From Ritual to Romance

<p><em>From Ritual to Romance</em> is Jessie Weston's landmark study of the legends surrounding the mysterious Holy Grail. Weston studied medieval literature under Professor Bruno Gaston Paris and as an independent scholar was less hide-bound in her thinking than most tenured academics. After extensive study she rejected the prevailing consensus: that the Grail was simply a courtly work of imagination with no historical antecedents. Instead Weston put forward the idea that the Arthurian legend of the Grail is a continuation of prehistoric Vegetation/Fertility rituals that manifested in Classical times as Mithraism and the 'Dying Gods' such as Adonis Tammuz and Attis. Drawing together such apparently disparate subjects as folk-lore biblical commentaries mythology and both pagan and Christian symbology Weston produced a coherent 'gestalt' that reveals the Grail Legend as a veiled account of pre-Christian mystery initiation. An impressive and accessible book <em>From Ritual to Romance</em> is essential reading for all those interested in mythology folk-lore paganism gnosticism and the origins of the most famous of all Arthurian Legends.</p>