Fisher King

The Fisher King (Old French: roi peschierres; French: Roi pêcheur; Welsh: Brenin Pysgotwr), also called the Wounded King or Maimed King (Old French: Roi Méhaigié; French: Roi blessé, Welsh: Brenin Clwyfedig) is the guardian of the Grail Castle in legends about the Holy Grail. According to Robert de Boron, he was a son of Veronica, the sister of Joseph de Berimathie (Joseph of Arimathea). According to Chrétien de Troyes he is a maternal uncle of Perceval. In the verse epic "Parzival" by Wolfram von Eschenbach, written between 1200 and 1210, he is called Amfortas (also Anfortas).

In Perlesvaus, the anonymously written sequel to the unfinished Grail novel (Li Contes del Graal) by Chrétien de Troyes, he is Josue, a son of Glais and brother of Alain, the father of Perlesvaus (Parzival). His descendants here are Aminadap, Catheloys, Manaal, Lambor, Pelleams (the lame king) and Pelles, who becomes the grandfather of Galahad through Lancelot.

The Tale of the Fisher King by Chrétien de Troyes

Asking questions in the right way, i.e. not with the mind but with the heart, is the necessary prerequisite in the present consciousness-soul age for an initiate to reveal spiritual truths. Parzival fails to ask the crucial question about the cause of Amfortas suffering and the meaning of the Holy Grail.

„I have mentioned on another occasion how we find the literarily still best figure of Parzival's approach to the Castle of the Holy Grail in Chrestien de Troyes, in Christian of Troyes; how there it is represented to us that, after having endured long odysseys, Parzival comes to a lonely region, where he first finds two men: the one rowing a boat, the other fishing from the boat; how, by asking the people, he is directed to the Fisher King; how he then meets the Fisher King in the Grail Castle. Then how the Fisher King, an elderly man who has become weak and must therefore stay on his bed of rest, hands him the sword, which was a gift from his niece, in conversation. Then, as first a squire appears in the hall, carrying a spear which is bleeding - the blood runs down to the squire's hand - a virgin appears with the Holy Grail, which is like a kind of bowl. But such radiance shines from what is in the Grail that all the lights of the hall are over-lit by the light of the Holy Grail, just as the stars are over-lit by the sun and the moon. And then we learn how in this Holy Grail is that on which the old father of the Fisher King, who is in a special room, feeds himself, who needs nothing of what is so abundantly served at the meal at which the Fisher King and also Parzival take part. They feed on earthly food. But every time a new course is served - as we would say today - the Holy Grail passes by again into the chamber of the father of the Fisher King, who is old and who only gets nourishment from what is in the Grail. Parzival, who has been told by Gurnemanz on the way there that he should not ask too many questions, does not ask why the lance bleeds, does not ask what the bowl of the Grail means - he did not know the name, of course. He was then bedded down for the night - as Christian of Troyes says - in the same room where all this had taken place. He had made up his mind to ask the next morning, but there he found the whole castle empty, no one there. He called for someone. No one was there. He dressed himself. Only his horse was ready downstairs. He thought that the company had gone out hunting, and he wanted to ride after them to ask about the miracle of the Grail. But as he rode over the drawbridge, it sped up so fast that the horse had to jump to save itself from falling into the moat of the castle. And he found nothing of all the company he had found the day before in the castle. Then Christian of Troyes tells how Parzival rides on and in a lonely forest area finds the image of the woman with the man in her lap whom she is weeping for. It is she who first means to him how he should have asked, how he has deprived himself of experiencing the effect of his asking about the great mysteries that have come to him. We know, after Christian of Troyes, that he went through many more wanderings and that on a Good Friday he came to a hermit called Trevericent; we know that he was told by him how he was cursed because he had failed to bring about what could have been a redemption for the Fisher King: to ask about the miracles of the castle. He then receives many a lesson.“ (Lit.:GA 149, p. 85f)

Literature

• William A. Nitze, Glastonbury and the Holy Grail, Modern Philology 1/2. 1903, 247-257.
• Louise Gnädinger, Rois Peschiere / Anfortas. Der Fischerkönig in Chrestiens und Wolframs Gralsdichtung, Georges Güntert u.a. (ed.), Orbis Mediaevalis, Bern 1978, 127-148 ISBN 3-7720-1421-6
• Rudolf Steiner: Welche Bedeutung hat die okkulte Entwicklung des Menschen für seine Hüllen (physischer Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib) und sein Selbst?, GA 145 (2005), ISBN 3-7274-1450-2 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Christus und die geistige Welt. Von der Suche nach dem heiligen Gral, GA 149 (2004), ISBN 3-7274-1490-1 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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