Note 188 — Chapter X

This arrival of the nine knights at the Grail Castle, and their share in the Grail revelation, is a striking proof of the unreality of the Galahad Queste quâ quest, on which I have remarked elsewhere. Who are these knights? What claim have they to be admitted to a feast so holy that even King Pelles and his son are excluded? Practically they are as much achievers of the Quest as Galahad himself. The fact is the writer is so taken up with the religious symbolism of the relic that in exaggerating and insisting on symbolic details he loses sight of the real point of his story. I very much doubt whether any one but the Grail Winner himself ought to reach, or was ever contemplated as reaching, the Grail Castle, much less be witness of the full explanation of the relic. To this it may be objected that Gawain reaches it; but Gawain was certainly at one time looked upon as the Grail Winner, and I believe it is only in this character that he ever found the castle. The accessibility of Corbenic is a very weak point of the Galahad Queste.