Fisher King - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Fisher King, or the Wounded King, figures in Arthurian legend as the latest in a line charged with keeping the Holy Grail

Holy Grail

The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...

. Versions of his story vary widely, but he is always wounded in the legs or groin

Groin

In human anatomy, the groin areas are the two creases at the junction of the torso with the legs, on either side of the pubic area. This is also known as the medial compartment of the thigh. A pulled groin muscle usually refers to a painful injury sustained by straining the hip adductor muscles...

, and incapable of moving on his own. When he is injured, his kingdom

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

suffers as he does, his impotence affecting the fertility of the land and reducing it to a barren Wasteland

Wasteland (mythology)

The Wasteland is a Celtic motif that ties the barrenness of a land with a curse that must be lifted by a hero. It occurs in Irish mythology and French Grail romances, and hints of it may be found in the Welsh Mabinogion....

. Little is left for him to do but fish

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

in the river near his castle Corbenic

Corbenic

Corbenic , Carboneck , or Corbin is the name of the castle of the Holy Grail in the Lancelot-Grail cycle and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur...

. Knights travel from many lands to heal the Fisher King, but only the chosen can accomplish the feat. This is Percival

Percival

Percival or Perceval is one of King Arthur's legendary Knights of the Round Table. In Welsh literature his story is allotted to the historical Peredur...

in the earlier stories; in the later versions, he is joined by Galahad

Galahad

Sir Galahad |Round Table]] and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, he is perhaps the knightly...

and Bors

Bors

Bors circa 540s-580s, is the name of two knights in the Arthurian legend, one the father and one the son. Bors the Elder is the King of Gaunnes or Gaul during the early period of King Arthur's reign, and is the brother of King Ban of Benoic. Gaunnes is the Fredemundian dynastic kingdom of Neustria...

.

Confusingly, many works have two wounded Grail Kings who live in the same castle, a father and son (or grandfather and grandson). The more seriously wounded father stays in the castle, sustained by the Grail alone, while the more active son can meet with guests and go fishing. For clarity in the remainder of this article, where both appear the father will be called the Wounded King, the son the Fisher King.

Celtic mythology

The Fisher King appears first in Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...

' Perceval
Perceval, the Story of the Grail
Perceval, the Story of the Grail is the unfinished fifth romance of Chrétien de Troyes. Probably written between 1181 and 1191, it is dedicated to Chrétien's patron Philip, Count of Flanders...

(late 12th-century), but the character's roots may lie in Celtic mythology

Celtic mythology

Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...

. He may derive more or less directly from the figure of Bran the Blessed

Bran the Blessed

Brân the Blessed is a giant and king of Britain in Welsh mythology. He appears in several of the Welsh Triads, but his most significant role is in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen ferch Llŷr. He is a son of Llŷr and Penarddun, and the brother of Brânwen, Manawydan, Nisien and Efnysien...

in the Mabinogion
Mabinogion
The Mabinogion is the title given to a collection of eleven prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs, and early medieval historical traditions...

; in the Second Branch

Four Branches of the Mabinogi

The Four Branches of the Mabinogi are the best known tales from the collection of medieval Welsh prose known as the Mabinogion. The word "Mabinogi" originally designated only these four tales, which are really parts or "branches" of a single work, rather than the whole collection...

, Bran had a cauldron that could resurrect the dead (albeit imperfectly; those thus revived could not speak after they were resurrected), which he gave to the king of Ireland as a wedding gift for him and his sister Branwen

Branwen

Branwen, Daughter of Llŷr is a major character in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, which is sometimes called the Mabinogi of Branwen after her. Branwen is a daughter of Llŷr and Penarddun...

. Later, Bran wages war on the Irish and is wounded in the foot or leg, and the cauldron is destroyed. He asks his followers to sever his head and take it back to Britain, and his head continues talking and keeps them company on their trip. The group lands on the island of Gwales (perhaps Grassholm

Grassholm

Grassholm is a small uninhabited island situated off the southwestern Pembrokeshire coast in Wales, lying west of Skomer. It is the westernmost point in Wales and is known for its huge colony of gannets...

), where they spend 80 years in a castle of joy and abundance, but finally they leave and bury Bran's head in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. This story has analogues in two other important Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

texts: the Mabinogion tale Culhwch and Olwen
Culhwch and Olwen
Culhwch and Olwen is a Welsh tale about a hero connected with Arthur and his warriors that survives in only two manuscripts: a complete version in the Red Book of Hergest, ca. 1400, and a fragmented version in the White Book of Rhydderch, ca. 1325. It is the longest of the surviving Welsh prose...

, in which King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

's men must travel to Ireland to retrieve a magical cauldron, and the obscure poem The Spoils of Annwn, which speaks of a similar mystical cauldron sought by Arthur in the otherworldly land of Annwn

Annwn

Annwn or Annwfn was the Otherworld in Welsh mythology. Ruled by Arawn, or much later by Gwyn ap Nudd, it was essentially a world of delights and eternal youth where disease is absent and food is ever-abundant. It later became Christianised and identified with the land of souls that had departed...

.

The Welsh Romance Peredur son of Efrawg
Peredur son of Efrawg
Peredur son of Efrawg is one of the three Welsh Romances associated with the Mabinogion. It tells a story roughly analogous to Chrétien de Troyes' unfinished romance Perceval, the Story of the Grail, but it contains many striking differences from that work, most notably the absence of the French...

, based on Chrétien (or derived from a common original) but containing several prominent deviations, lacks a Grail. The character of the Fisher King appears (though he is not called such) and presents Peredur with a severed head on a platter. Peredur later learns he was related to that king, and that the severed head was that of his cousin, whose death he must avenge.

Later medieval works

The Fisher King's next development occurs in Robert de Boron

Robert de Boron

Robert de Boron was a French poet of the late 12th and early 13th centuries who is most notable as the author of the poems Joseph d'Arimathe and Merlin.-Work:...

's Joseph d'Arimathie about the end of the 12th century, the first work to connect the Grail with Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

. Here, the "Rich Fisher" is called Bron, a name similar enough to Bran to suggest a relationship, and he is said to be the brother-in-law of Joseph of Arimathea

Joseph of Arimathea

Joseph of Arimathea was, according to the Gospels, the man who donated his own prepared tomb for the burial of Jesus after Jesus' Crucifixion. He is mentioned in all four Gospels.-Gospel references:...

, who had used the Grail to catch Christ's blood before laying him in the tomb. Joseph founds a religious community that travels eventually to Britain, and he entrusts the Grail to Bron (who is called the "Rich Fisher" because he catches a fish eaten at the Grail table). Bron founds the line of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval.

The Didot-Perceval is thought to be a prosification of a lost work by Robert de Boron. In it, Bron is called the "Fisher King", and his story is told when Percival returns to his castle and asks the healing question.

Wolfram von Eschenbach

Wolfram von Eschenbach

Wolfram von Eschenbach was a German knight and poet, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of his time. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.-Life:...

takes up Chrétien's story and expands it greatly in his epic Parzival
Parzival
Parzival is a major medieval German romance by the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, in the Middle High German language. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, is itself largely based on Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval, the Story of the Grail and mainly centers on the Arthurian...

. He reworks the nature of the Grail and the community that surrounds it, and gives names to characters that Chrétien left nameless (the Wounded King is Titurel and the Fisher King is Anfortas).

Pelles

The Lancelot-Grail

Lancelot-Grail

The Lancelot–Grail, also known as the Prose Lancelot, the Vulgate Cycle, or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is a major source of Arthurian legend written in French. It is a series of five prose volumes that tell the story of the quest for the Holy Grail and the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere...

cycle includes a more elaborate history for the Fisher King. Many in his line are wounded for their failings, and the only two that survive to Arthur's day are the Wounded King, called Pellam

Pellam

King Pellam of Listeneise is the name that Malory gives to the Maimed King in his rendition of the tale of Sir Balin, at whose hands Pellam suffers the Dolorous Stroke. In the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles, Malory's source for these episodes, the character is called Pellehan.The Dolorous Stroke...

or Pellehan, and the Fisher King, Pelles. Pelles engineers the birth of Galahad

Galahad

by tricking Lancelot

Lancelot

Sir Lancelot du Lac is one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is the most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories...

into bed with his daughter Elaine

Elaine of Corbenic

Elaine of Corbenic , is a character in the Arthurian legend. She is the daughter of King Pelles and the mother of Sir Galahad by Sir Lancelot...

, and it is prophesied that Galahad will achieve the Grail and heal the Wasteland. In the Post-Vulgate Cycle and Malory

Thomas Malory

Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The antiquary John Leland as well as John Bale believed him to be Welsh, but most modern scholars, beginning with G. L...

's Le Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...

, the Fisher King's wound was given to him by Sir Balin

Sir Balin

Sir Balin le Savage , also known as the Knight with the Two Swords, is a character in the Arthurian legend. Merlin told King Arthur he would have been his best and bravest knight. A knight before the Round Table was formed, Sir Balin hails from Northumberland, and is associated with Sir Balan, his...

in the "Dolorous Stroke

Dolorous Stroke

The Dolorous Stroke is a trope in Arthurian legend and some other stories of Celtic origin.In its fullest form, it concerns the Fisher King , the guardian of the Holy Grail, who falls into sin and consequently suffers a wound from a mystical weapon...

", when Balin grabs a spear and stabs Pellam in self-defense. The spear is the Spear of Longinus, however, and Pellam and his land must suffer for its misuse until the coming of Galahad.

In Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...

, there are four characters (some of whom can probably be identified with each other) filling the role of Fisher King or Wounded King:

King Pellam, wounded by Balyn, as in the Post-Vulgate.
King Pelles, grandfather of Galahad, described as "the maimed king". In one passage, he is explicitly identified with Pellam; in another, however, he is said to have suffered his wound in quite different circumstances.
King Pescheour or Petchere, lord of the Grail Castle, who never appears on stage (at least under that name). He owes his existence to a mistake by Malory, who took the Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

roy Peschour ("Fisher King", a phrase that Malory never otherwise uses) for a name rather than an epithet. Nevertheless, Malory treats him as distinct from Pelles.
An anonymous, bed-ridden Maimed King, healed by Galahad at the climax of the Grail Quest. He is definitely distinct from Pelles, who has just been sent out of the room, and who is anyway at least mobile.

It would appear that Malory intended to have one Maimed King, wounded by Balin and suffering until healed by his grandson Galahad, but never managed to successfully reconcile his sources.

King Pelles is the name of the Maimed King in some versions of the Arthurian legend. Pelles is one of a line of Grail keepers established by Joseph of Arimathea, the father of Eliazer and Elaine (the mother of Galahad

Galahad

), and he resides in the castle of Corbinec

Corbenic

Corbenic , Carboneck , or Corbin is the name of the castle of the Holy Grail in the Lancelot-Grail cycle and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur...

in Listenois. Pelles and his relative Pellehan

Pellam

appear in both the Vulgate (Lancelot-Grail) and Post-Vulgate Cycle

Post-Vulgate Cycle

The Post-Vulgate Cycle is one of the major Old French prose cycles of Arthurian literature. It is essentially a rehandling of the earlier Vulgate Cycle , with much left out and much added, including characters and scenes from the Prose Tristan.The Post-Vulgate, written probably between 1230 and...

s, as well as in later works, such as Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (in which Pellehan is called Pellam). In the Vulgate, Pelles is the son of Pellehan, but the Post-Vulgate is less clear about their relationship. It is even murkier in Malory's work: one passage explicitly identifies them (book XVIII, chapter 5), though this is contradicted elsewhere.

Galahad, the knight prophesied to achieve the Holy Grail and heal the Maimed King, is conceived when Elaine gets Dame Brisen to use magic to trick Lancelot into thinking that he is coming to visit Guenever. So Lancelot sleeps with Elaine, thinking her Guenever, but flees when he realizes what he has done. Galahad is raised by his aunt in a convent, and when he is eighteen, comes to King Arthur's court and begins the Grail quest. Only he, Percival, and Bors are virtuous enough to achieve the Grail and restore Pelles.

Modern versions of the legend

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

used the myth in his opera Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...

, based on Wolfram's work.
T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...

made use of the legend in his poem The Waste Land
The Waste Land
The Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...

.

In Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle
Pendragon Cycle
The Pendragon Cycle is a series of fantasy or semi-historical books based on the Arthurian legend, written by Stephen R. Lawhead. They are:*Taliesin *Merlin *Arthur *Pendragon *Grail...

, Merlin

Merlin

Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...

's grandfather Avallach, previously a king of lost Atlantis

Atlantis

Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....

, is explicitly called the Fisher King. He carries a wound never healed from battle and spends his later years in Britain fishing on the lake. The character appears again in opera in Michael Tippett

Michael Tippett

Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...

's The Midsummer Marriage
The Midsummer Marriage
The Midsummer Marriage is an opera in three acts, with music and libretto by Michael Tippett. The work's first performance was at Covent Garden, 27 January 1955, conducted by John Pritchard...

, partly inspired by Eliot's poem.

The story is told in Éric Rohmer

Éric Rohmer

Éric Rohmer was a French film director, film critic, journalist, novelist, screenwriter and teacher. A figure in the post-war New Wave cinema, he was a former editor of Cahiers du cinéma....

's 1978 film Perceval le Gallois
Perceval le Gallois
Perceval le Gallois is a 1978 French film directed by Éric Rohmer. It was inspired by Chrétien de Troyes's 12th century Arthurian romance Perceval, the Story of the Grail.-Synopsis:...

, based on Chrétien de Troye's Perceval. The story of a wounded king whose wounds cause the land to become a wasteland, then healed by the grail recovered by Percival, is woven directly into the story of King Arthur in John Boorman

John Boorman

John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...

's 1981 film Excalibur
Excalibur (film)
Excalibur is a 1981 dramatic fantasy film directed, produced and co-written by John Boorman that retells the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Adapted from the 15th century Arthurian romance, Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory, Excalibur features the music of Richard Wagner...

. The story is also dealt with in the 1991 movie The Fisher King
The Fisher King (film)
The Fisher King is a 1991 American comedy-drama film written by Richard LaGravenese and directed by Terry Gilliam. It stars Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Mercedes Ruehl, Amanda Plummer and Michael Jeter...

, directed by Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam

Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...

.

The Fisher King also appears in a series 3 episode of the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's Merlin
Merlin (TV series)
Merlin is a British fantasy-adventure television programme by Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Julian Murphy and Johnny Capps. It began broadcasting on BBC One on 20 September 2008. The show is based on the Arthurian legends of the wizard Merlin and his relationship with Prince Arthur but differs from...

. He lives in a kingdom called simply "The Perilous Lands." It is stated that the King was a warlord who gained control over a powerful form of magic and as a result his conquered lands became home to mystical creatures of all shapes and sizes. Arthur embarks on a quest there to gain his trident

Trident

A trident , also called a trishul or leister or gig, is a three-pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and was also a military weapon. Tridents are featured widely in mythical, historical and modern culture. The major Hindu god, Shiva the Destroyer and the sea god Poseidon or Neptune are...

, but the Fisher King gives the young Merlin an artifact he says is the true prize, containing water from Avalon and a message about events that are to come. After giving the artifact to Merlin he states that he needs something in return, Merlin realizes that what he is talking about is a bracelet that contains a Phoenix Eye which will drain the life from the king (said bracelet was used by a then-corrupt Morgana against Arthur), Merlin understands that the king wishes to end his life and bows his head in respect as he aids in the king's suicide, causing the King to turn to dust.

Other modern takes on the Fisher King appear in novels like C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

' That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength is a 1945 novel by C. S. Lewis, the final book in Lewis's theological science fiction Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom...

, Paule Marshall

Paule Marshall

Paule Marshall is an American author. She was born Valenza Pauline Burke in Brooklyn to Barbadian parents and educated at Girls High School, Brooklyn College and Hunter College . Early in her career, she wrote poetry, but later returned to prose...

's The Fisher King: A Novel, Tim Powers

Tim Powers

Timothy Thomas "Tim" Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare...

' novels The Drawing of the Dark
The Drawing of the Dark
The Drawing of the Dark is a historical fantasy novel by Tim Powers published in 1979 by Del Rey Books.-Plot summary:The year is 1529, and Brian Duffy, a world-weary Irish mercenary soldier is hired in Venice by the mysterious Aurelius Aurelianus to go to Vienna and work as a bouncer at the...

and Last Call
Last Call (novel)
Last Call is a fantasy novel by Tim Powers. It was published in New York by Harper Collins in 1996 with ISBN 0-380-72846-X. It is the first book in a loose trilogy called Fault Lines; the second book, Expiration Date , is vaguely related to Last Call, the third book, Earthquake Weather , acts as...

, Susan Cooper

Susan Cooper

Susan Mary Cooper is an English author best known for The Dark Is Rising, an award-winning five-volume saga set in and around England and Wales. The books incorporate traditional British mythology, such as Arthurian and other Welsh elements with original material ; these books were adapted into a...

's The Grey King
The Grey King
The Grey King is a children's fantasy novel by British author Susan Cooper, which was awarded the Newbery Medal for excellence in U.S. children's literature in 1976. It is the fourth of five stories in her young adult Arthurian fantasy cycle, The Dark Is Rising...

(part of The Dark is Rising Sequence

The Dark is Rising Sequence

The Dark Is Rising is the name of a five-book series of children's contemporary fantasy novels by Susan Cooper, published in 1965–1977, which depicts the struggle between the forces of good, called The Light, and the forces of evil, known as The Dark...

), and Matt Wagner

Matt Wagner

Matt Wagner is an American comic book writer and artist, best known as the creator of the series Mage and Grendel.-Career:...

's comic book series Mage
Mage (comics)
Mage is an American superhero comic book written and illustrated by Matt Wagner. Three volumes, each of 15 issues are planned; , two have been published.-Publication history:...

. Don Nigro

Don Nigro

Don Nigro is an American playwright; his plays Anima Mundi and The Dark Sonnets of the Lady have both been nominated for the National Repertory Theatre Foundation's National Play Award...

's play Fisher King retells the story during the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. In 1998, David Crosby

David Crosby

David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...

wrote and recorded a song with the band CPR, called "Somehow She Knew", based on personal experiences and the movie The Fisher King. Joan Didion

Joan Didion

Joan Didion is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation...

compared president

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

to the legendary king in her critical essay "In the Realm of the Fisher King," published in 1989. Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney, Jr. , under which he was best known as the author of the bestselling The Wheel of Time fantasy series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reilly.-Biography:Jordan was born in Charleston, South Carolina...

's Wheel of Time
The Wheel of Time
The Wheel of Time is a series of epic fantasy novels written by American author James Oliver Rigney, Jr., under the pen name Robert Jordan. Originally planned as a six-book series, the length was increased by increments; at the time of Rigney's death, he expected it to be 12, but it will actually...

series includes a game where the central piece is called "the Fisher", which is a piece in the shape of an old, blinded and wounded man. His presence should also be recognized in the novel The Natural
The Natural
The Natural is a 1952 novel about baseball written by Bernard Malamud. The book follows Roy Hobbs, a baseball prodigy whose career is sidetracked when he is shot by a woman who seeks to kill arrogant athletes to "better the world"...

where Pop Fisher resembles him in the fact that while he was sick, the team was on a losing streak.

External links

Student Research on the Fisher King at the University of Idaho

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Celtic mythology

Later medieval works

Pelles

Modern versions of the legend

See also

Further reading

External links