fern and birch bark

Malcolm Guite maintains a healthy sense of the numinous – of what a character late in his new book, Galahad and the Grail, calls “the world’s bright edge,” those sacred mysteries that defy tongue and pen. In Galahad, the first in a projected four-book series retelling the story of Logres in verse, he attempts to revive the Grail legend for a jaded and skeptical age. Unlike many contemporary authors, he has not sought to desacralize or deconstruct the old tales but to restore their ancient symbolic and religious edifice, like a contractor refurbishing a venerable and beloved house.

Do these stories have the power to revive a dying world?