Knighthood Part 2: The Call For A Silver Dawn

So, the Holy Grail. What is the holy grail? What does it represent in story? What does it represent in philosophy? The quest for the grail is the most famous quest for any knight and that is because of the spiritual component, the component of the Lord and Savior, the King of Kings. That is, the spiritual component.

It is also the quest for inner self-knowledge, the inner gold of the soul, the alchemical enlightenment. That is the philosophical component.

There are symbols that I want to explore in this series and the next in regards to knighthood such as the grail but also the idea of the Chapel Perilous, which I touched on some time ago here. Also, the symbolism of swords (or light sabers) and the very idea of the knightly quest and what that represents. There are quite a few stories about knights but I will mention the ones I’m most familiar with: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Le Morte d’Arthur, and Parsifal or, Sir Percival.

First, the grail, and by nature of that, the story of Parsifal (Percival). Sir Percival is a naive young man who is deeply attached to his mother. There are various stories of this tale told but usually the story goes in this way: Percival a young man was different from the other knights of Arthur’s court because of his innocence and naivete. He was what one might say in psychological terms, ruled by his mother. In folklore he is represented by the “fool”. Percival’s tale is a tale of spiritual growth, as he goes on a quest to find the holy grail and throughout his quest he displays growing wisdom and learns chivalry and bravery. He fails his first quest to help the Fisher King through a foolish act. But he still learns what it means to become wise. In other tales he gets a second chance to redeem himself and he helps restore the Fisher King back to his kingdom. Discernment and growth in wisdom and the putting off of immaturity and the overbearing strings of the Mother are part of his growth arc. There are differing versions of Sir Percival’s tale but the gist is the spiritual growth and maturity of a youth into a full grown man, having acquired the needed wisdom and spiritual insights such a man and true knight should have. Lesson: The gaining of wisdom and discernment.

Then there is the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of my favorites. My personal copy of this translated tale is Tolkien’s translated version. In this tale, a mysterious green knight riding a green horse, one is reminded of the pagan “green man” by this character, arrives one New Years eve at King Arthur’s court while they are celebrating and challenges them to a game - there, the game motif is presented which can be found in many stories - and the challenge is which knight can and will strike his head off with his ax and within a year and a day he will come back and return the favor. He refuses to challenge anyone to a traditional duel/ fight as he regards them as too weak, so he issues this special challenge. One knight takes up the challenge - Gawain. Gawain thereafter goes on a journey and displays his chivalry and courage along the way. He is looking for the fabled green chapel where he is to meet his fate with the green knight. When he arrives at a mysterious and beautiful castle he is invited in by the lord and his lady, a beautiful woman. There is another elderly woman there who is accorded much respect by the court. His moral chastity is challenged repeatedly and his honor is challenged by the wife during his stay. He steadfastly refuses her advances and also the challenges of the lord of the castle. But finally the lady convinces him to take at least a green and gold sash from her, telling him that it will protect him from harm. As he realizes he is facing death in a few days he takes the sash. He wears it on the day he goes to find the green chapel which the lord has told him is a short ways from the castle. And he hides the sash.

Though he is greatly tempted, he triumphs. When the day comes for the green knight to strike off his head Gawain resolves to face up to his promise and presents his neck to the green knight’s ax. When he flinches as he is nearly beheaded the green knight reproaches him for being a coward. Angry and insulted, he presents himself for beheading again and this time does not flinch. The green knight merely gives him a wound instead of cutting off his head. It turns out that the owner of the castle where he was residing as a guest was actually the green knight. The knight was testing his honor at the behest of the sorceress Morgan Le Fay, Arthur’s step sister and the old woman who was part of the green knight’s court. The entire adventure was her idea in the first place. He suffers a wound because of his attempt to hide the sash given to him. Gawain triumphs and returns to court more noble than ever before. The green knight pronounces Gawain the most blameless knight in the land and they part on good terms. Gawain decides to wear the green sash as a reminder to himself of his failure to keep his promise. King Arthur and the other knights absolve him of any wrong and the other knights wear a green sash as a token to his honor. In Sir Gawain’s tale what is learned is honesty and the keeping of a bond, no matter the cost. Lesson: may your vow be your bond, the central importance of honesty.

Of course, there is more than just the stories of the knights of the round table. There is the famous English epic poem The Faerie Queene in which several knights deal with the different virtuous qualities such as holiness, temperance, chastity, courtesy, friendship and justice. In Sir Edmund’s epic poem we are also introduced to the lady knight Britomart. What I’ve learned from these stories and the history of knighthood about knights is that there is the real knight of history - the soldier and the warrior and then there is the ideal knight of European story and folklore. There is also the romantic self-styled knight errant in Don Quixote by Cervantes. He loses his mind reading the tales of knightly chivalry and decides to go on his own quest only learn that the knightly ideal in the chivalric tales is an illusion. That is a very different tale and message about the idea of chivalric knighthood that is equally important and rather sobering. Idealism must be tempered with humility and good sense or it can destroy you.

The very perfection and apex of virtue in Man is the ideal of knighthood. In my mind, the ideal is a kind of training in courtesy, nobility of character and in looking for ways to bring virtue not only in one’s own life but to the world at large. We don’t need shining armor and mail to do that for this is a way of life where good qualities can be displayed and reached by all. It is a spiritual outlook as well as a philosophy. It’s a figurative way of being. We need these virtues in the world more than ever as it grows darker and as we sit at the fall of an empire and get ready to enter a very different world. Such a dark time is not an excuse for more savagery which the devil would wish, but a chance to shine even brighter as a lamp or a flame in the darkness. We need a Silver Dawn of idyllic knighthood quality, not just in the West but all over the world. The virtues of knighthood are spiritual virtues that can make all of us better people, more ethical people and we have a sore need for it now, for we are ruled by the truly depraved: (see the Epstein files). The virtues of a knight can banish their dark influence in one’s personal life. And these people most certainly wield a dark influence over many cultures. But this has to be a deliberate act from each person. We can’t passively accept and consume what is given to us anymore. In fact, we never should have. Everything from the system must be questioned and examined against your principles. Complacency must end. In fact, what are the principles that you live by? Do you have them and can you verbalize them clearly? Are they in alignment with what you see around you or not? That is the root of the quest, before we even set foot outside the door. In my opinion this is the modern quest for each one of us.

Each of us can pursue our own holy grail in life, leaving behind vices and dark elements injected into our lives through the culture that burdens us down with economic woes, general stress, hatred, rage bait, depression, divided politics and engineered social instability; a culture that poisons us mentally and spiritually. In that sense, drinking from a figurative grail purifies us, helps us to pursue Light and Good, lifts us up and helps us to see clearly the darkness and it can help us to achieve wisdom and discernment in life; teach us how to act and thrive in a hostile world. We need the grail to drink from more than ever now. In my mind, the holy grail and the knight will always go hand in hand. They both serve as something higher than ourselves to reach for, to make us better people. So, at the risk of seeming melodramatic, I call for a Silver Dawn of chivalric knighthood in each man and woman, for virtue and honor for courage and courtesy, while not forgetting that we are imperfect and that it is merely a striving to be better and that mistakes will be made, as always. That shouldn’t stop us, though.

Anyway, as this relates to Message At The Deep, Jonas, in each book, is on something of an errant knightly quest where he can rise up out of despair and anger and towards the virtues he was once taught when he was a child. More on Jonas’s childhood in later posts. I hope this wasn’t too melodramatic for you! Happy reading!