en divine
displeasure became manifest by a terrible famine.

As none knew who had sinned, Joseph was instructed in a vision to discover
the culprit by the same means with which the Lord had revealed the guilt of
Judas. Still following divine commands, Joseph made a table, and directed
Brons to catch a fish. The Grail was placed before Joseph's seat at table,
where all who implicitly believed were invited to take a seat. Eleven seats
were soon occupied, and only Judas's place remained empty. Moses, a
hypocrite and sinner, attempted to sit there, but the earth opened wide
beneath him and ingulfed him.

In another vision Joseph was now informed that the vacancy would only be
filled on the day of doom. He was also told that a similar table would be
constructed by Merlin. Here the grandson of Brons would honorably occupy
the vacant place, which is designated in the legend as the "Siege
Perilous," because it proved fatal to all for whom it was not intended.

In the "Great St. Grail," one of the longest poems on this theme, there are
countless adventures and journeys, "transformations of fair females into
foul fiends, conversions wholesale and individual, allegorical visions,
miracles, and portents. Eastern splendor and northern weirdness, angelry
and deviltry, together with abundant fighting and quite a phenomenal amount
of swooning, which seem to reflect a strange medley of Celtic, pagan, and
mythological traditions, and Christian legends and mysticism, alternate in
a kaleidoscopic maze that defies the symmetry which modern aesthetic canons
associate with every artistic production."

The Holy Grail was, we are further told, transported by Joseph of Arimathea
to Glastonbury, where it long remained visible, and whence it vanished only
when men became too sinful to be permitted to retain it in their midst.

[Sidenote: Birth of Titurel.] Another legend relates that a rich man from
Cappadocia, Berillus, followed Vespasian to Rome, where he won great
estates. He was a very virtuous man, and his good qualities were inherited
by all his descendants. One of them, called Titurisone, greatly regretted
having no son to continue his race. When advised by a soothsayer to make a
pilgrimage to the holy sepulcher, and there to lay a crucifix of pure gold
upon the altar, the pious Titurisone hastened to do so. On his return he
was rewarded for his pilgrimage by the birth of a son, called Titurel.

This child, when he had attained manhood,