The author reviews the Fisher King/Grail motifs used by Dorothy Dunnett in King Hereafter. "Common elements included a god/king/hero with wounds that will not heal; a wasted land; the Grail as a cup, vessel, or Cauldron of Rebirth; and a Grail question that must be asked." In the end, Thorfinn must die, as must the Fisher King, to preserve that land he has fought so hard for. Also included in the article is 'Fisher King Squeaks in King Hereafter.
Robyn Winder, ‘Lulach: When I Was Dunnett of Scotland’, Whispering Gallery 150, March 2021
Will Parker, ‘Life in Native Wales: Society and Culture, The King and the Royal Tribe’.
Norris J. Lacy, ‘Arthurian Romance,’ Oxford Bibliographies, Last modified October 26, 2015.
Christopher Taylor, ‘Mysteries of the Grail’, Scalar Institute, Last updated February 21, 2016.
Proinsias Mac Cana, ‘Aspects of the Theme of King and Goddess in Irish Literature’, Le Persée Portal.
Parker, The Four Branches of the Mabinogion (Bardic Press, 2005).
Jessie L. Weston, From Ritual to Romance, Chapter IX, ‘The Fisher King’.
William A. Nitze, ‘The Fisher King in the Grail Romances’, PMLA Vol. 24, January 1, 1909.
‘The History of the Christian Fish Symbol’, Eureka4You, accessed December 22, 2020.
Donald J. Ward, ‘The Threefold Death: An Indo-European Functional Sacrifice?’, Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans, ed. Jaan Puhvel (University of California Press, 1970).
August Hunt, ‘The Spirit of the Wood,’ Vortigern Studies: Faces of Arthur, accessed September 19, 2020.
George Henderson, Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland (James Maclehose and Sons, 1910), National Library of Scotland.
17 ‘Gimle’, Berloga Workshop, accessed December 22, 2020.
Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda, p. 46, quoted in Lawrence Durden-Robinson, Life in the Next World (Cesara Publications, 1989).
Riley Winters, ‘The Wooing of Etain: An Irish Tale of Love, Loss and Jealousy’, Ancient Origins, Last updated March 22, 2019.
Hunt, ‘The Magic of the Cauldron’, accessed December 22, 2020.
