Introduction to the German Edition

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edicated to the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, this book by Werner Greub may be viewed as a remarkable work. With it, Greub joins that group of scholars who since the 19^th century have begun to regard the great songs and epics of mankind’s poetry as true representations of reality. This realism has been a long time in coming. Previously, it was considered scientific to prove by means of an a priori critical attitude that these narratives were not based on any sort of reality, but only on poetical fantasy of long bygone times. The most outstanding works from the spiritual tradition of ancient civilizations were thus placed in the category of “sagas”, “fairy-tales” and phantasmagoric “poems” and the startling fact that they were pronouncing unusual truths could no longer be understood.

Thanks to Rudolf Steiner, who developed completely new ways of entering the spiritual world and performing research in it, these ancient treasures were freed from this ignorance and brought within the reach of present-day spiritual humanists. What he conveyed in this respect concerning the Bhagavad-Gita, the Kalevala, the Edda, Greek mythology, the poetry of Homer, the Bible, the Apocalypse, and the Arthurian and Grail stream, belongs to the most significant directives of our time. That a personality such as the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann consulted Homer as a sort of travel guide on his search for Troy, that Werner Keller gave his sensational book the title The Bible As History, shows that a new spirit has entered modern research. Its point of departure is that Homer’s Iliad, the Bible and Wolfram’s Parzival are accurate accounts of spiritual events that are also mirrored in the earthly-historical world. This book by Werner Greub, who supplies step-by-step evidence for his findings, can be placed in this line of concrete research. He is guided, on the one hand, by his recognition of the truth of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s oeuvre, while on the other hand he is gifted with the faculty of reading and interpreting in detail the narrated facts with respect to their geography and topography. This faculty turns the landscape into an open book that reveals to him the settings of Wolfram’s narratives.

Werner Greub has proceeded in a most thorough and precise manner. He must be given great credit for not resigning in the face of Wolfram’s almost undecipherable nomenclature of towns, territories, mountains, streams and personages, but that he diligently pursued the literary records from various traditions and discovered the geographical location and philological meaning of the various names. He has submitted his findings to several specialists and examined their approval and objections objectively.

We hope that friends and specialists in the field of Wolfram research alike will judge this unusual work, which has broken new ground with respect to questions concerning Master Kyot and Wolfram, as a new and important contribution to their line of research. In his daring treatment of the most difficult riddles concerning this dark age of humanity, whose singer was Wolfram von Eschenbach, Werner Greub may anticipate questions and objections that could lead to a thorough scientific discussion.

Rudolf Grosse