[274] i. 10; ii. 21b; iii. 70; cf. Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., p. 60.
[275] See Williams’ Seint Greal, pp. 278, 304, 341, 617, 634, 658, 671; Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., p. 61.
[276] Cf. Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., pp. 51, 35; and see our study, pp. [374-6].
[277] Chevalier de la Charrette (ed. by Tarbé), p. 22; Romania, xii. 467, 515; cf. Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., p. 54.
[278] Romania, xii. 467-8, 473-4; cf. Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., p. 55.
[279] Cf. Tylor, Prim. Cult.,4 ii. 93-4.
[280] Romania, xii. 508; cf. Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., p. 54.
[281] Book XIX, c. i.
[282] In the Lebar Brecc there is a tract describing eight Eucharistic Colours and their mystical or hidden meaning; and green is so described that we recognize in its Celtic-Christian symbolism the same essential significance as in the writings of both pagan and non-Celtic Christian mystics, thus:—‘This is what the Green denotes, when he (the priest) looks at it: that his heart and his mind be filled with great faintness and exceeding sorrow: for what is understood by it is his burial at the end of life under mould of earth; for green is the original colour of every earth, and therefore the colour of the robe of Offering is likened unto green’ (Stokes, Tripartite Life, Intro., p. 189). During the ceremonies of initiation into the Ancient Mysteries, it is supposed that the neophyte left the physical body in a trance state, and in full consciousness, which he retained afterwards, entered the subjective world and beheld all its wonders and inhabitants; and that coming out of that world he was clothed in a robe of sacred green to symbolize his own spiritual resurrection and re-birth into real life—for he had penetrated the Mystery of Death and was now an initiate. Even yet there seems to be an echo of the ancient Egyptian Mysteries in the Festival of Al-Khidr celebrated in the middle of the wheat harvest in Lower Egypt. Al-Khidr is a holy personage who, according to the belief of the people, was the Vizier of Dhu’l-Karnen, a contemporary of Abraham, and who, never having died, is still living and will continue to live until the Day of Judgement. And he is always represented ‘clad in green garments, whence probably the name’ he bears. Green is thus associated with a hero or god who is immortal and unchanging, like the Tuatha De Danann and fairy races (see Sir Norman Lockyer’s Stonehenge and Other Stone Monuments, London, 1909, p. 29). In modern Masonry, which preserves many of the ancient mystic rites, and to some extent those of initiation as anciently performed, green is the symbol of life, immutable nature, of truth, and victory. In the evergreen the Master Mason finds the emblem of hope and immortality. And the masonic authority who gives this information suggests that in all the Ancient Mysteries this symbolism was carried out—green symbolizing the birth of the world and the moral creation or resurrection of the initiate (General History, Cyclopedia, and Dictionary of Freemasonry, by Robert Macoy, 33o, New York, 1869).
[283] Myv. Arch., i. 175. The text itself in this work is said to be copied from the Green Book—now unknown. Cf. Rhŷs, Arth. Leg. p. 56 n.