The Fisher King

The Fisher King

The mysterious wounded king who appears in several versions of the medieval Grail legends (and as Robin Williams in a more recent, modernized film version) seems to have roots that extend far back. In Homer’s Iliad there is a very similar character named Philoctites who is abandoned by his fellow soldiers due to a serpent bite that begins to stink horribly and will not seem to heal.
There are also strong elements of the old pre-Roman Celtic culture present in the medieval tale. Clearly this is a story which has fermented and evolved over a long period of time.

It begins with an impetuous young king, eager for glory, who suffers a grievous wound in single combat, in the thigh. There seems to be a sexual connotation to this also, since the groin is associated with reproduction. His wound will not heal, and yet he cannot seem to die either. Removed from the world, always in pain, neither able to sit or to stand, he spends his days fishing. He becomes a figure like Christ or the Buddha, reflecting on the human condition in solitude.

He waits for the knight that will guess the secret of healing his long endured affliction, and his kingdom, which has become a wasteland. (In ancient Celtic lore the condition and fertility of the land was mystically connected to the health of the king. The ritual of ‘the great marriage’ is said to have joined their fates.) That knight need only set his formal manner aside and express pure and spontaneous compassion for the maimed ruler: But the fisherman waits for years, looking down into the watery abyss.

The story is a tapestry of subtle, interwoven symbols. It is explored in great detail by Joseph Campbell in ‘Creative Mythology,’ the last in his four part series, “The Masks of God.”