Who Was the Fisher King?
The Fisher King is generally seen as the keeper of the Grail. He is sometimes called the Rich Fisher/Angler. He might be an avatar of the Welsh hero/god Bran the Blessed. The Fisher king is the wounded occupant of the Grail Castle in Chretien de Troyes’s Perceval as well as in other works. The nature of the Fisher King’s wound varies, but is generally seen as some form of castration or other loss of fertility. In the various versions of the Perceval Saga, Perceval sees a procession while at the Grail Castle, but fails to ask questions despite his curiosity. P. later discovers that if he had asked his questions, he would have discovered that the Fisher King was his cousin and P. would not have been forced to go on the Grail Quest. In Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Perceval, The Fisher King is given the name Anfortas. Robert de Boron, in his Arthurian cycle, identifies the Fisher King with either Bron or Hebron and makes him Joseph of Arimathea’s brother-in-law. (Note the similarity to Bran).
