Footprints

For Cultural Hybrids Seeking Home

THE FILIPINO FISHER KING

13 July 2024

There is a popular medieval European myth called “The Fisher King”. The story goes something like this:

A young king named Amfortas loved to fish, so he became known as “The Fisher King.” One day, as he was cantering back home to his Grail Castle, he met a pagan knight who challenged him to a joust.  As was mandated by the rules of medieval chivalry, the Fisher King could not refuse.  Lowering his visor, he charged at the pagan knight with his shield and lance but was unhorsed with a splinter of the pagan's lance lodged in his thigh.

Thus began the Fisher King's unbearable pain. The wound festered and wouldn’t heal. He could not stand nor sit, and so forever lay on his litter in agony. He was described as too ill to live but unable to die. His only respite was when, lying on his boat, he could go around the lake surrounding the Grail Castle to fish.

Naturally, his wound rendered him incapable of performing his duties to his kingdom, so his land became infertile and unproductive. His crops failed to grow. His cattle refused to breed. His fruit trees did not bear fruit. The landscape became barren.

In supplication, his subjects enacted an astounding procession at the Grail Castle every night, praying that their king’s sufferings be relieved, blight be removed from the land, and fertility restored.

As is true with most myths, they don’t leave us stranded—they offer us a way out of our dilemmas.

An innocent rider named Parsifal wandered one evening into the vicinity of the Grail Castle, entirely unaware of his great mission. We see him riding on his horse at dusk, lost in the forest. He was getting resigned to the prospect of sleeping in the woods without shelter when he came upon a lake with a lone fisherman in a small boat. This was, of course, the Fisher King. Parsifal asked the fisherman where he might lodge for the night. “There is not a single inn within 30 miles,” said the king, “but you are welcome to stay in my house.” He gave Parsifal directions thus: “Just down the road a little way, turn left, cross the drawbridge, and you will be my guest for the night.”

Parsifal went down the road a little way, turned left, and crossed the drawbridge, which snapped shut the moment his horse’s hooves stepped inside the castle. He was welcomed by the king’s subjects and invited to participate in their by now countless nightly processions. The Grail had a healing miracle touching every participant who drank from its cup, except for the Fisher King who remained on his litter, unable to sit and drink from the Grail.

It was foretold that an innocent fool would one day come along and ask, “Whom does the Grail serve?” That simple question would immediately heal their king. Oblivious to all these, Parsifal, of course, did not know the significance of the question. Even when enjoined by the king’s subjects to ask the prescribed question, he was unable to articulate this short statement. Instead, at the end of the procession, he spent the night at the Grail Castle and awakened the next morning with no one in sight. So, he saddled his horse, crossed the drawbridge, and was back in his own world.

It took twenty years of exhausting life experiences before Parsifal gained the wisdom to finally understand the Grail Castle’s cryptic question. “Whom does the Grail serve?” It served the Fisher King! Parsifal finally recognized that his main duty in life was to save the Fisher King!

With his old horse, he trotted back to the forest by the lake, went down the road a little way, turned left, and crossed the drawbridge to the castle so he could ask the burning question and deliver the Fisher King from his misery.

* * * *

The "Fisher King" is part of the 12th-century Celtic mythology of King Arthur and his knights. Steeped in Christian symbolism, it is replete with religious allusions—from the image of the fish (Jesus Christ) to references concerning death and rebirth (Easter). There are numerous versions of the story. One version talks about the Fisher King’s wound coming from a fire pit as it roasted a salmon. Another is the cure coming from the blood on a lance said to be the same one that pierced the side of Christ. Nonetheless, commonalities in these stories abound. A king who is the embodiment of his land, is wounded in the thigh or the groin, his reproductive organ. This renders him impotent, and he and his land become barren. Now, he must await the coming of the “Chosen One” to deliver him from unending pain. The focus of each story is our need for salvation.

The coming of secularism in Western Europe did not make the allegory of the Fisher King less popular. To this day, this theme is repeated again and again in mass media, including video games and films—from subjects such as a stranded alien waiting to be rescued*, to a hero wounded in the groin and unable to walk but able to foretell the future**. Most famous are T. S. Eliot’s masterpiece, The Waste Land, and the opera Parsifal by Richard Wagner. Likewise, Carl Jung, an influential psychoanalyst, illustrated much of his theory of the unconscious through the myth of the Fisher King.

_________________

(from Wikipedia) *The 2015 Doctor Who episode "Before the Flood" features a warlord named Fisher King, an alien supposedly waiting for his people to come and save him.

**The 2011-2019 series Game of Thrones features a character named Brandon Stark who is injured in his groin area and is unable to walk but able to foretell the future.

*      *      *      *

What attracted me to the myth was that I thought it represented a rough description of the infertility of the Philippine landscape— its inability to be productive.  Like the Fisher King, are we perhaps “wounded”?  If so, what causes this wound?  Corrupt politicians?  Exploitative colonisers?  Pundits say that whilst all these are true, it is our dysfunctional cultural values in general that breed corruption, indolence, insecurity, and many other traits that prevent us from progressing and developing economically so that we can lead more comfortable lives. 

We bemoan ad infinitum these “destructive values” so that these self-criticisms contribute to our lack of national pride and lack of confidence in our abilities to help ourselves.  Members of my chat group do not tire of airing out the latest political scandal (again!) without ever proposing what we should do about them.  This sense of lack of agency breeds hopelessness, which in turn drives us to shelter inside our cocoons of family and relations.  We forget to look beyond and be likewise aware of our roles in our community and, indeed, in our nation.

Some of us say we need a "Chosen One" galloping to our rescue, an innocent like Parsifal who will deliver us from our misery.  We cite how Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore and Park Chung Hee of South Korea delivered their nations from poverty in one generation.  We whisper about the need for a strongman, a benevolent dictator, perhaps, who will tell us what we can and cannot do.  American-style democracy, we say, is not right for us.  We do not have the proper education to vote and choose our leaders intelligently. 

I don’t have enough knowledge about political theory to say definitively what government system is best for us.  But it seems to me that the causes behind our under-development are multi-faceted, rather than singular.  They are not only due to our so-called dysfunctional value systems, but also our erroneous government policies*, our topography**, and our lack of access to technology and international markets***, to mention only a few issues that come to mind.

On the other hand, much as the Fisher King was generous and hospitable to Parsifal, we also possess some good cultural values, including, yes, generosity and hospitality, as well as a positive outlook on life, and a sense of humour, amongst others.  Again, these are only a few of the functional cultural values that we have and which I hope to explore in this book.

Additionally, we are rich in minerals, and our land is mostly fertile. We may not have fossil fuels, but our tropical sun will promote the harvesting of cheap solar energy – the wave of the near future.

Unlike the developed West and our neighbours in East Asia, we also have a young workforce and relatively strong population growth rates that many countries with dwindling populations could only envy.  Demographically, we are ahead of our richer neighbours, and that could encourage foreign investors to build capital intensive industries in the country-- perhaps factories manned by cheap labour for the unskilled. For skilled English speakers, there is a booming export of online services. The Economist magazine (June 29^th 2024) lists the Philippines as second only to Estonia amongst 109 countries surveyed for business and trade-related services exports.

Possibly the closest and most direct cause of economic development is economic development itself.  In a feedback loop, as we get richer, we become better educated, more aware that time is an asset to be spent wisely, better able to capitalize and create new products, and stand on a stronger footing at geo-political negotiations. Economic development breeds further economic development. 

My assertions above are merely conjectures.  What I do know is that we have agency.  We do not have to wait passively for the Chosen One to appear.  Perhaps, like Parsifal, with enhanced self-awareness, we will also learn what questions to ask.   This is what I hope to do in this book—to raise awareness amongst my countrymen on who we are and what we as a people can do.

_________________

* For the longest time, Philippine policies were geared towards import substitution when the Asian tigers were already busy with their export orientation.  Likewise, many of the government investments in the capital markets have proven disastrous.

** The country consists of scattered islands, which create logistical problems, e.g., difficulties in transport and communication. We are also located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is prone to frequent volcanic eruptions—we have earthquakes, 21 active volcanoes, and typhoons, which average about 20 per year.

*** We lack access to technology and international markets, including foreign investments and favourable trade agreements.