Note 57 — THE ROMANCE

I should like to draw the attention of readers to the fact that these two ‘triplets’ of colours are also to be met with elsewhere. Thus black, white, and red are found, as we have seen, in a famous incident of the Perceval; and that curious book, Durandus on Symbolism, gives them as the colours of the three veils covering the altar at Passiontide. White, green, and red are found in the legend of the Tree of Life, and Solomon’s Ship, preserved in the Queste and Grand Saint Graal. A friend, learned in such matters, has informed me that these sets of colours represent certain alchemical processes, and in that connection were well known in mediæval times. It seems possible that there may have been some hidden and mystical significance attached to their earliest use; we have not fathomed all the secrets of folk-lore.