Hello, this is Ayn Cates Sullivan, one of the Super Power Up! hosts, and you are listening to Wisdom of the Ages. So are you ready to lean back into the wings of wisdom and be carried by a higher source? If so, you will love the show today for we will be exploring the wisdom of the grail and the fairy accord with the true expert. So I’m going to jump straight into this one today.
I would like to introduce one of my favorite people on the planet and someone who truly dances and even sings in a field of wisdom. Caitlyn Matthews is a writer, singer, and teacher whose groundbreaking work has introduced many to the riches of our Western spiritual heritage. She’s acknowledged as a world authority on Celtic wisdom, the Western mysteries and the ancestral traditions of Britain and Europe. She’s the author of over 70 books, including Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom and The Study of the Divine Feminine and Gnostic Jewish and Christian Thought. Her most recent book, The Lost Book of the Grail is a new translation by Gareth Knight and herself of the elucidation. This study by Caitlyn and her husband, John Matthews, opens up a mythic landscape where Holy Grail and fairy grail meet.
So Caitlyn, I’m so excited that you’re with us today and that we’re going to explore the grail, the fairy grail, and the sevenfold path of the grail. Could we just begin straight away with the story?
We can indeed, yes. Here’s an extract from the poem and thank you for having me on the show. So here we go. This is where the main story of the poem starts. “Now listen to me all and some and you will hear told a story that is easy on the ear for the seven guardians of it will be those who rule throughout the world all the good stories ever told as these writings will relate. Who those seven guardians are, their acts and what ends they will reach for you have never heard told nor truly related this story of how there was a great noise and rumor about how and why was destroyed the rich country of Low Gris. Many knew this story in times gone by. The kingdom turned to loss. The land was dead and deserted so that it was not worth a pair of hazelnuts for they lost the voices of the whales and the maidens that went within them.
For by them, great things were served. So if anyone was wandering the byways be it in evening or morning, whether to drink or eat, he would need to change his route and to turn towards the wells and he could request nothing by way of fine food that pleased him, that would not be given to him, provided he asked reasonably. Then would arise as I understand a maiden from art of the well. He could not have asked for one more beautiful carrying a golden cup in her hand with meats, pies, and bread, and another maiden bringing in turn a white napkin and dish of gold and silver in which was the meal that had been asked for. And at the well, many were well received and if the meal did not please him, many others were brought to him all as desired with great joy and great plenty. The maidens together served well and gladly all those who had traveled the ways and came to the wells to eat.”
So that’s just a little part of the story. I suppose really is a 13th century French poem that tells us about this earlier story and there’s a story nesting inside another story in this poem, which tells us about what happened in times before.
It’s an incredible book. I just finished it this morning as I was telling you before we started. What really strikes me about this particular book is this connection, not only is you talking about the Holy grail, which I think many of us are familiar with, but we’re also talking about the fairy grail, which I don’t think so many people know about. Also you’ve introduced the sevenfold path of the grail. But before we get into that, what’s myth exactly? Is it relevant today?
Oh, I think so very much. One of the classical philosophers said that myth is something that has never happened and is happening all the time. I think when we look at the story, the grail story, whichever one you’re looking at, and of course there are very many grail stories. There’s not just one grail story. There are lots and lots of different versions of it and this is just one of them. But it’s unique in that it gives us this backstory, this prior myth about how a grail is brought forth, a cup serves as a cup of hospitality to travelers as we heard in the excerpt.
That’s not a story that appears anywhere else. It’s a story that’s known in parts of Europe as a folkloric story, but it’s the only one of the grail stories that has both this earlier story, the one that most people know. But of course, I know today most people think the grail is the cup of the last supper, but for medieval people, before we got to the Eucharistic understanding of the Holy grail, it was of course the cup in which Christ brought and the water that came from his side were called. So that’s a much earlier story again you see. So you can already see progressions of story leading off into infinity. Yeah. So I think it’s important to understand that grail story, you know?
Yeah. So this one’s unique in that all … We’re actually suddenly including the well maid and the ladies of the lake who seem to want to emerge and tell their missing half in this version.
Absolutely.
Go ahead.
Well I was just going to say that in the Holy grail stories we hear that everything goes to loss and ruin and we have the wasteland where the world is laid waste. Where there’s famine and where old and young people die, and everyone else struggles to get along because there’s no fertility in the land anymore. This is usually caused by some difficult action that’s happened again in another part of the story where someone is hit with a sword or a spear in other versions, that we have a wounded king . If the King is not in a good state, then obviously the land also is not in a good state, but that is what causes the wasteland in the Holy grail stories.
But in the fairy grail stories we have that earlier myth of where the maidens are giving hospitality to those who come and ask reasonably. But of course what happens after that is that a King called King of Mangons comes along and rapes the maidens of the world, and takes the cup, and he uses it for his own purposes. From that we have, as it says in that beginning part, the kingdom was, was lost and was not worth more than a couple of hazelnuts. So it’s the same story but told with a different causation.
It does seem relevant today too, in the world, in a way, we’re living in a wasteland. We’re living in a time where we’re in this ecological crisis and it seems that we have somehow become disconnected from the fairy. Maybe even more so than from God and Christ. We’ve become disconnected from our roots or frightened of the earth and frightened of these wells. We have forgotten to sip from that sacred cup.
Well, absolutely. But we forget the earth at our peril don’t we, because we are not the first people staring at environmental disaster in the face because this has happened many times in the past. I only have to think of where I live in Britain, the land of openings, there were no trees left by the new stone age because they’d all been for fuel. Yes. So we look at the Middle East in any way where there’s a desert and where often there was a civilization there beforehand. So I think the newness and the oldness of this story is that it’s always very relevant to how we work with the earth and how we are with it. That we have a good relationship with it and it’s not as a source of supply.
I really loved the way also in your book, that you move from time to timelessness and you help us make those shifts. So I have to just pause for a minute here. I’ve got to prepare for a break, but before I do that, where can people find out about you and your books?
Okay, so they could go to my website, which is www.hallowquest.org.uk and that has all my events and books and so on, on it.
Perfect. So we’ve been talking with Caitlyn Matthews about her latest book, The Lost Book of the Grail and when we come back from this short break, we’re going to talk more about the sevenfold path and of the grail and the restoration of the fairy accord. So stay tuned and we’ll be right back.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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