Celtic Symbols

The Holy Grail, while not necessarily a Celtic symbol per se, has long been associated with the British Isles. It is best known today from the legends of King Arthur. It is supposed to be the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. In a 12th Century story by Robert de Boron, the Grail is brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea. Medieval legends describe knights such as Percival on quests for the Grail.

There are also connections between the Grail legend and Welsh literature, especially the Mabinogion, in which the hero Bran has a life-giving cauldron.
Some authors and researchers, notably Lewis Spence The Mysteries of Britain (Senate Paperbacks)
connect the Holy Grail to earlier Celtic beliefs, such as Cerridwen’s Cauldron, from which the mythic bard Taliesin drank, giving him the gift of prophecy.

While the Holy Grail has long been a sacred symbol of Christianity, especially in Western Europe, the cauldrons of Bran and Cerridwen have more recently been resurrected by neo-pagans. It is difficult to prove one way or the other whether these two traditions are directly related –that is, if the Holy Grail developed out of earlier tales of cauldrons from the Celtic lands.

When it comes to symbolism, however, it isn’t necessary to find direct historical links in order to find meanings and similarities. The Grail, and its connection to Jesus, relates to the Christian sacrement of Communion, in which worshippers partake of Christ’s body and blood, symbolizing eternal life. This seems to connect with the cauldron of Bran.

J. A. MacCulloch’s The Religion of the Ancient Celts
connects the cauldron with earlier fertility gods and goddesses, such as Dagda and Cerridwen, and spoke of the “three properties of the cauldron –inexhaustibility, inspiration and regeneration. From this we can see that both the Holy Grail and the cauldrons of Celtic tradition were related in many ways.