“Fisher King: One of the chief characters in medieval legends dealing with the quest for the Holy Grail. The Fisher King was the keeper of the Grail relics, including the spear of Longinus used to wound Jesus as he hung on the cross. The Fisher King suffered from a wound made by the same spear. The wound destroyed the Fisher King’s virility and, by a sympathetic transference, turned his realm into a wasteland. A new and purer guardian of the relics, in the form of the Grail hero, must intervene (see GALAHAD). The task of the hero is not simply to find the relics themselves, which had been stolen, but also to free the king so he may die a peaceful death and bring life and fertility back to the king’s realm. See WASTE LAND, THE.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
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