Dear Mistress Ellwood Rhona Beare
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Volume 6 | Number 4 | Issue 22, Fall Article 13 10-15-1979 Dear Mistress Ellwood Rhona Beare James Irwin Ian Myles Slater M. M. Reid Dinah J. Madcuff See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Beare, Rhona; Irwin, James; Slater, Ian Myles, et al. (1979) "Dear Mistress Ellwood," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 6 : No. 4 , Article 13. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol6/iss4/13 This Letter is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Dear Mistress Ellwood Additional Keywords Bonnie GoodKnight Authors Rhona Beare, James Irwin, Ian Myles Slater, M. M. Reid, Dinah J. Madcuff, Kathryn Lindskoog, Nancy-Lou Patterson, Benjamin Urrutia, Craig Smith, Cynthia Kihn, and Elizabeth Blake This letter is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol6/iss4/13 Dear M istress Ellwood a wondrous cup which no man knew of, until Solomon Rhona Beare Classics Dept.. saw it by divination, and he sent and fetched it University of Newcastle by the demons who were his slaves." NSW 2308 A u s t r a l i a Rene Guenon says this jewel was an emerald which fell from Lucifer's forehead. The angels As your society is studying Charles Williams carved it into a vase or chalice. Adam had it and Tolkien, you might be interested in the ver until he was driven out of Paradise; later his sion of the legend of the Holy Grail which I am son Seth recovered it. following up. Charles Williams called his novel about the grail-chalice War In Heaven, referring If any members of your society know other forms to St. Michael's defeat of Lucifer (Revelation of this legend, I should be most grateful for in 1.2:7), According to a medieval German poem (the f o rm a tio n . .. W artburgkrieg), when St. Michael struck Lucifer on the head a jewel fell from Lucifer's crown to earth and was later found by Titurel and Parzival (Sir Percival): this jewel is the grail, which in an earlier German poem (Wolfram's Parzival ) is a stone, not a chalice. Charles Williams in Many Dimensions writes of a stone (the jewel from Solomon's crown) that had once been in the crown of Iblis (the Mohammedan name of Lucifer or Satan) and fell from the crown when he was defeated. Another medieval German combined the grail-stone with the grail-chalice in the Younger Titurel: he said that when the jewel fell to earth, a vessel ....I have looked into W. Golther's Panzdvat was carved out of it, and was used at the Last and den Gnat and found some more emerald grails Supper. The grail-stone appears in Tolkien as the (undoubtedly influenced by the green glass bowl silm aril which Beren took from Morgoth's crown. supposed to be emerald, the sacro c atin o Genoa) Morgoth is a L u c i f e r - f igure, being a god or angel and some jewels from Satan's crown. For instance: who has become wicked. Feanor is also a Lucifer- figure, causing the Fall of the Noldor, but (like 1) Richard Von Kralik wrote the Gral-Saga, pub Adam) he may repent. The silm aril ends up as the lished (1st edition) in 1907 (at Ravensburg, 2nd evening star, which is also the morning star, edition 1909). It begins with the early history of called by the Romans Lucifer, the light-bringer. the grail. It was a jewel from Satan's crown Satan was called Lucifer because he was the bright which fell to earth and was put in the treasury of est of the- angels. The legend that he lost a jewel the King of Iran. It was made into a cup (bowl must be based on the Lament for the Prince of Tyre or dish), given to Melchizedek, then to the Queen (Ezekiel 28: 13-19): the Prince once dwelt in the of Sheba who gave it to Solomon. It belonged to garden of God, wearing nine jewels, but pride led Melchior who gave it to the infant Christ, but it him into sin and he was cast out. (Gregory the was stolen when the Holy Family fled into Egypt, Great, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine agree that and came into the hands of Herod. When John the the Prince of Tyre stands for Satan.) R. Wisniewski Baptist was beheaded, the grail was the dish or thinks that Wolfram's grail-stone is the one Luci charger on which his head was carried to Salome. fer lost (Beitrage zur Geschichte der Deutschen Nicodemus later had it, Jesus used it at the Last Sprache und Literatur Vol. 79, Tubingen, 1957). Supper, an angel later gave it to Titurel (who is She quotes a poem in which Lucifer loses 9 jewels, a grail-king in the Parzival story). as in Ezekiel; in the Wartburgkrieg , he loses a jewelled crown, and one of the jewels becomes the 2) Edward Stucker wrote in 1902-22 a series of grail. Otto Rahn tells a story that the grail was plays "The Grail". The first is "Merlin's birth." The male and female devils were making a hellish preserved by the Cathars (Albigensian heretics) grail with which to defeat the holy grail and in Montsegur, and was the jewel from Lucifer's conquer heaven. Belial explains that the holy crown; he besieged Montsegur to recover it. grail was made of an emerald from Lucifer's crown, and the hellish grail will be made of the crown's R. S. Hawker in 1861 wrote "The Quest of the other jewel, a ruby. Belial plans to rebel a- Sangraal" in which he alludes to this legend: gainst Lucifer. Unfortunately the ruby grail "Thou art the diamond of the demon breaks. Lucifer says it would be useless anyway crow n , because it is Christ's blood in the emerald grail Smitten by Michael upon Abarim, that gives it power. Lucifer's guardian angel tells That fell." (Abarim = trans-Jordan) him that what he really wants is the holy grail. Lucifer goes in quest of the grail. Eventually, The grail-stone is a diamond in Maximilian Rudwin's Lucifer becomes grail-king and is named Anfortas. The Devil in Legend and Literature "It was Mer (I think Lucifer has become the wounded King who lin, Satan's own son, who helped Parsifal recover guards the grail.) Belial rebels, but the other the largest of all diamonds, dropped from the crown devils are faithful to Lucifer so they leave hell of Satan as he fell from heaven, out of which, and follow Lucifer to the grail castle and become according to legend, the Holy Grail was fashioned." knights guarding the grail. But C. L. Marson, Glastonbury or the English Jerusalem, says it'was a ruby: "When the earth was still void, there was war in heaven, and Satan Where did Tolkien get the idea of a good and led the rebel angels against the throne of God. an evil person (e.g., Gandalf and the Balrog) In his crest was a shining ruby, the rallying point wrestling above a precipice, and one or both fall of all his soldiers, and this ruby St. Michael ing? Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty? Theseus and smote out with his flaming sword. It fell into Sciron? (It is common in modern films especially the dark seas of the empty, formless earth. When Westerns.) Lucifer and St Michael? Tolkien uses Creation lit up the world, it shone in the caverns it for Glorfindel and the Balrog, and for Tuor of the sea and was fashioned by the sea-folk into and Maeglin. 39 James Irwin 72 1/2 N. Mansfield Ave And suerlie hereupon had he put Makduffe to Los Angeles, CA 90038 d e a th b u t t h a t a c e r ta ir e w itc h , whome hee had in great trust, had told that he should As far as I know there are no book discussion never be slaine with man borne of anie woman, groups prim arily concerned with works outside the nor vanquished till the wood of Bernane came modern age. At one time I was considering form to the castell of Dunsinane. ing, or helping form, a group that to begin with (Holinshed's Chronicles As Used In Shakee- would concern itself primarily with Dante, speare's Plays, ed. by Josephine and Allar- secondarily with Eliot, Charles Williams, C. S. dyce N icoll, Everyman's Library, 1927, p. Lewis, and George MacDonald. I still think such 218. ) a group might be of interest to certain members of the Mythopoeic Society. Any interested read Shakespeare has clearly identified "a cer- ers may feel free to write to James Irwin, taine witch" with the Three Sisters. The diary 726^5 N. Mansfield Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038, of Simon Forman -- or, more precisely, The Bocke or to leave a message at (213) 770-0020.