Grail stories the sword is frequently broken, whereby the mending of the sword represents one of the tasks used to test the mettle of the Grail Knight (Co, Q). Christian stories tend to identify it with the Sword of David. As we are told in the Queste del San Graal, the Sword of David was placed in a ship by Solomon's wife to be sent down the ages until the Grail knights discovered it. The last person who unsheathed the sword, King Parian, was less than worthy. Consequently a blight struck his land and he was later wounded in the thighs and made impotent by the lance. And so the Sword of David lies in wait for Galahad, the symbol of sheer perfection, who eventually finds it and uses it to heal the king and land. Another possible alternative is the sword that Gawain is sent to fetch in Perlesvaus blade used to behead John the Baptist. the

In Chretien, the second treasure, the Platter, is identified as a taill or, or carving dish, made of silver. But in other versions the platter assumes many different forms. At various times it appears as a stone, a paten, a table, a dish with a severed head upon it, or even a stone chair. The most interesting manifestation of the platter, though, would have to be the gaming board in Perlesvaus: [Gawain] looked all around him and saw all the doors shut tight, and then, looking towards the foot of the couch, he could see two candlesticks burning before the chessboard with all the pieces set up; one set was ivory and the other of gold. Sir Gaw ain began to move the ivory men, whereupon the gold pieces countered his moves and checkmated him twice. In the third round Gawain hoped to gain revenge, but seeing that he was heading for defeat once more he broke up the game. Here the board is symbolic of the land and the pieces which move over its surface are the main characters of the Quest, which would explain Gawain's threefold failure; he is not destined to succeed in his quest. Generally speaking the platter is

the most elusive of the four hallows, probably representing a primitive form of the Grail itself. The third treasure, the Holy Grail, is also steeped in ambiguity, though not to the extent of the platter. It is variously described as a cup, chalice, or deep dish. Part of the mystery surrounding the shape and dimensions of the Grail stems from the fact that the word graal is never explained in the early Grail romances. The monk Helinand defined the similar word gradale as meaning scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda, or a wide and slightly deep dish. This was definitely the case in the early romances, where the Grail is said to have served a salmon or pike to the Grail king. Later versions, on the other hand, employ the more conventional description, that of a cup or chalice often associated with the one used by Christ at the Last Supper. The Grail carries with it certain representative traits. One of these properties is the provision of food and drink. When the hero reaches the Grail castle, it is almost always the Grail that provides the sumptuous meal: "The moderate and the gluttonous, both had just enough to eat....Mulberry juice, wine red or white to please the cup of every knight whatever beverage came to mind the knight within his cup would find, all from the Grail's capacity" (W). The occurrence of such a lavish feast in these cases clearly suggests a connection to the horn of plenty or ambrosial cup found in various mythologies. Consequently, the Grail is often perceived as a healing or nurturing vessel. It clearly sustains the inhabitants of the Grail castle and is further accredited with the longevity of the Fisher King. But the fact of the matter is the Grail destroys as readily as it heals. Those chosen few who pass its rigorous tests are transformed, but those who attempt to grasp its meaning before they are ready are purged. Lancelot and Gawain are found to be flawed men in the later versions and are not allowed to commune with the Ultimate Source that the Grail embodies. Generally speaking, the Grail goes hand in hand with transformation. It is the ultimate life-giving and life-sustaining vessel. It is the quintessential reward to the most challenging of quests. Which brings me to the last of the four hallows, the Bleeding Spear/Lance, to my mind the most curious of all the sacred relics. Quite early in the development of the story it comes to be identified with the Lance of Longinus. Christian legend maintains that Longinus was the blind centurion who thrust the spear into Christ's side at the crucifixion. Some of Jesus' blood fell upon his eyes and he was healed. In this station the lance links the wound of the Fisher King to that of Christ. "It is indeed, morally, precisely the wounding of the Keeper of the Hallows

which then takes place," writes Charles Williams. "Man wounds himself. It is an image of the Fall." And though the Lance/Spear later comes to be synonymous with the wounding of the Fisher King, it is also the greatest healing influence of the four Hallows. The spear has a mysterious double-edged quality; it is a spear which both heals and wounds. As Malcolm Godwin notes: The Celtic spear, within the essential Grail myth, renders impotent whosoever it strikes, leaving him in a strange state in which he can neither be healed nor actually die. This 'Dolorous Blow' lays waste his lands and only a hero of exceptional power s and worthiness is able to lift the burden and heal the sufferer by using the selfsame spear that wounded him. CONCLUSION: What we have in the figure of the Fisher King, it seems to me, is an intermediary between two planes of existence, the present and the hereafter. With his intimate ties to the land, he is a symbol of the fructifying force in Nature, but he does not revel in this role. Instead, he is confined to an otherworld domain, surrounded by charmed hallows that only prolong his suffering until the arrival of a hero. In general, the mythic dynamism of Arthurian Romance is the primitive struggle of man to compel and control the force of Nature, the very force on which the Fisher King's life depends. So he represents something of a paradox: he is a remnant of some much older Irish or Celtic god who was overrun by the Arthurian tradition and then incorporated into the stories as the keeper of the ultimate treasure, infused with life so that he might die a preordained death. In modern times the Fisher King has developed into an broad archetype, identified with personal anguish and moral or ideological sterility. His plight has been adapted to many different arenas. In psychology, Robert Johnson has observed that "the fisher king's wounding in the thigh is symbolic of our difficulty in directly sexual matters. But it also represents wounding of other generative functions: one cannot create or produce at one's job, has dried up, or perhaps lacks warmth or attentiveness when tenderness would be appropriate." Movies have been made which address the Fisher King theme, albeit crudely, and numerous authors have used him as a powerful metaphor for modern apathy. From his humble beginnings the Fisher King has acquired an almost unheard of amount of notoriety. There is something about the Fisher King

that appeals to each and every one of us. And so he shall persevere, maybe for all eternity.

Symbols of the Grail Procession

Parsifal: Wer ist der Gral? Gurnemanz: Das sagt sich nicht; doch, du selbst zu ihm erkoren, bleibt dir die Kunde unverloren.

The Grail's secret must be concealed And never by any man revealed ...

[The Elucidation, lines 4-5.]

[Parsifal, Act I]

Introduction
characteristic feature of the medieval Grail romances is the atmosphere of mystery that surrounds the Grail. It is a talisman of which one may not speak, although the knowledge of it may be revealed to those worthy of the revelation. The Grail appears in a procession, details of which differ in various versions of the visit of Gawain, Perceval and others to the Grail castle, in which it is accompanied by other mysterious objects. essie Weston drew attention to the relationship between four of these symbols (sometimes called the Grail Hallows), and the suits of the Tarot. A Tarot pack contains four suits of cards: Cups, Wands, Swords and Dishes (or Pentangles or Pentacles).

Grail
he Grail is variously described as a cup or deep dish. In the earlier Grail romances, the word graal is not explained, perhaps because the readers could be expected to be familiar with the word. Less than fifty years before Chrtien wrote his poem, the monk Helinand defined the similar word gradale as meaning scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda, a wide and slightly deep dish. Only later, in Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie, was the Grail identified with a cup or chalice. ne of the characteristic properties of the Grail is the provision of food and drink. According to Manessier's Continuation, as the Grail procession passes through the hall, the tables are filled on every side with the most delectable dishes. Although Wolfram's Grail is a stone rather than a dish or cup, it too has this property: whatever one stretched one's hand out for in the presence of the Grail, it was waiting, one found it all ready and to hand - dishes warm, dishes cold, newfangled dishes and old favourites, the meat of

beasts both tame and wild ... Clearly the Grail is related to the horn of plenty or ambrosial cup found in various mythologies.

The procession seen by Gawain at the Grail Castle, with the grail (depicted as a ciborium), the bleeding lance and a sword (on the bier).

.S.Loomis held that several of the strange features of the Grail romances had arisen as a result of mistranslation or the misunderstanding of ambiguous words in various texts. He pointed out that the Old French nominative case for both "horn" and "body" were the same: li cors; and he suggested that this might explain the remarkable feature of a graal, or wide and deep dish, containing a single consecrated wafer, the Corpus Christi. He suggested that originally this might have been a magic horn. Another possibility is that this is a development from the body of the dead knight, a feature of Gawain's visits to the Grail castle; in the First Continuation, for example, the body is carried on a bier in the Grail procession.

Spear
he bleeding lance of the Grail castle is another curious feature of the Grail romances. Quite early in the development of the story, it was identified with the lance of Longinus that had pierced the side of Christ. Thus it suggests a link between the wound of the Maimed King, if dealt by the lance, and that of Christ. Originally, however, the bleeding lance was probably a magic weapon. The bleeding is described either as a continuous stream of blood (as in Wolfram) or a single drop (as in Chrtien) or as three drops.

essie Weston concluded that the cup and the lance were sexual symbols, pointing to a relationship between the story of the Grail castle and ancient fertility rites. She noted that, in some of the Gawain versions of the tale, the lance appeared upright in the Grail, so that the cup received the blood. This suggests that the Grail is somewhat larger than a normal cup; in the Perlesvaus, a later development of the story, where the blood also runs into the Grail, Gawain sees a chalice within the Grail. R.S.Loomis drew attention to certain similarities between the lance of the Grail castle and the spear that appears in the tale of the Irish hero Brian, from the Fate of the Children of Turenn. he three sons of Turenn were compelled by the god Lug to fetch for him the spear of King Pisear. When they reached his castle, Brian demanded the spear, at which Pisear attacked him. Brian killed the king and put his courtiers to flight. Then he and his brothers went to the room in which the spear was kept. They found it head down in a cauldron of boiling water, from which it was taken and delivered to Lug. Apparently there is another Irish tale in which a spear stands with its head in a cauldron of blood; and this may be the origin of the bleeding lance.

Sword
nother magic weapon is the sword that appears in most of the accounts of the Grail procession. In some versions, it seems to have been the sword, rather than the lance, that injured the Maimed King, or felled the dead knight, so causing the wasting of the land. The task of the Quester, whether Gawain or Perceval, may be to ask a significant Question, or it may be to mend a broken sword. As students are well aware, the Sword of the Grail romances is a very elusive and perplexing feature. It takes upon itself various forms; it may be a broken sword, the re-welding of which is an essential condition of achieving the quest; it may be a 'presentation' sword, given to the hero on his arrival at the Grail castle, but a gift of dubious value, as it will break, either after the first blow, or in an unspecified peril, foreseen, however, by its original maker. Or it may be the sword with which John the Baptist was beheaded; or the sword of Judas Maccabeus, gifted with self-acting powers; or a mysterious sword as estranges ranges, which may be identified with the the preceding weapon. [J.L.Weston, The Quest of the Holy Grail.]

t has been suggested by various commentators that the motif of the broken sword is derived from an Irish tale in the Finn cycle. The hero Cailte and a companion enter an Otherworld castle where the host was Fergus Fair-hair. The host asked Cailte to repair a broken sword that the Tuatha da Danann had refused to mend. He did so, and also mended a spear and a javelin. Fergus revealed that each of these weapons was destined to destroy one of the enemies of the gods. After three days, Cailte and two companions left with the weapons. They came to a castle of woman where they were attacked by the enemies of the gods; in the battle, each of the three weapons destroyed one of the enemies.

Dish
n Chrtien's account of the Grail procession, it contains a taillor, or carving dish, of silver. In the Didot Perceval there are two of these dishes. In Wolfram's account, there are instead two silver knives; it has been suggested that Wolfram had some difficulty in translating the word taillor, although Jessie Weston noted that two knives were associated with the relic of the Holy Blood at the Abbey of Fescamp, and thus related to the Grail in its Christian form.

Celtic Treasures
The Four Treasures of the Tuatha da Danann
t has been suggested that the symbols of the Grail procession might have been originally among the treasures of the Shining Ones, the Tuatha da Danann, of Irish legend. There is, however, no obvious relationship between the bleeding lance and the wand of the Dagda, nor does the Grail resemble a cauldron: as noted above, in the Grail romances it is described as a dish or cup.

The Thirteen Treasures of Britain

Welsh document from the early 15th century contains a list of thirteen treasures of Britain. If the origin of this list is much older, then it might be a clue to the Celtic origins of some of the symbols of the Grail procession. One of the treasures is the Horn of Brn, which has the property of never being exhausted, one of the many magic vessels of Celtic myth. As early as 1888, Alfred Nutt proposed that the Welsh god Brn was the prototype

of the Fisher King, and since then many writers have identified Brn with Robert de Boron's Bron. he list also includes the dish of Rhydderch (a historic king of Strathclyde in the 6th century) which has the interesting property that it grants whatever food is desired. There is also a cauldron, which seems to be the same one that appears in poem The Spoils of Annwn; it has the property that it will not boil the food of the coward. R.S.Loomis suggested that this might be the distant origin of a feature in the Prose Lancelot, where the Grail serves food to all except Gawain, who had been judged unworthy.

The Cathar Initiation Rite

essie Weston (1850-1928) held the view that central elements of the Grail romances had originated in eyewitness accounts of initiation ceremonies in which certain mysterious symbols played an important part. In 1932, in a cave below the fortress of Montral-deSos near Tarascon, there was found a wall-painting which, it was suggested, was of Cathar origin and dated from the 12th century. It shows a lance, a broken sword, a solar disk, many red crosses and a square panel. The latter contains an inner square. The outer part of the panel, which might represent a table or altar, contains twenty crosses in various forms on a black background; the inner part contains five tear-shaped drops of blood and five white crosses. If the inner part corresponds to the taillor, then we have all four symbols of the Grail procession.

The Wounding and Healing Holy Spear

1. The Bleeding Lance of the Grail Romances 2. Wagner and the Spear 3. The Meaning of the Spear 4. The Sceptre and the Bell
O wunden-wundervoller heiliger Speer! Ich sah dich schwingen von umheiligster Hand! O wounding, wondrous holy Spear! I saw you wielded by unhallowed hand!

The Bleeding Lance of the Grail Romances

he mysteriously bleeding lance appeared in Wagner's medieval sources. It appears not only in the romances of Chrtien and Wolfram but also in other versions of the Grail story. A variant of the story that might have either inspired or been inspired by Chrtien was preserved in the Welsh Mabinogion and later appeared, in French translation, in the Comte de Villemarque's collection Contes populaires des anciens Bretons: this story has the title, Peredur son of Evrawc.

n Perceval a single drop of blood is seen to fall from the lance, as it is carried in the Grail procession, and runs down the hand of the bearer. In Parzival this becomes a stream of blood. In Peredur there are three streams of blood. In the Prose Perceval there are three drops of blood that fall from the lance. In none of these romances does the blood fall into a vessel, as Wagner describes it doing when the relics are united at the end of the opera. In the Perlesvaus, however, Gawain sees the blood running into the Grail, which he sees as a chalice (although in this poem the Grail appears in several different forms). he account of events at the Grail Castle in Peredur is recognisably another version of the visit described in Chrtien's unfinished romance; which contributed to Wolfram's tale of Parzival. The relationships between Perceval (and its so-called Continuations), Peredur, Parzival, Perlesvaus and other romances has been discussed at length by Jessie L. Weston and other authors (see the bibliography for references. These medieval poems and other sources were used by Richard Wagner to make a new synthesis, in which (eventually) the hero was renamed as Parsifal. Unlike the medieval questers Wagner's hero first has to recover the spear (although he does not know the nature of this mission, or even that he has one, until he experiences Kundry's kiss) and then to return it to Monsalvat; so that it can be used to heal Amfortas, after which it is reunited with the Grail. By doing so, Parsifal achieves the twofold resolution of the drama: Amfortas is healed and relieved of his duties and the mystic union of the two relics enables the regeneration of the community.

Above right: the healing of the fisher king. Left: a holy lance was discovered in Antioch cathedral during the First Crusade.

Wagner and the Spear

his new synthesis was not arrived at overnight. Between Wagner's first encounter with Wolfram's poem in 1845 and the completion of his own poem, there elapsed three decades. According to his autobiography Mein Leben the inspiration for Parsifal arrived on Good Friday in 1857, when Wagner made a sketch or scenario that has been lost. At this stage it is unlikely that either the Grail or the spear (as I have discussed elsewhere) played an important role in the story. At the end of August 1865 Wagner developed his scenario into a detailed Prose Draft. It is clear that Wagner struggled with the incorporation of the spear. As with the Grail, there were alternatives to choose between,

or to combine from, different traditions. There was the bleeding spear of the Celtic legends; also the spear of Longinus which had pierced the side of the Saviour on the Cross and the spear of Achilles that had both wounded and healed Telephus.

Right: the Spear of Destiny, to be seen in the Hofberg museum in Vienna. This is one of several spearheads that have been claimed as the spear of Longinus. the pagan Grail had been made into a Christian symbol by medieval writers, Wagner realised that he could make the pagan, bleeding spear into a Christian symbol, drawing a parallel between the wound suffered by Christ and the wound of Anfortas. This identification also led Wagner to think about the pure blood of Christ and the impure blood of Anfortas (later Amfortas). At least some of these ideas occurred to Wagner while he was working on his first Prose Draft; where however there is no suggestion that the spear that belongs with the Grail is the same spear that pierced the side of Christ. But a couple of days later, Wagner noted in his diary: As a relic, the spear goes with the cup; in this is preserved the blood that the spear made to flow from the Redeemer's thigh. The two are complementary. agner considered two alternatives: in the first, the spear is carried by Anfortas in his ill-fated assault on Klingsor, and won from him. In the second, the Grail Knights had not yet gained the spear; Klingsor had found it first. In either case it is a holy relic that belongs with the Grail, and which is used by Klingsor to wound Anfortas (or so it seems, at least; we are not told explicitly that Klingsor struck the blow). As we know, it was the first of these alternatives that Wagner chose, at some time between 1865 and 1877. The recovery of the spear became an important element of the story, replacing the Question motif of the medieval romances and linking together all three acts of Wagner's drama. Finally (perhaps as late as February 1877) Wagner made the identification of the spear wielded by Klingsor with the magic weapon of Mra and his story was complete.

Titurel the pious hero, Ivar Andrsen, bass; Orchestra of the Berlin Staatsoper, conducted by Leo Blech, recorded in 1927. Ogg format, mono, duration 4 min.)

Left: The Holy Spear of Antioch carried by bishop Adhemar of Le Puy into battle against the Saracens.

t should be noted that Wagner deviates from his medieval sources by deliberately locating the wound in the side of Amfortas, not (as in Wolfram's Parzival) in the genitals. Clearly he made this change in order to emphasise the similarity between the two wounds made by the same spear. This choice does not suit Marc Weiner (whose Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination is even more confused about Parsifal than it is about some of Wagner's earlier works), who writes: Amfortas suffers from a wound in the body that, in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal (sic), the literary source for the music drama, is explicitly portrayed as a wound to the loins. Maybe in Wolfram but not in Wagner. This does not prevent Weiner, who never lets the facts (or the libretto) get in the way of his theories, from regarding Amfortas' wound as sexual in nature. He also accepts without question the interpretation of Robert Gutman, in which Amfortas' blood became sinful through sexual contact with Kundry, whom Gutman believed was a depiction of someone racially inferior. Weiner adds, Wagner's works time and again return to the image of a pure race threatened by pollution from breeding with a genetically inferior foreigner. Like Lohengrin, perhaps, son of Parzival? Or the flying Dutchman? It is unfortunate that half-baked ideas like these have come to dominate the academic domain of so-called Wagner scholarship.

The Meaning of the Spear

here has been much speculation about the symbolism of the spear (as there has been about that other relic, the Grail) in Wagner's drama. For Klaus Stichweh (Wissendes Mitleid, in the Bayreuth Festival programme for 1977) the spear symbolises (only) the sin of Amfortas; this overlooks Wagner's explicit connection of the spear with the suffering of Christ. For Carl Dahlhaus (in Richard Wagner's Music Dramas) the spear was to be interpreted as a symbol of compassion, "the reversal of the will" as Schopenhauer understood it. It might be objected that these interpretations are unsatisfactory because they fail to account for the dual nature of the spear. Like the spear of Achilles in the Greek myth of Telephus the holy spear is able both to wound (even to destroy) and to heal the wound that it made. The intention of the person who wields the spear would seem to be important here. he question naturally arises of whether the spear is an active or passive element. In particular, at the end of the second act. Does the destruction of Klingsor's domain (that of world-spanning illusion, Weltenwahn) result from Klingsor's use of the spear in an attempt to destroy Parsifal, rather than from an action of his intended victim? If so, why then did the relic not destroy Klingsor when he used it to wound Amfortas? Was that wound caused, not by Klingsor, but by the spear itself when Amfortas tried to use it as a weapon? If so, it is consistent that another attack with the spear backfires on Klingsor. Wagner's stage directions suggest that Parsifal, in another flash of insight, realises the power of the spear and it is by his action (in making the sign of the Cross) that Klingsor's domain (and not just the sorcerer himself) is destroyed. lrike Kienzle (in her book Das Weltberwindungswerk) identifies the spear with Schopenhauer's concept of "eternal justice" (der ewigen Gerechtigkeit). It is as an instrument of eternal justice that the spear wounds Amfortas when he tries to use it as a weapon, rather than guarding it as a relic. In Schopenhauerian terms, his attempt to injure

another, while deluded by the veil of Maya, results only in an increase in his own suffering. The aggressor bites only his own flesh; tormentor and tormented are one. When Klingsor becomes the aggressor, in this interpretation, then his aggression turns back on himself. As a result then, for Parsifal at least, the veil of Maya (the Weltenwahn of the Upanishads) is rent from top to bottom.

The Sceptre and the Bell

noted above, Wagner wrote that the Grail and the spear were "complementary". Not only in Parsifal but in other treatments of the legend, it was suggested by J.L. Weston, these relics are sexual symbols. She argued that the spear was a masculine element and the cup was a feminine element. Sometimes, of course, a cigar is just a cigar, but in the case of Parsifal there does seem to be a sexual sub-text (although whether it is the sexual sub-text proposed by Marc Weiner is less certain). At one level we see a community that is exclusively male and which, until the final scene in which an exception is made for Kundry, excludes women from its holy place, the Grail Temple. This parallels the situation of Prakriti in Die Sieger who is finally admitted into the monastic community by the Buddha, the Victoriously Perfect, whose compassion for the Chandala girl opens the gate to the final stage of his enlightenment. hese subtexts come together in the final scene of Parsifal when the spiritual hero, whose compassion for the penitent Kundry has opened the gate to the final stage of his enlightenment, brings together the Grail and the spear. Shortly before he died Richard Wagner told Cosima that he did not need to write Die Sieger (it was now too late, in any case) because in Parsifal he had expressed his idea of community. This has led some to suggest that Parsifal is fundamentally misogynistic. Yet, in the last paragraph that Wagner wrote, he returned to the subject of the Buddha's admission of women into his community and called it a beautiful feature of the legend. So perhaps, just as Prakriti was the first of many sisters to become a Buddhist nun, so is Kundry the first of many women who will be called to the service of the Grail, thus bringing a healthy balance to Monsalvat. second meaning that can be assigned to the reunification of the two relics and symbols relates to Wagner's aesthetic theories. The spear can be interpreted as the masculine element of poetry and the Grail as the feminine element of music. The blood that (in the final text although not in the 1865 draft) flows from the tip of the spear and falls into the cup represents the insemination of music by poetry in order to create the artwork. This metaphor was employed by Wagner in his treatise Opera and Drama of 1851: ... that in which understanding is akin to feeling is the purely human, that which constitutes the essence of the human species as such. In this purely human are nurtured both the manly and the womanly, which become the human being for the first time when united through love. The necessary impetus of the poetic understanding in writing poetry is therefore love, -- and specifically the love of man for woman; yet not the

frivolous, carnal love in which man only seeks to satisfy his appetite, but the deep yearning to know himself redeemed from his egoism through his sharing in the rapture of the loving woman; and this yearning is the creative moment of understanding. The necessary donation, the poetic seed that only in the most ardent transports of love can be produced by his noblest forces -- this procreative seed is the poetic intent (die dichterische Absicht) which brings to the glorious, loving woman, music, the matter that she must bear. his metaphor can be found in several of Wagner's works. In the conclusion of Parsifal it can be considered as one of the meanings that are carried by the reunion of the two relics. Wagner's last music-drama is not only about sex, however, nor is it only about the union of poetry and music in the artwork. It is also, or so many commentators have claimed, about religion. On the religious or spiritual plane the central theme of the drama is Parsifal's progress towards total enlightenment. The reunion of the two holy relics after one of them is returned to the desecrated sanctuary by Parsifal can be seen as a metaphor for this final enlightenment, in the following way. discussed in a separate article, Wagner was interested in Buddhism. One of the three major branches of Buddhism and the last of the three to emerge is the form with highly developed rituals, which is known both as Tantryna and Vajryna. The second of these names indicates the importance of a ritual object called (in Sanskrit) a vajra. In Tibet, where this became the dominant form of Buddhism, it is called rdo rje. It is a sceptre with five closed prongs at each end. In Buddhist legend, the origin of the sceptre was the thunderbolt wielded by the Vedic god Indra (which parallels the weapon of the thunder-god in other pantheons, such as Thor, Wagner's Donner). The legend tells of how the Buddha took a thunderbolt from Indra (presumably a metal statue) and bent the prongs until they were closed. The sceptre is symmetric and the two ends respectively symbolise the virtues of wisdom and compassion (which are prominent in Vajryna as they were in Mahyna Buddhism, from which Vajryna developed). Thus the sceptre, in isolation, symbolises the indissoluble union of wisdom and compassion. In its entirety it symbolises the active, masculine aspect of enlightenment often equated with skillful means, great compassion, or bliss. The complement to the ritual sceptre is the bell (ghanta in Sanskrit, dril bu in Tibetan), which is regarded as a feminine symbol and which represents the perfection of wisdom. In Buddhist Tantric rituals the masculine sceptre and the feminine bell are used together. The sceptre is associated with the right side of the body and it is held in the right hand. The bell is associated with the left side of the body and it is held in the left hand. When united these ritual objects symbolise enlightenment; which might be another meaning of the ritual objects that are brought together in the temple at Monsalvat. The bell stands for transcendental wisdom, praja [in Sanskrit], which sees the true nature of all phenomena. That this nature is no-nature -- an open dimension, ungraspable, and devoid of any fixed, inherent existence -- is symbolised by the empty space enclosed by the bell... The vajra stands for compassion, which is expressed as skilful means (Sanskrit, upaya). This is the activity of wisdom. Seeing that living beings suffer

unnecessarily because of their deluded perceptions of life, and recognising that those 'living beings' are not ultimately separate from himself or herself, the Bodhisattva endowed with transcendental wisdom is impelled to act to help the suffering world. The Bodhisattva does this by practising the perfections. Thus the vajra stands for the practice of generosity, ethics, patience, effort and meditation; the bell represents the wisdom with which these first five perfections are imbued. Vessantara, The Vajra and the Bell, 2001, page 36

The spear as a magic symbol The wounding and healing of Telephus

Footnote 1: Although, as Wagner later admitted, it was not on Good Friday that his inspiration arrived; but a spring morning soon after Richard and Minna moved into the Asyl, the cottage beside the Wesendonck Villa, on 28 April 1857. It was only the stillness of the Asyl garden which felt in his memory like a Good Friday, it had not been Good Friday in fact. [Cosima's Diaries, entry for 13 January 1878.] Footnote 2: We know of at least one source in which Wagner read about this branch of Buddhism, as it was practised in Tibet and Mongolia. In October 1858 he read Die Religion des Buddha und ihre Entstehung by Carl Friedrich Koeppen. The book can be seen in Wagner's library at Haus Wahnfried. Footnote 3:The title Bodhisattva means literally "one whose body is bodhi", where the Buddhist term bodhi can be translated either as enlightenment or awakening. (Burnouf explained Bodhisattva as follows: celui qui possde l'essence de la bodhi. Koeppen gave the definition: Derjenige, dessen Wesenheit die hchste Weisheit (bodhi) geworden.) A Bodhisattva is one who follows the path of enlightenment (from life to life and from world to world) that passes through ten stages of progressive awakening. In the final stages the Bodhisattva is in the world, where he chooses to remain for the sake of all sentient beings, but no longer of the world. On passing beyond the tenth stage the Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha.

Nietzsche on Parsifal
riedrich Nietzsche had turned against the idol of his youth long before he heard the Prelude to Parsifal for the first time in Monte-Carlo in January 1887. Despite his apostasy, Nietzsche was greatly moved: When I see you again, I shall tell you exactly what I then understood. Putting aside all irrelevant questions (to what end such music can or should serve?), and speaking from a purely aesthetic point of view, has Wagner ever written anything better? The supreme psychological perception and precision as regards what can be said, expressed, communicated here, the extreme of concision and directness of form, every nuance of feeling conveyed epigrammatically; a clarity of musical description that reminds us of a

shield of consummate workmanship; and finally an extraordinary sublimity of feeling, something experienced in the very depths of music, that does Wagner the highest honour; a synthesis of conditions which to many people - even "higher minds" - will seem incompatible, of strict coherence, of "loftiness" in the most startling sense of the word, of a cognisance and a penetration of vision that cuts through the soul as with a knife, of sympathy with what is seen and shown forth. We get something comparable to it in Dante, but nowhere else. Has any painter ever depicted so sorrowful a look of love as Wagner does in the final accents of his Prelude? [Letter to Peter Gast (Heinrich Kselitz), January 1887] month later, Nietzsche wrote to his sister: I cannot think of it without feeling violently shaken, so elevated was I by it, so deeply moved. It was as if someone were speaking to me again, after many years, about the problems that disturb me - naturally not supplying the answers I would give, but the Christian answer, which after all has been the answer of stronger souls than the last two centuries of our era have produced. When listening to this music one lays Protestantism aside as a misunderstanding and also, I will not deny it, other really good music, which I have at other times heard and loved, seems, as against this, a misunderstanding!

n May 1888, Nietzsche produced his brilliant tirade against Wagner, Der Fall Wagner (The Case of Wagner). Here he wrote that the sensuousness of Wagner's last work made it his greatest masterpiece: In the art of seduction, Parsifal will always retain its rank - as the stroke of genius in seduction. - I admire this work; I wish I had written it myself; failing that, I understand it. - Wagner never had better inspirations than in the end. Here the cunning in his alliance of beauty and sickness goes so far that, as it were, it casts a shadow over Wagner's earlier art - which now seems too bright, too healthy. Do you understand this? Health, brightness having the effect of a shadow? almost of an objection? - To such an extent have we become pure fools. - Never was there a greater master in dim, hieratic aromas - never was a man equally expert in all small infinities, all that trembles and is effusive, all the feminisms from the idioticon of happiness! - Drink, O my friends, the philtres of this art! Nowhere will you find a more agreeable way of enervating your spirit, of forgetting your manhood under a rosebush. - Ah, this old magician! This Klingsor of all Klingsors! How he thus wages war against us! us, the free spirits! How he indulges every cowardice of the modern soul with the tones of magic maidens! - Never before has there been such a deadly hatred of the search for knowledge! - One has to be a cynic in order not to be seduced here; one has to be able to bite in order not to worship here. Well, then, you old seducer, the cynic warns you - cave canem.

Joseph Campbell on Parsifal

n the Creative Mythology volume of his The Masks of God (1968), the mythologist Joseph Campbell traced how artists since the Middle Ages have used myth, which Wagner described as an inexhaustible source for the poet. Campbell followed trails that lead from the works of the medieval poets Gottfried von Strasburg and Wolfram von Eschenbach to the handling of the same myths by Richard Wagner and James Joyce. The extract below is a digression in the middle of a longer discussion of the Gawain and Orgeluse section of Wolfram's Parzival. Campbell explains how the second act of Wagner's Parsifal is related to the events of book XII in Wolfram's poem and how it differs. He begins by referring to the brief mention of Parzival in the story of Orgeluse; who had offered herself to the hero if he would be her champion, an offer that he politely declined.

...We are to hear no more from Wolfram of this encounter of Parzival and Orgeluse. Wagner, however, devotes to it his entire second act. Act I is at the Temple of the Grail; Act III is to be there again. In Act II, however, the curtain rises upon Klingsor, sitting high in the magic tower of his Castle of Marvels, watching in his necromantic mirror (Wagner's adaption of the radiant radar-pillar) the unwitting approach of Parsifal, who here is still the Great Fool. Klingsor's castle and Titurel's Temple of the Grail are in Wagner's legend opposed, as evil and good, dark and light, in a truly Manichean dichotomy. They are not, as in the earlier work, equally enspelled by a power alien to both. Moreover, Kundry, in whom Wagner has fused the chief female roles and characters of the legend (Orgeluse, Cundrie, and Signe, together with something of the Valkyrie, a touch of Goethe's EwigWeibliches, and a great deal of the Gnostic Sophia , is herself enspelled by Klingsor and, against her will, his creature, yearning to be free. It was she, as his creature and agent -- not, as in Wolfram's work, in her own interest, against his -- who seduced the Grail King, Amfortas. And it had been when he was lying heedless in her toils, like Samson seduced by Delilah, that Klingsor, stealing his unguarded lance -the same that had pierced Christ's side -delivered a wound that would never heal until a saviour -- the prophesied "guileless

fool" -- should appear and touch it with the selfsame point. Such a wound suggests, obviously, the wound of the arrow of love, which can be healed only by a touch of the one from whom the arrow came. In Wagner's work, however, the allegory is of lust and violence transformed by innocence to compassion (eros and thanatos to agape)... In Wolfram's epic, Trevrizent states that when the planets are in certain courses, or the moon at a certain phase, the king's wound pains terribly and the poison on the point of the spear becomes hot. Then, he declares, they lay that point on the wound and it draws the chill from the king's body, which hardens to glass all around the spear, like ice. There is the Greek legend, furthermore, of the hero Telephos [Latin form: Telephus], wounded by Achilles in the upper thigh with a wound that will not heal. An oracle declares, He that wounded shall also heal!, and after a long and painful quest Telephos finds Achilles and is healed. Or, according to another reading, the cure is effected by the weapon: the remedy being scraped off the point and sprinkled on the wound. It is an old old mythic theme related to that of Medusa, whose blood from the left side brought death, but from the right, healing. Or we may think of the elder Isolt and poison of Morold's sword. In Wolfram's Parzival it plays but a minor part: [it] is only once mentioned by Trevrizent. And the lance, moreover, is there in the Castle of the Grail, not Clinschor's palace. Wagner, in contrast, has elevated the lance theme to the leading role in his opus, in his own mind equating the poison with Tristan's wound. And in fact, he had been still at work on his Tristan when the idea of a Parsifal first occurred to him; still at the height, moreover, of his own Tristan affair with Mathilde Wesendonck, and even, even living, together with his tortured wife, Minna, in a house named the "Asyl" that had been provided by Mathilde and her patient spouse, Otto, adjacent to their home. The year, as we read in Wagner's own story of his life, was 1857; the month, April; and the day [Wagner claimed] -- Good Friday. Richard and Minna had arrived the previous September in Zurich, and it was there, in the "Asyl", as the tells, that he finished, that winter, Act I of Siegfried and commenced work seriously on Tristan.

Now came [he states] beautiful spring weather, and on Good Friday I awoke to find the sun shining brightly into this house for the first time; the little garden was blooming and the birds singing, and at last I could sit out on the parapeted terrace of the little dwelling and enjoy the longed-for tranquillity that seemed so fraught with promise. Filled with this sentiment, I suddenly said to myself that this was Good Friday and recalled how meaningful this had seemed to me in Wolfram's Parzival. Ever since that stay in Marienbad, where I had conceived Die Meistersinger and Lohengrin, I had not taken another look at that poem; now its ideality came to me in overwhelming form, and from the idea of Good Friday I quickly sketched out an entire drama in three acts.

Above: The "Asyl", on a green hill in the Enge district of Zurich.

Already in Tannhuser, 1842-1844, the main lines of Wagner's interpretation of the Grail themes had been anticipated. The "Venusberg Bacchanal" is there a prelude to

Klingsor's Garden of Enchantment, and the song of the poet Tannhuser in celebration of the love grotto, altogether in the spirit of a Tristan:
So that my yearning may forever burn, I quicken myself forever at that spring.

However, the song there assigned to Wolfram as the rival singer in the song contest is (ironically) a paean to love as a heavenly gift -- not at all "right through the middle"2, between black and white, sky and earth:
Thou comest as come from God, And I follow at respectful distance.

Two years after his Good Friday morning inspiration in the roof tower of the "Asyl", Wagner was at work in Lucerne, in May 1859, on the last act of his Tristan, when the analogy of Tristan's wound with the wound of Amfortas in the opera yet to be written filled him with an appalled realization of the task he had assigned himself. What a devilish business!, he wrote at that time in a letter to Mathilde. Imagine, in Heaven's name, what has happened! Suddenly it has become hideously clear to me: Amfortas is my Tristan of Act III in a state of inconceivable intensification... Below: The daughters of Mra, lord In short: in Wagner's recognition of the wound of of love and death, attempt to seduce the Grail king as the same as that of Tristan -- with the Lord Buddha as he seeks total his Parsifal then standing for an idealized, released enlightenment. and releasing state of sunlike, boyish innocence -there is a reflex of his own entangled life, with loyalty to anyone or anything but himself the last thought in his mind or strain of truth in his heart. His Parsifal of Act II is still the nature boy of Act I, has gone through no ordeal of theological disillusionment or entry into knighthood, is unmarried, in fact knows nothing yet of either love or life, and is simply -- to put it in so many words -a two hundred pound bambino with a tenor voice. The baritone Klingsor, gazing into his mirror, sees the innocent approaching, jung und dumm, and like the Indian god of love and death3, tempter of the Buddha, conjures up, to undo the saving hero, a spectacle of damsels in a garden of enchantment, rushing about, all in disarray, as though suddenly startled from sleep. But, like the Buddha on the immovable spot, sitting beneath the Bo-tree, indifferent to both the allure of sex and the violence of weapons (unlike the Lord Buddha, however, in that he is not full, but empty, of knowledge), Parsifal, the guileless fool, simply has no idea of what these simpering women might be. How sweet your scent!, he sings to them. Are you flowers?.

Kundry tells him of his father's fame and mother's death; of how she knew his father and mother, and has known himself since childhood (another Brnnhilde to a Siegfried); tells him it was she who named him Parsi-fal, the "Pure Fool", and, inviting him to her mothering arms, plants a kiss full on the boy's mouth with a fervor that fills him first with intense terror, but then ... with an appalled realization of the sense of Amfortas' wound: not, that is to say, with passion for the female, but with compassion for the male!
Amfortas! [he cries] The wound! The wound! It is burning, now, in my heart. The wound I beheld bleeding: It is bleeding now, within me.

Well, that is hardly Wolfram von Eschenbach! Klingsor, like the tempter of the Buddha, now changing from his character as lord of desire to his other as lord of death, appears with the precious lance in hand, which with a curse he flings. But again as in the legend of the Buddha, where the weapons of the lord of death, though flung at the saviour, never strike him, when the great spear reaches Parsifal it hangs floating overhead; he simply makes the sign of the Cross, reaches up, takes hold of it, and will bear it now to Amfortas (Act III) to heal the sorrowful wound; and as from an earthquake the Castle and Garden of Enchantment disappear, the damsels collapse to the ground like faded flowers (see the Buddha's "graveyard vision"), and the curtain falls. Footnote 1: Divine Wisdom, fallen (or enspelled) through ignorance; entrapped in the toils of this world illusion, of which -- ironically -- her own captured energy is the creative force. [Author's note] Footnote 2: "Right through the middle" was Wolfram's explanation of the name Parzival. [Editor's note] Footnote 3: He means the deva Mra, who, with his army and his daughters, tried to prevent the Buddha from achieving total enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. There are many similar accounts of this struggle in Buddhist texts. For example, the anonymous Apadanatthakatha contains these lines: The wrathful Mra, unable to contain his surge of anger, hurled his discus towards the future Buddha. This weapon remained standing like a canopy of flowers above the one who was absorbed in meditation on the different perfections. This Is War Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Fan Video Exciting Narnia News and the Deeper Meaning of The Silver Chair and Harry Potter

The Deeper Meaning of the Quest for the Deathly Hallows

September 26, 2010 by phoenixweasley Most of the information in the following blog post is can be found in my book, The Lord of the Hallows: Christian Symbolism and Themes in J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter. There

are many new tidbits to be found here as well, so even if you have read my book, theres more new information to discover in this post. Enjoy! Have you ever wondered about the deeper meaning of the Deathly Hallows symbol? First we must answer the question, What are hallows?

What is Albus Perceval Wulfric Brian Dumbledore looking at in this still from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? The noun hallow means a holy person or saint. Hallows is a word that refers to the shrines or relics of saints. The verb to hallow means to make holy, to sanctify, to purify or to honor as holy, to regard and treat with reverence or awe as in the Lords Prayer: Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name The October 31st celebration of Halloween is also known as All Hallows Eve, or the Eve of All Saints. Then of course there is the Christian mythology of the quest for the Hallows of the Holy Grail in the Arthurian legends. Typically, the Grail Hallows are identified as: 1. the Sword of King David or, (alternately) the Sword that beheaded John Baptist 2. the Dish of the Last Supper 3. the Holy Grail Cup 4. the Spear of Longinus (also referred to as the Spear of Destiny)

The Four Grail Hallows of Arthurian Legend. When I first saw this representation of the Grail Hallows I thought of the triangular Deathly Hallows symbol. The cup, dish, and the spear are part of a larger collection of objects known as the Arma Christi, or Articles of the Crucifxion of Christ. When the title of the final Harry Potter novel was released, I immediately thought of the Grail Hallows and their correspondences with the four suits of the Tarot (swords, disks, cups, and wands), then looked for parallels in Harrys world. I expected the Sword of Gryffindor to play an important role in the final book, and it did. The dish or disk has a parallel in the Locket of Slytherin, and the cup is present as the Cup of Hufflepuff. But what of the spear? I examined the parallel with the four suits of the Tarot, and realized that a wand would be a suitable quest object in this story about wizards. I expected the Spear of Destiny would have a parallel as the Wand of Destiny in the wizarding world, and when the seventh novel was released, I discovered that this was indeed the case.

The Spear of Destiny and the Holy Grail Cup of Arthurian Legend have their origins in the Crucifixion of Christ The legend of the Spear of Destiny developed from a passage in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus is found dead on the cross: Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. (John 19:34, NRSV) Tradition derived from the non-canonical Gospel of Nicodemus gave this Roman soldier a name: Gaius Cassius Longinus. A sculpture of the legendary saint by the brilliant Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) can be seen in Saint Peters Basilca in Rome. Longinus is depicted holding the Holy Lance in his right hand.

This sculpture of St. Longinus is located in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican In 326 A.D. St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, discovered relics thought to be the Arma Christi while on a pilgrimage in Jerusalem. Among the relics were the True Cross of Christs crucifixion, the crown of thorns, the pillar at which Christ was scourged, and the Holy Lance. A legend later associated with this Holy Lance claimed

that whoever possessed it would be able to conquer the world. A group of knights found a lance believed to be the Lance of Longinus beneath St. Peters Cathedral in Antioch during the First Crusade. Possession of the alleged Holy Lance spurred the crusaders on to victory. Harry Potter enthusiasts should notice that Antioch Peverell is the name of one of the three brothers who once possessed the Deathly Hallows. Antioch was the brother who wielded the Elder Wand, also known as the Wand of Destiny. Throughout history there have been many legends surrounding the relics that were thought to be the Lance of Longinus, the Holy Lance that came to be known as The Spear of Destiny. Likewise in the fictional wizarding world of Harry Potter there were many legends surrounding the Elder Wand. Like the would-be conquerors throughout history who thought that the army who possessed the Spear of Destiny would be invincible, in Harrys world, the wizard who possessed the Elder Wand was thought to be unbeatable. One candidate for the title of Holy Lance, allegedly the spear that was found by St. Helena and once belonged to Constantine the Great, was possessed by the Holy Roman Emperors. It was believed to have contained one of the nails used in the crucifixion. This lance was called the Hofburg Spear, and it was kept in Austrias Hofburg Museum until Adolf Hitler had it removed.

The Hofburg Lance was believed to be the Spear of Destiny. On March 12, 1938 Hitler went to the Hofburg Museum to visit the supposed Holy Lance on the very same day that Nazi Germany took control of Austria. Hitler believed this relic was truly the Spear of Destiny, and possession of it would make him invincible. On October 13, 1938 Nazi troops moved the Hofburg Spear from Vienna to Nuremberg where it was on display at St. Katherines Church for much of the Second World War.

During the Allied Forces bombing of Germany the spear was moved to a secure underground bunker in Nuremberg. It is interesting to note that in Harrys world, the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, who was obsessed with the Wand of Destiny, was kept in a prison called Nurmengard. The Hofburg Spear came into the hands of U. S. troops under the command of General Patton on April 30, 1945 at 3:00 p.m. when Nuremburg Castle was captured. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 at 3:30 p.m., just a half hour after he lost his Spear of Destiny. The lance was returned to the Hofburg Museum in January 1946, where it has remained until this day. Note that Hitlers defeat takes place in 1945, the same year that Dumbledore defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald and became the new owner of the Wand of Destiny. When asked if it was a coincidence that Grindelwald was defeated in 1945, Rowling said, No. It amuses me to make allusions to things that were happening in the Muggle world (Anelli, 16 July 2005) Hitlers obsession with the Spear of Destiny may have been the result of his passion for the operas of German composer Richard Wagner. Wagners opera Parsifal, composed in 1882 was one of Hitlers favorites. The story of the opera is about Parsifal (known as Percival in the English versions of the tale), who is one of the knights who is questing for the Grail Hallows. The operas plot is partially derived from Parzival, a German Medieval romance written in 1202-1210 by the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach. In the opera, the Spear of Destiny is glorified. Wolframs Parzival differs from Wagners opera in many ways, most notably in the portrayal of the Grail itself. Wagners Holy Grail is the traditional cup that one would expect, but in Wolframs version of the tale, the Holy Grail is a stone. Why Wolfram chose to portray the Grail as a stone rather than as a cup was a mystery that perplexed scholars for many centuries. A recent piece of scholarship may have solved that mystery. In the book Gemstone of Paradise: The Holy Grail in Wolframs Parzival, author G. Ronald Murphy, a Jesuit priest, explains that the grail stone in Wolframs romance was probably an altar stone, symbolic of the stone that was rolled across the entrance of Jesuss tomb before the resurrection. Father Murphy thought that Wolfram may have been inspired to imagine the Holy Grail as a stone because of his encounter with a portable altar of the type used on the crusades. This small altar was a container for holy relics (hallows), as well as holding the consecrated bread of the Eucharist inside it beneath the removable altar stone.

This is a type of portable altar used during the Crusades. Father Murphy translated the Latin inscription on one such an altar as follows: The altar of Christs cross is one with this table, and this is therefore the proper place for the sacrifice of the victim who secures life. He later wrote, This is the wood and the stone that guarantee the passage of Good Friday to Easter Sunday, death to life. The portable altar, and perhaps this very portable altar, is Wolframs special stone of Resurrection, the phoenix stone in Wolframs language (Murphy 185) Indeed, this is how Wolfram describes the stone. In A. T. Hattos English translation of Parzival, the passage describing the powers of the Grail Stone, or Stone of Resurrection, reads as follows: By virtue of this Stone the Phoenix is burned to ashes, in which he is rebornThus does the Phoenix moult his feathers! Which done, it shines dazzling bright and lovely as before. (Parzival 239) According to Wolfram, the phoenixs power of Resurrection is from the power of the Grail Stone. In Harry Potter, Dumbledore hides the Deathly Hallow known as the Resurrection Stone within the Golden Snitch, a physical representation of the winged solar disk, a phoenix symbol. One symbol of resurrection is hidden inside of another.

"I Open at the Close" fanart by Gold Seven Wolfram von Eschenbach was known to have an interest in alchemy. In alchemical language the Holy Grail, or phoenix stone, was in fact the Philosophers Stone. The Medieval tales of the quest for the Holy Grail, like the alchemists path to the creation of the Philosophers Stone, is symbolic of the pursuit of spiritual perfection. That J. K. Rowling is aware of the connection between Wolframs Grail Stone and the alchemical Philosophers Stone is suggested in a footnote on page 99 of Rowlings The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Here, Rowling prompts her readers to make the connection between the Philosophers Stone and the Resurrection Stone from The Tale of the Three Brothers: Many critics believe that Beedle was inspired by the Philosophers Stone, which makes the immortality-inducing Elixir of Life, when creating this stone that can raise the dead. (TBB 99) I had developed my theory of Parzivals Grail Stone as the inspiration for the Resurrection Stone Deathly Hallow in 2007, before The Tales of Beedle the Bard was published. When reading Rowlings footnote from page 99 in December of 2008, I was delighted. I see this footnote as evidence that my theory of the hallows is a plausible one. Two of the three Deathly Hallows of Rowlings fictionthe Wand of Destiny and the Resurrection Stoneseem to have been inspired by the Grail Hallows of Arthurian legend. The legendary knight Parzival, or Perceval, was the hero of many Medieval romances, one of which was La Folie Perceval. Perceval in this version of the tale was thought to have been influenced by the character of Payne Peveril in Fulke le Fitz Waryn (1260 A.D.). A Welsh poem called Peveril also featured a character similar to Perceval. Perhaps the name Peverell (the surname of the three brothers who possessed the

Deathly Hallows) may have been derived from Peveril. Antioch Peverell was the master of the Elder Wand, and Cadmus Peverell held the Resurrection Stone. But what of the third Deathly Hallow, the Invisibility Cloak of Harrys ancestor Ignotus Peverell? For the answer, perhaps we must turn to the ancient mythology of the British Isles.

Hermione discovers the tomb of Harry's ancestor Ignotus Peverell in Godric's Hollow. The legend of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain also known as the Thirteen Hallows of Britain describes an impressive collection of magical objects that would not seem out of place in Harrys world. The twelfth treasure, for instance, is a magical chessboard with living chess pieces, not unlike the Wizards Chess game that Ron Weasley is so fond of playing.

"I'll be a knight," said Ron. The thirteenth hallow in this collection is known as The Mantle of Arthur with the power to make the wearer invisible. This is very much like the Invisibility Cloak that was given to Harry by Dumbledore during his first Christmas at Hogwarts, the cloak that is the third of the Deathly Hallows.

Harry received the Invisibility Cloak for Christmas during his first year at Hogwarts. Rather than four Grail Hallows or thirteen Hallows of Britain, Rowling creates a trinity of Deathly Hallows, represented by a vertical line and circle contained within a triangle.

The Deathly Hallows symbol as it appears in the film. This is the symbol that was mistaken for the Peverell coat of arms by Marvolo Gaunt. (HBP 207) The vertical line represents the Elder Wand, or Wand of Destiny, which is allpowerful. The circle represents the stone with the power of resurrection, and finally, the triangle represents the cloak with the power to make the wearer invisible. Thus, the three Deathly Hallows are that which is all-powerful, the power of resurrection, and the presence that is invisible. In Christianity, this could symbolize the Holy Trinity: the allpowerful Father, the resurrected Son, and invisible presence of the Holy Spirit.

The equilateral triangle symbolizes the Holy Trinity of Christianity. The circle in Christian symbolism represents eternity because it has no beginning and no end. (Luna Lovegood explains this on page 587 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.) A bright ring, the circular halo, is used to represent sanctity in Christian art.

The circular halo represents sanctity. The circle represents eternity in Christian art.

The Celtic symbol of the Holy Trinity combines the triangle and circle in one symbol to represent the Triune God.

This symbol which explains the Holy Trinity is quite similar to the Deathly Hallows symbol. In addition to the Trinitarian symbolism of the Deathly Hallows, in the Harry Potter series there are a trio of protagonists on a quest, not unlike the trio of knights who find the Grail in the Medieval Christian romance The Quest of the Holy Grail. Galahad, Perceval, and Bors are the three knights who find the Grail.

Galahad, Perceval, and Bors find the Chapel of the Holy Grail.

Galahad, the story's Christ figure, is surrounded by lilies, which symbolize his purity.

Notice that the third angel is holding the Spear of Destiny and the Dish.

Perceval and Bors complete the Trio of knights who achieve the quest for the Grail Hallows. Galahad is identified as a symbol of Christ in the narrative of The Quest of the Holy Grail. He is compared to the lily of purity and the true rose, the flower of strength and healing with the tint of fire. The nature of his quest is a spiritual one which ends in his death after finding the Holy Grail. The angels carry him up to heaven along with the Holy Grail and the Spear of Destiny. Harry Potter is the character in Rowlings saga that is most like Galahad. His quest is a spiritual one which involves self-sacrifice: he

experiences a kind of death and resurrection that saves the wizarding world. Just as the Grail and Lance are taken up to Heaven, never to be seen again, Harry deliberately loses the Resurrection Stone in the forest and also renounces the power of the Elder Wand. The story ends with Harry declaring his intention to return the Wand of Destiny to Dumbledores tomb where it cannot be used again. Galahads companion Perceval triumphs over temptations of the flesh in his many adventures, which include being tempted by the Great Serpent, Satan, in the form of a beautiful temptress.

Perceval is tempted by Satan in the form of a beautiful woman. He is saved from the temptation to sin when he beholds the "red cross that was inlaid in the hilt" of his sword. Percevals sword, like the Sword of Gryffindor, takes the shape of the Cross, the symbol of Satans ultimate defeat.

Ron drew the Sword of Gryffindor, which appeared as a "great silver cross" in the forest pool, to destroy the Locket of Slytherin Horcrux, thus destroying a fragment of the wicked soul of that Great Serpent, Voldemort. Perceval also rescued a lions cub from certain death when he struck the head of the serpent that was trying to devour it. Perceval was then befriended by the King of Beasts. The lion, of course, is a symbol of Christ.

Perceval decapitates the serpent. This has an obvious parallel in Harry Potter: Neville vs. Nagini. Bors, unlike Perceval, faced intellectual temptations on the quest. He had to make difficult decisions concerning moral dilemas, as when he had to decide whether to rescue his beloved brother Sir Lionel or an innocent maiden who was being abducted by an evil knight. He made the correct decision to rescue the the defenseless girl rather than saving his warrior brother. Bors is most like Hermione, the thinker of the heroic Trio. Together the three knights Galahad, Perceval, and Bors, and the three young wizards Harry, Ron, and Hermione represent the spirit, body, and mind, the soul triptych that John Granger first identified in his excellent book The Hidden Key to Harry Potter. In The Quest for the Holy Grail there is another important parallel with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Galahad, Percival, and Bors were wandering through a forest when they saw a white hart with its four attendant lions. The three knights followed the white stag, which led them to a chapel where the Mass was being sung by a holy hermit. Inside the little church the four lions transformed into the four living creatures that symbolize the four evangeliststhe man (St. Matthew), the eagle (St. John), the lion (St. Mark), and the bull (St. Luke). The white stag transformed into a man enthroned as Christ the King. The hermit explained the symbolism of the miracle that the knights had witnessed: For to you has Our Lord revealed His secrets and His hidden mysteries, in part indeed today; for in changing the Hart into a heavenly being, in no way mortal, He showed the transmutation that He underwent upon the Cross: cloaked there in the mortal garment of this human flesh, dying, he conquered death, and recovered for us eternal life. This is most aptly figured by the Hart. For just as the Hart rejuvinates itself by shedding part of its hide and coat, so did Our Lord return from death to life when he cast off his mortal

hide, which was human flesh He took in the Blessed Virgins womb.The Quest of the Holy Grail (244) It is only after they have had the vision of the transformation of the white stag that the three knights are able to find the Holy Grail. In The Grail: Quest for the Eternal, John Matthews explains the symbolism of the white stag with relationship to the Holy Grail quest: To reach the temple of the Grail, the knights who set out from Camelot must undergo many tests and experience terrible ordeals. But often, when the way seems darkest, the enigmatic white stag or hermit figure appears, to lead them forward through the mazes of forest and hill. In medieval iconography the stag was identified with Christ and the souls thirst for God, which accounts for its appearance in this context. (Matthews 88) The appearance of the White Stag in the Quest for the Holy Grail has a direct parallel in the appearance of the mysterious Silver Doe in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have had no success in destroying the Horcruxes until the Silver Doe appears to lead Harry to the forest pool when the Sword of Gryffindor lay hidden beneath the ice. Intrigued by this blog post? You can read more in The Lord of the Hallows: Christian Symbolism and Themes in J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter by Denise