THE FISHER KING: A MYTH FOR MODERN MAN

Back in my teens, I watched a Terry Gilliam film called The Fisher King, which takes its name from an Arthurian legend. No one else in my circle seemed to pay it much attention, but it got hold of me and wouldn’t let me go. Quite aside from the quality of the acting – Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges, a Tom Waits cameo – there was something so compelling about the story, the themes of despair and loss, compassion and redemption.

So you can imagine my delight when, all these years later, I found a book called The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden by the late Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson. The first half relates the tale of the Fisher King to a crisis faced by many men, that of a wound or weakness in the feeling function of the psyche. But before we go any further, I’ll do my best to summarise the legend. Please bear in mind that there have been many versions over the years, and mine is pretty basic to say the least.

While out roaming, a future guardian of the Holy Grail makes an error of judgment and is terribly wounded in the groin. He spends the rest of his days in agony, the ailing ruler of an ailing kingdom, too sick to partake of life’s joys but unable to die. The only thing that brings him any relief is fishing in the nearby lake, plus the prophecy that one day a fool will come to the castle and ask the question that will cure his wound.

Meanwhile, the naive young Parsifal has finally escaped his mother’s apron strings and become a knight-errant. To the bemusement of the other knights, he has won the favour of King Arthur and has been trained in the ways of chivalry. On his travels, he encounters the Fisher King at the lake and asks if there are any lodgings in the area. He is given directions to the castle, where he dines with the residents, including the afflicted king.

During the meal, a strange procession takes place, and everyone present, except for Parsifal and the Fisher King, receives the blessing of the Grail’s miraculous powers. Despite his curiosity, and despite knowing exactly what question he is supposed to ask, Parsifal remains mute. It appears that his mother’s warning not to ask too many questions has overridden the instructions of his tutor.

The next morning, Parsifal leaves the castle and, during a conversation with a young woman he meets on the road, realises the gravity of his mistake. But he cannot find his way back and is left to continue his roaming. And all the while that he’s vanquishing foes and rescuing maidens, the Fisher King suffers from the agony of his wound.

It is many years before Parsifal finds himself back in the area. He’s somewhat jaded now, a little wiser, and when the opportunity presents itself again, he doesn’t fail. He encounters an old hermit who gives him directions to the castle, where again he dines and bears witness to the procession. Only this time, Parsifal asks, “Whom does the grail serve?” And with these words, the Fisher King is finally healed.

Okay, so there’s quite a bit to unpack here. That doesn’t mean we’re launching into a major analysis – though the book does an amazing job – but there are several points I think are worth highlighting.

The first is that both the Fisher King and Parsifal are, to me at least, one and the same. The former suffers a physical wound for his actions (in some versions, fighting a pagan knight, in others, tasting the body of Christ in the form of a salmon he finds roasting on someone’s campfire), while the latter suffers a psychological wound. His lack of awareness during his first visit to the castle (the arena of the unconscious) leaves him full of regret and unable to find his way back inside.

By extension, many of us are Fisher Kings and Parsifals. Our early forays into adulthood are fraught with danger, and when we overreach or find ourselves out of our depth, we are often humiliated. Our feeling function, the creative, generative aspect of the psyche, is injured, and thus we become rigid where once we were supple and yielding. How many of us have everything we need in the material sense but don’t know how to enjoy it? How many of us are prone to moodiness and spasms of ill humour? And how many of us find only disdain when the appropriate reaction ought to be warmth or compassion?

The second point is that the Fisher King finds some relief in fishing. Most men I know, myself included, don’t worry too much about actually catching anything. If we go with a friend, it’s for some form of bonding, and if we go by ourselves, it’s for a bit of peace and quiet and time to think. It should be fairly clear, then, that the only relief for a wound to the feeling function is some form of inner work, be it sitting out in nature somewhere, doing yoga, or indulging in a spot of active imagination. Anything less, anything hedonistic or retail-based, just isn’t going to cut it. After all, Parsifal’s successes in the outer world do little to assuage his tacit sense of failure.

And finally, we have the resolution of the tale. We see that midlife brings a second chance to enter the castle of the unconscious, this time with a greater level of awareness. And if the answer to Parsifal’s question is “The Grail serves the Grail King” – described by Johnson as an allusion to the transcendent – surely our own questions and answers ought to be cut from a similar cloth.