The Grail & the 12 Tribes

[Sally Spangler <esdemio@worldnet.att.net>]

These two subjects are something whose true facts are lost simply
because it has been a very long time since they may have been.
What are the origins of the Twelve Tribes?  The Eleven are so difused
today, that it is difficult to divide them out and group them according
to tribe. Yes names, but that is like saying that I am only a Sinclair.
I'm not. Through me are at least four other clan names and added into
that are the non-Scots who married them and produced children. And that
is eight generations.
So why are we today, trying to define something so ephemeral? Are we
like Jesus, trying as the good shepherd to find the lost lamb and bring
it to the fold to be safe? There has been much written and even more
speculation, but seemingly, no one to date has been able to find a
central place that this mssing group went to.

The Holy Grail - like the stories told by the minstrels and troubadors
of old. Told and sung of and changed to fit whatever the singer wanted
to illustrate, embroider, until whatever real fact(s) are forever lost.
Back in the late 1940s or so, Thomas Costain wrote of medieval times and
incorporated the story of The Grail into one of his books. Very
persuasively put, I thought then.

Back when I was eight or nine or so, the story of Eric the Red and Lief
Ericcson came to the fore. The story was told and retold and I first
read it as a child's book. It is evidently Norwegian history.  According
to Daniel Boorstin's "The Discoverer's"  the story has always been
known, yet when it came into print, it was as if the story of the ice
ages and land bridge between Asia and North America - pure fantasy.
That someone could actually live in Greenland. That Greenland could have
been warm enough to support farming. It was all over by 1369, when other
ways of getting the imports Norway/Europe wanted could be obtained in
other ways. The story has now slipped once more into obscurity.  To that
now add Prince Henry's trip to North America - what is the date of that
trip?  Pure conjecture on my part, would Henry have known about the
Greenland colony?  Of Ericcson's trip and "Vinland, the Good"?
The end statement is this - that as long as there is something to tie to
and that information is kept in some other manner than oral tradition,
which as we know is not the way to keep to the facts and not too far in
the past there is a chance that it may be retrieved and
told/written/authenticated.

And yet one or more sentences from me. To Laurel and her patience. Her
desire to bring out all the stories of our family.  I promised her I
would bring out the story of at least one of "my" Arthurs. But then I
did not want to put something in that be full of holes and could not be
authenticated, so I have not told the stories, at least not as a
statement, but rather as a question to be pursued. So thank you Laurel.
I am still delving for facts to put down as truth, not speculation.
Sally

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