If Arthur and Mordred are the enemies of time, both Lancelot and Galahad are the agents of Time. The warriors For Time. They herald and honor the movements of time and change in the world around them, but for different reasons.

Lancelot, the stereotypical Knight in Shining armor, is the essential warrior. His purpose in life is to fight, to protect. Unlike Arthur however, he is not fighting to stave off time. Lancelot doesn’t attempt to change the world, or bring about some mighty shift in the nature of mankind. Instead Lancelot fights for Love, for Honor, and for Duty. This is where his nobility comes from.

He is not a great man, nor a god. He is a simple knight, whose strength and might are the stuff of legend precisely because they were offered up to Arthur and Camelot as a gift, a sacrafice to duty and honor. Lancelot is also a foreigner to British soil, coming from Gaul, what we now consider France. The masculine divine he portrays is always that of an outsider. We do not truly know his motivations or purpose, how he came to be in Britain or where he will go when Camelot falls.

His affair with Guenevere only proves his highest duty is to that of Love, which our nobly inclined Albioners tend to avoid as purpose. Arthur and Mordred seek cause in their principles, in their purpose, in their Will. Lancelot, as an outsider, is not bound by their mandatory idea of purpose. He is instead bound to the more primal calling of his heart. This strengthens him, which is why he is the most recognizable knight of the round table. But in our culture it also diminishes him. Our stigma against following our feelings, our intuition, our heart is so great that we pronounce Lancelot impure for his love and communion with Guenevere.

In this context though, as a Warrior for Time, Lancelots pursuit of love is the necessary movement of Time forward. It is the catalyst of change that defeats both Arthur and Mordred.

Galahad of course, is Lancelots son, and usually considered the most pure of the Arthurian knights. And he most certainly is, because he is possibly the most illusory of those knights. He has neither his fathers prowess, nor Arthurs drive, nor Mordreds hate. He lacks Gwains courage, and bears no magical weapons or armor. He has no affairs or world-changing quests upon which to embark (Except for the grail quest).

No, Galahads defining trait is his piety, which is most often portrayed as a vocation, a love and adoration of the Christian God. In many ways he is a priest, but in many more he is the Servant of time. Galahads purpose is to guard the queens chastity, to prevent her from breaking her marriage vows, and guard her against the wearing of Time. This is what Arthur sets him to, his most vital role, and in this he fails utterly. Lancelot despoils the queen and Camelot falls into the mists.

But despite his failure we revere Galahad. Perhaps because of his quest for the grail. But in truth, Galahad did not fail. Arthur, indeed most tellers of the story, mistake Galahads purity for piety, and they are not the same. Galahad, though he may service the church with his words, is the mighty warrior of the old ways, the Champion of time. His purity does not come from abstinence or devotion to God. It comes from the power of memory, which both Galahad, and the grail represent. As I said to Herbis Orbis last week, perhaps Galahad’s purpose is not to guard Guenevere’s chastity, but to protect the memory of that chastity.

Galahad’s purpose is to protect that which is most sacred, most pure, most revered. And in a reflection of patterns we still uphold, that which is most revered is that which has already passed. We covet purity because it is rare, and it is all the more rare because all purity must eventually be tarnished, with the exception of our memory of that purity. There is nothing more rare than that which has passed. History, memory, is ultimately the only true purity, and it is Galahad’s purpose to maintain the memory of Camelot, to forever embody that memory as a shining example of the best traits of mankind.

We revere Galahad because he holds the sacred cup, the power of memory and history, and in holding it he becomes it’s bearer and it’s representative. He, Galahad, is the legacy of Camelot, forever suspended, forever pure, holding open the doors of time for Arthurs eventual return, for the eventual return of camelot. Because that dream is even more potent, not just the memory of the past, but our memory of the future, that the past will return and become real again. That purity lost can be restored.

It is interesting that Galahad is the agent and champion of Time, but we, in our adoration of Arthur and fear of change, turn Galahad into a symbol representing the eventual conquering of time. The truth is, he does not represent our defeat of time, or a return to purity, but he represents a wholeness, a more full understanding of time and purity that we are not truly able to understand yet.