Chalice Hill revives by its name and associations another reminiscence of our Lord even more amazing. St. Joseph was the bringer to this country of two precious relics--one--
“The Cup itself from which our Lord Drank at the last sad supper with His own,”
the other, some of the blood which oozed from the crucified Saviour’s body. The chalice, or sacred cup, was buried by Joseph at the spot where a perpetual spring of water bubbles--the “Blood Spring,” which supplies the Holy Well, scene of many miraculous cures in times past. That the waters are medicinal admits of no doubt; that it issues from the Cup is a matter of faith, especially as the Holy Grail is claimed to be now in safe keeping by more than one far-distant Abbey.[32] As for the second relic, it is said that St. Joseph confided the memorial to his nephew Isaac, who sealed up the blood in two vials and secreted them from the invading Roman pagans. When danger menaced him, he hid the phials in an ancient fig-tree, which he then cast into the sea. Carried by the waves to Gaul, the fig-tree was cast up at the spot which now forms Fécamp harbour; and there a few centuries later it was found with the two phials secure. Fearless Duke Richard of Normandy was so impressed by the discovery that he built an Abbey in which fitly to enshrine the Precious Blood, and Fécamp Abbey bears witness alike to his faith and his devotion. It was upon the story of the Grail that chroniclers seized with avidity after Borron had once shown its capabilities--a story now believed by many to be almost wholly of Celtic origin, the Sancgreal being none other than Fionn’s healing cup. Mr. Nutt, to whose exhaustive work on the subject reference has previously been made, has told us of every form, rudimentary and developed, in which the Grail legend has appeared, and of every explanation advanced as to its meaning. Whether the legend is based upon Christian canonical or uncanonical writings, or whether it is an ancient saga into which a Christian element was imported, whether it was extant in any definite form before the time of Robert de Borron, or whether it was a fabrication of the era to which many monkish fables have been traced, are points which to discuss in detail would require, and have had, volumes devoted to them. Within fifty years (1180-1225) there were eight versions of the story in which the idea of the Grail was elaborated, and we know how the idea has been developed and enriched and idealised until our own time. “The vanished Vase of Heaven that held like Christ’s own Heart an Hin of Blood,” has been a marvellously fecund seed of inspiration to romancist and poet. Percival and Galahad are the highest human conceptions of purity, and their quest is the most exalting and ennobling upon which heroes can set forth. Yet, as we have already seen, the conclusion cannot be resisted that the story had its root in paganism, and that the history of the Grail is nothing but the history of the gradual transformation of old Celtic folk-tales into a poem charged with Christian symbolism and mysticism. “This transformation, at first the inevitable outcome of its pre-Christian development, was hastened later by the perception that it was a fitting vehicle for certain moral and spiritual ideas.” Avalon, lying not far from the western sea beyond which tradition said were the happy isles of the blessed dead, was the Cymric equivalent for the Celtic paradise, and thus did Glastonbury become associated with the glorious legends which have made it in the eyes of the romancists the most sacred and wondrous city of earth. So may Glastonbury truly be said to gather round it “all the noblest memories alike of the older and the newer dwellers in the land.” Nor is it surprising that in a place of so much reputation modern marvels should be reported to occur or wonderful discoveries be made. An elixir was found in the ruins of the Abbey in 1586, one grain of which, being dropped upon an ounce and a quarter of mercury, was found to transmute the mercury into an ounce of pure gold. Another grain of it, dropped upon a piece of metal cut out of a warming-pan, turned the metal into silver, and this with the warming-pan was sent to Queen Elizabeth that she might “fit the piece with the place where it was cut out.”