“Paul I had as my guide, Faith however always went ahead and set before me as food a _Fish_ from a _Fountain_, a huge one, a clean one, Which a _Holy Virgin_ has _caught_. This she gave to the friends ever to eat as food, Having good _Wine_, and offering it watered together with _Bread_. Aberkios had this engraved when 72 years of age in truth. _Whoever can understand this_ let him pray for Aberkios.” Eisler (I am here quoting from the Quest article) remarks, “As the last line of our quotation gives us quite plainly to understand, a number of words which we have italicized are obviously used in an unusual, metaphorical, sense, that is to say as terms of the Christian Mystery language.” While Harnack, admitting that the Christian character of the text is indisputable, adds significantly: “_aber das Christentum der Grosskirche ist es nicht_.” Thus it is possible that, to the various points of doubtful orthodoxy which scholars have noted as characteristic of the Grail romances, Borron’s Fish-meal should also be added. Should it be objected that the dependence of a medieval romance upon a Jewish tradition of such antiquity is scarcely probable, I would draw attention to the _Voyage of Saint Brandan_, where the monks, during their prolonged wanderings, annually ‘kept their Resurrection,’ _i.e._, celebrate their Easter Mass, on the back of a great Fish.[43] On their first meeting with this monster Saint Brandan tells them it is the greatest of all fishes, and is named Jastoni, a name which bears a curious resemblance to the Jhasa of the Indian tradition cited above.[44] In this last instance the connection of the Fish with life, renewed and sustained, is undeniable. The original source of such a symbol is most probably to be found in the belief, referred to in a previous chapter,[45] that all life comes from the water, but that a more sensual and less abstract idea was also operative appears from the close connection of the Fish with the goddess Astarte or Atargatis, a connection here shared by the Dove. Cumont, in his _Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain_, says: “Two animals were held in general reverence, namely, Dove and Fish. Countless flocks of Doves greeted the traveller when he stepped on shore at Askalon, and in the outer courts of all the temples of Astarte one might see the flutter of their white wings. The Fish were preserved in ponds near to the Temple, and superstitious dread forbade their capture, for the goddess punished such sacrilege, smiting the offender with ulcers and tumours.”[46]