The
Fisher King, or the
Wounded King, figures in Arthurian legend as the latest in a line charged with keeping the
Holy GrailAccording to Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous powers...
. Versions of his story vary widely, but he is always wounded in the legs or
groinIn human anatomy, the groin areas are the two creases at the junction of the torso with the legs, on either side of the pubic area. A pulled groin muscle usually refers to a painful injury sustained by straining the hip adduction muscle....
, and incapable of moving on his own. When he is injured, his
kingdomThe person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch. It was a common form of government in the world during the ancient and medieval times. A Monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged with an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or...
suffers as he does, his impotence affecting the fertility of the land and reducing it to a barren
WastelandThe Wasteland is a Celtic motif that ties the barrenness of a land with a curse that must be lifted by a hero. It occurs in Irish mythology and French Grail romances, and hints of it may be found in the Welsh Mabinogion....
. Little is left for him to do but
fishFishing is the activity of catching fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
in the river near his castle
CorbenicCorbenic is the name of the castle of the Holy Grail in the Lancelot-Grail cycle and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur...
. Knights travel from many lands to heal the Fisher King, but only the chosen can accomplish the feat. This is
PercivalPercival or Perceval is one of King Arthur's legendary Knights of the Round Table. In Welsh literature his story is allotted to the historical Peredur...
in the earlier stories; in the later versions, he is joined by
GalahadSir Galahad is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. He is perhaps the knightly embodiment of Jesus in the Arthurian...
and
BorsBors circa 540s-580s, is the name of two knights in the Arthurian legend, one the father and one the son. Bors the Elder is the King of Gaunnes or Gaul during the early period of King Arthur's reign, and is the brother of King Ban of Benoic. Gaunnes is the Fredemundian dynastic kingdom of Neustria...
.
Confusingly, many works have two wounded Grail Kings who live in the same castle, a father and son (or grandfather and grandson). The more seriously wounded father stays in the castle, sustained by the Grail alone, while the more active son can meet with guests and go fishing. For clarity, the father will be called the Wounded King, the son the Fisher King where both appear in the remainder of this article.
Celtic mythology
The Fisher King appears first in
Chrétien de TroyesChrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Little is known of his life, but he seems to have been from Troyes, or at least intimately connected with it, and between 1160 and 1172 he served at the court of his patroness Marie of France, Countess of...
'
PercevalPerceval, the Story of the Grail is the unfinished fifth romance of Chrétien de Troyes. Probably written between 1181 and 1191, it is dedicated to Chrétien's patron Philip, Count of Flanders....
, but the character's roots may lie in
Celtic mythologyCeltic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
. He may be derived more or less directly from the figure of
Bran the BlessedBrân the Blessed is a giant and king of Britain in Welsh mythology. He appears in several of the Welsh Triads, but his most significant role is in the Second Branch of the Mabinogion, Brânwen, daughter of Llŷr. He is a son of Llŷr and Penarddun, and the brother of Brânwen, Manawydan, Nisien and...
in the
MabinogionThe Mabinogion is the title given to a collection of eleven prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs, and early medieval historical traditions...
; in the
Second BranchThe Four Branches of the Mabinogi are the best known tales from the collection of medieval Welsh prose known as the Mabinogion. The word "Mabinogi" originally designated only these four tales, which are really parts or "branches" of a single work, rather than the whole collection...
, Bran had a cauldron that could resurrect the dead (albeit imperfectly; those thus revived could not speak after they were resurrected), which he gave to the king of Ireland as a wedding gift for him and his sister
BranwenBranwen, Daughter of Llŷr is a major character in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, which is sometimes called the Mabinogi of Branwen after her. Branwen is a daughter of Llŷr and Penarddun...
. Later, he wages war on the Irish and is wounded in the foot or leg, and the cauldron is destroyed. He asks his followers to sever his head and take it back to Britain, and his head continues talking and keeps them company on their trip. The group lands in
GrassholmGrassholm is a small uninhabited island situated off the southwestern Pembrokeshire coast in Wales, lying west of Skomer. It is the westernmost point in Wales and is known for its huge colony of gannets...
, where they spend 80 years in a castle of joy and abundance, but finally they leave and bury Bran's head in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
. This story has analogues in two other important
WelshWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh border and in the Welsh immigrant colony in the Chubut Valley in Argentine Patagonia....
texts: the Mabinogion tale
Culhwch and OlwenCulhwch and Olwen is a Welsh tale about a hero connected with Arthur and his warriors that survives in only two manuscripts: a complete version in the Red Book of Hergest, ca. 1400, and a fragmented version in the White Book of Rhydderch, ca. 1325. It is the longest of the surviving Welsh prose...
, in which
King ArthurKing Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defense of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated...
's men must travel to Ireland to retrieve a magical cauldron, and the obscure poem
The Spoils of Annwn, which speaks of a similar mystical cauldron sought by Arthur in the otherworldly land of
AnnwnAnnwn or Annwfn was the Otherworld in Welsh mythology. Ruled by Arawn, or much later by Gwyn ap Nudd, it was essentially a world of delights and eternal youth where disease is absent and food is ever-abundant...
.
In the Welsh Romance
Peredur son of EfrawgPeredur son of Efrawg is one of the three Welsh Romances associated with the Mabinogion. It tells what is essentially the same story as Chrétien de Troyes' unfinished romance Perceval, the Story of the Grail, but it contains many striking differences from that work, most notably the absence of the...
, based on Chrétien (or derived from a common original) but containing several prominent deviations, the Grail has been removed. The character of the Fisher King appears (though he is not called such) and presents Peredur with a severed head on a platter. Peredur later learns he was related to that king, and that the severed head was that of his cousin, whose death he must avenge.
Later medieval works
The Fisher King's next development occurs in
Robert de BoronRobert de Boron was a French poet of the late 12th and early 13th centuries, originally from the village of Boron, in the present arrondissement of Montbéliard...
's
Joseph d'Arimathie about the end of the 12th century, the first work to connect the Grail with
JesusJesus of Nazareth —also known as Jesus Christ or occasionally Jesus the Christ—is the central figure of Christianity. Within most Christian denominations...
. Here, the "Rich Fisher" is called Bron, a name similar enough to Bran to suggest a relationship, and he is said to be the brother-in-law of
Joseph of ArimatheaJoseph of Arimathea was, according to the Gospels, the man who donated his own prepared tomb for the burial of Jesus after Jesus' Crucifixion. A native of Arimathea, he was apparently a man of wealth, and probably a member of the Sanhedrin, which is the way bouleutēs, literally "counsellor", in ...
, who had used the Grail to catch Christ's blood before laying him in the tomb. Joseph founds a religious community that travels eventually to Britain, and he entrusts the Grail to Bron. Bron, called the "Rich Fisher" because he catches a fish eaten at the Grail table, founds the line of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval.
In the Didot-
Perceval, thought to be a prosification of a lost work by Robert de Boron, Bron is called the "Fisher King", and his story is told when Percival returns to his castle and asks the healing question.
Wolfram von EschenbachWolfram von Eschenbach was a German knight and poet, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of his time. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.-Life:...
takes up Chrétien's story and expands it greatly in his epic
ParzivalParzival is a major medieval German epic poem attributed to the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, written in the Middle High German language. The poem is commonly dated circa the first quarter of the 13th century...
. He reworks the nature of the Grail and the community that surrounds it, and gives names to characters Chrétien left nameless (the Wounded King is Titurel and the Fisher King is Anfortas).
Pelles
The
Lancelot-GrailThe Lancelot-Grail, also known as the Prose Lancelot, the Vulgate Cycle, or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is a major source of Arthurian legend written in French. It is a series of five prose volumes that tell the story of the quest for the Holy Grail and the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere...
cycle includes a more elaborate backstory for the Fisher King. Many in his line are wounded for their failings, and the only two that survive to Arthur's day are the Wounded King, called
PellamKing Pellam of Listeneise is the name that Malory gives to the Maimed King in his rendition of the tale of Sir Balin, at whose hands Pellam suffers the Dolorous Stroke. In the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles, Malory's source for these episodes, the character is called Pellehan.The Dolorous Stroke...
or Pellehan, and the Fisher King, Pelles. Pelles engineers the birth of
GalahadSir Galahad is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. He is perhaps the knightly embodiment of Jesus in the Arthurian...
by tricking
LancelotIn the Arthurian legend, Sir Lancelot is one of the Knights of the Round Table. He is typically considered to be one of the greatest and most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories...
into bed with his daughter Elaine, and it is prophesied that Galahad will achieve the Grail and heal the Wasteland. In the Post-Vulgate Cycle and
MalorySir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The antiquary John Leland believed him to be Welsh, but most modern scholarship assumes that he was Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire...
's
Le Morte d'ArthurLe Morte d'Arthur is Sir Thomas Malory's compilation of some French and English Arthurian romances...
, the Fisher King's wound was given to him by
Sir BalinSir Balin le Savage, also known as the Knight with Two Swords, is a character in the Arthurian legend. Merlin told arthur he would have been his best and bravest knight. A knight before the Round Table was formed, Sir Balin hails from Northumberland, and is associated with Sir Balan, his brother,...
in the "
Dolorous StrokeThe Dolorous Stroke is a trope in Arthurian legend and some other stories of Celtic origin.In its fullest form, it concerns the Fisher King , the guardian of the Holy Grail, who falls into sin and consequently suffers a wound from a mystical weapon...
". To defend himself from an enraged Pellam, Balin grabs a spear and stabs him. The spear is the Spear of Longinus, however, and Pellam and his land must suffer for its misuse until the coming of Galahad.
In Malory's
Le Morte d'ArthurLe Morte d'Arthur is Sir Thomas Malory's compilation of some French and English Arthurian romances...
, there are four characters (some of whom can probably be identified with each other) filling the role of Fisher King or Wounded King:
- King Pellam, wounded by Balin, as in the Post-Vulgate.
- King Pelles, grandfather of Galahad, described as "the maimed king". In one passage he is explicitly identified with Pellam; in another, however, he is said to have suffered his wound in quite different circumstances.
- King Pescheour or Petchere, lord of the Grail Castle, who never appears on stage (at least under that name). He owes his existence to a mistake by Malory, who took the Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 900 to 1300...
roy Peschour ("Fisher King", a phrase Malory never otherwise uses) for a name rather than an epithet. Nevertheless, Malory treats him as distinct from Pelles.
- An anonymous, bedridden Maimed King, healed by Galahad at the climax of the Grail Quest. He is definitely distinct from Pelles, who has just been sent out of the room, and who is anyway at least mobile.
It would appear that Malory intended to have one Maimed King, wounded by Balin and suffering until healed by his grandson Galahad, but never managed to successfully reconcile his sources.
King Pelles is the name of the Maimed King in some versions of the Arthurian legend. One of a line of Grail keepers established by Joseph of Arimathea, Pelles is the father of Eliazer and Elaine, mother of
GalahadSir Galahad is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. He is perhaps the knightly embodiment of Jesus in the Arthurian...
, and resides in the castle of
CorbinecCorbenic is the name of the castle of the Holy Grail in the Lancelot-Grail cycle and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur...
in
Listenois. Pelles and his relative
PellehanKing Pellam of Listeneise is the name that Malory gives to the Maimed King in his rendition of the tale of Sir Balin, at whose hands Pellam suffers the Dolorous Stroke. In the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles, Malory's source for these episodes, the character is called Pellehan.The Dolorous Stroke...
appear in both the Vulgate (Lancelot-Grail) and
Post-Vulgate CycleThe Post-Vulgate Cycle is one of the major Old French prose cycles of Arthurian literature. It is essentially a rehandling of the earlier Vulgate Cycle, also known as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, with much left out and much added, including characters and scenes from the Prose Tristan.The...
s, as well as in later works, such as Malory's
Le Morte d'Arthur (in which Pellehan is called Pellam). In the Vulgate, Pelles is the son of Pellehan, but the Post-Vulgate is less clear about their relationship. It is even murkier in Malory's work: one passage explicitly identifies them (book XVIII, chapter 5), though this is contradicted elsewhere.
Galahad, the knight prophesied to achieve the Holy Grail and heal the Maimed King, is conceived when Elaine gets Dame Brisen to use magic to trick Lancelot into thinking he is coming to visit Guenever "to lay with her.". So Lancelot sleeps with Elaine, thinking her Guenever, but flees when he realizes what he has done. Galahad is raised by his aunt in a convent, and when he is eighteen, comes to King Arthur's court and begins the Grail quest. Only he, Percival, and Bors are virtuous enough to achieve the Grail and restore Pelles.
Modern takes on the legend
Richard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas...
used the myth in his opera
ParsifalParsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail....
, based on Wolfram's work.
Some critics claim that
T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot, OM , was a poet, playwright, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are The Love Song of J...
made use of the legend in his poem
The Waste LandThe Waste Land[A] is a 434 line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922...
, although there is disagreement as to how, to what extent, or if at all.
In Stephen Lawhead's
Pendragon CycleThe Pendragon Cycle is a series of fantasy or semi-historical books based on the Arthurian legend, written by Stephen R. Lawhead. They are:*Taliesin *Merlin *Arthur *Pendragon *Grail *Avalon...
,
MerlinMerlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...
's grandfather Avallach, previously a king of lost
AtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias.In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC...
, is explicitly called the Fisher King. He carries a wound never healed from battle and spends his later years in Britain fishing on the lake. The character appears again in opera in
Michael TippettSir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was one of the foremost English composers of the 20th century. -Early years:Tippett was born in London of English and Cornish stock...
's
The Midsummer MarriageThe Midsummer Marriage is an opera in three acts, with music and libretto by Michael Tippett. The work's first performance was at Covent Garden, January 27, 1955, conducted by John Pritchard...
, partly inspired by Eliot's poem.
The story is told in
Éric RohmerÉric Rohmer is a French film director, screenwriter and film critic. A key figure in the post-war New Wave cinema, he is a former editor of influential French film journal Cahiers du cinéma.Schérer fashioned his pseudonym from the names of two famous artists: actor and director Erich von Stroheim...
's 1978 film
Perceval le GalloisPerceval le Gallois is a 1978 French film directed by Éric Rohmer. It was inspired by Chrétien de Troyes's 12th century Arthurian romance Perceval, the Story of the Grail. The film chronicles Perceval's knighthood, maturation and eventual peerage amongst the Knights of the Round Table, and also...
, based on Chrétien de Troye's
Perceval. The story of a wounded king whose wounds cause the land to become a wasteland, then healed by the grail recovered by Percival, is woven directly into the story of King Arthur in
John BoormanJohn Boorman is an English filmmaker, currently based in Ireland, best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory, The General and Zardoz.-Early life:...
's 1981 film
ExcaliburExcalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes' attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain. Sometimes Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are said to be the same weapon, but in most versions they are considered separate. The sword was...
. The story is also dealt with in the 1991 movie
The Fisher KingThe Fisher King is a comedy-drama film made in 1991, written by Richard LaGravenese and directed by Terry Gilliam. It stars Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Mercedes Ruehl, Amanda Plummer and Michael Jeter...
directed by Terry GilliamTerrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British writer, filmmaker, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several well-regarded films including Time Bandits , Brazil , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
, starring
Jeff BridgesJeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges is an American actor and musician. His most notable films include The Last Picture Show, Tron, Starman, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Fisher King, Fearless, The Big Lebowski, The Contender, and Iron Man.-Personal life:Jeffrey Bridges was born in Los Angeles, California,...
and
Robin WilliamsRobin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian.Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
.
Other modern takes on the Fisher King appear in novels like
C. S. LewisClive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as Jack, was an Irish-born British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist...
'
That Hideous StrengthThat Hideous Strength is a 1945 novel by C. S. Lewis, the final book in Lewis's theological science fiction Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom...
,
Paule MarshallPaule Marshall is an American author. She was born Valenza Pauline Burke in Brooklyn to Barbadian parents and educated at Brooklyn College and Hunter College . Early in her career, she wrote poetry, but later returned to prose...
's
The Fisher King: A Novel,
Tim PowersTimothy Thomas Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare...
' novels
The Drawing of the Dark and
Last CallLast Call is a fantasy novel by Tim Powers. It was published in New York by Harper Collins in 1996 with ISBN 0-380-72846-X. It is the first book in a loose trilogy called Fault Lines; the second book, Expiration Date , is vaguely related to Last Call, the third book, Earthquake Weather , acts as...
and
Matt WagnerMatt Wagner is an American comic book writer and artist, best known as the creator of two irregular series, Mage and Grendel.-Biography:...
's comic book series
MageMage is an American superhero comic book written and illustrated by Matt Wagner. Three volumes, each of 15 issues are planned; , two have been published.Volume one, The Hero Discovered, was published by Comico from February 1984 to December 1986...
.
Don NigroDon Nigro is an American playwright; his plays Anima Mundi and The Dark Sonnets of the Lady have both been nominated for the National Repertory Theatre Foundation's National Play Award.-Personal life:...
's play
Fisher King retells the story during the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
. In 1998,
David CrosbyDavid Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds; Crosby, Stills & Nash, which is sometimes augmented with Neil Young; and CPR. Crosby is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work in the Byrds and...
wrote and recorded a song with the band
CPRCPR or Crosby, Pevar & Raymond was a rock/jazz band that consisted of David Crosby , session guitarist Jeff Pevar, and pianist James Raymond ....
, called "Somehow She Knew", based on personal experiences and the movie
The Fisher King. Joan DidionJoan Didion is an American author best known as a novelist and writer of personalized, journalistic essays. The disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos upon which her essays comment are explored more fully in her novels, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation...
compared
presidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
to the legendary king in her critical essay "In the Realm of the Fisher King," published in 1989.
Robert JordanRobert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney, Jr. , under which he was best known as the author of the bestselling The Wheel of Time fantasy series. He also wrote under the names Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reilly.-Biography:Jordan was born in Charleston, South Carolina...
's
Wheel of TimeThe Wheel of Time is a series of epic fantasy novels written by the late American author James Oliver Rigney, Jr., under the pen name Robert Jordan. Originally planned as a six-book series, it now consists of eleven published novels, with one more book to come, which will be published in three...
series includes a game where the central piece is called "the Fisher", which is a piece in the shape of an old, blinded and wounded man.
Further reading
- The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol by Roger Sherman Loomis
Roger Sherman Loomis was an American scholar and one of the foremost authorities on medieval and Arthurian literature.-Biography:...
ISBN 0-691-02075-2
- Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legends by Ronan Coghlan
Ronan Coghlan is an Irish writer living in Bangor, County Down in Northern Ireland.Coghlan was born Dublin in 1948. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin ....
- From Ritual to Romance by Jessie Weston
Jessie Laidlay Weston was an independent scholar and folklorist, working mainly on mediaeval Arthurian texts.Her best-known work is From Ritual to Romance ; this book is now available as an online text, as are others of hers...
(available online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/frr/)
External links