Monday 12 November 2012

In The Footsteps Of St Paul III


In Poul and Karen Anderson's The Dog And The Wolf (London, 1989), Gratillonius, no longer Mithraist but not yet Christian, attends the episcopal consecration of his colleague and friend, Corentinus. During a reading from the New Testament:

"Gratillonius thought Martinus must have chosen the shipwreck of Paulus in compliment to old sailor Corentinus." (p. 122)

All the characters mentioned here have either historical or at least legendary status:

Martinus is St Martin of Tours;
Paulus is St Paul;
Corentinus is St Corentin;
Gratillonius is the King Grallon or Gradlon of the legend of Ys.

We already knew from previous volumes in the series that the Ysans had softened Gratillonius' name to "Grallon." It is now established that the Gauls among whom the survivors of drowned Ys settle soften it instead to "Gradlon." (p. 149) Thus, even a contradiction in the legend is explained. The transformation of an invented fictitious character, the Romano-Briton Gaius Valerius Gratillonius, into an inherited legendary figure, Grallon/Gradlon, is complete. He is historically contextualized by his associations with Martinus, Corentinus, Maximus, Niall etc.

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