QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL

PREFACE

IN the following pages I have endeavoured to
give, as clearly and concisely as possible, a
description of the literature composing the
Grail cycle, an analysis of its content, and
a survey of the leading theories to which this
perplexing body of romance has given rise.

Lacking as we do MS. evidence for the
initial stages in the development of the story,
ignorant of the precise time and place of its
birth as a theme for popular romance, it is
impossible to present a theory that shall
have behind it the weight and authority of
established fact. There will always be too
many missing links, however skilfully the
chain be woven.

But the theory set forth
in these pages is that which, after twenty years
spent in elose and constant study of the
subject, I believe to be the only one capable
of meeting all the varied conditions of the
problem. It is not as yet complete, and in
the absence of fresh discoveries in the field of
MS. literature perhaps may never be entirely
so, but the fact that it places the question on...