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Quest for the Holy Grail Quest for the Holy Grail I will make here a vow...I shall labour in the quest for the have seen it.” Sir Gawain in Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory The fabulous and mysterious story of the Holy Grail first emerges obscurely from the mists of legend in the Conte de Graal, written about 1180 by the medieval French poet Chretien de Troyes. This incredible tale, of which only a part has survived, tells of a Welsh, Perceval, living at the court of the English king Arthur. Fearing that his mother is dying, Perceval sets off to journey homeward. He comes to a river where he meets a man fishing, who invites him to his nearby castle. In the castle Perceval encounters a squire carrying a white lance dripping with blood, and a beautiful girl bearing a Grail. The poet does not say exactly what the Grail is, but describes it as made of gold, set with jewels, and giving off a myths. The Celtic gods known as Tuatha de brilliant, unearthly light. At dinner, the Grail is that the Grail was made by Joseph of passed in front of everyone as each course is Arimathea, the man who according to the Bible, Daanan possessed a magic cauldron, an all- served, but Perceval, the poem tells us, “did not buried Christ’s crucified body. Joseph is conquering spear, a sword that could not be ask concerning the Grail, whom one served with supposed to have taken the Grail to Calvary and overcome, and the Lia Fail, the stone of fate. it.” caught in it the blood that flowed from the Similar objects occur in legends in Egypt and Perceval is shown to his bed, and in the wound in Christ’s side. But it was the China. Perhaps humankind simply revels in morning the castle is deserted. Riding away into Burgundian poet Robert de Borron, writing in inventing mysteries for which there are no easy the forest, he meets a maiden. She tells him that about 1200, who identified the Grail of Joseph answers. the castle belongs to the Fisher King, who had with the cup used at the Last Supper, when been crippled in battle by a javelin that has Christ said, “This is my blood of the covenant, Glimmer of truth pierced both his thighs. G9:49 :C @EB @ED 7@B >2?I OK#2DD96G But could there be a reality behind the Perceval should, she says, have asked A few years later, the Bavarian poet proliferation of Grail myths? Some people have about the lance and Grail, for his questions Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote another version certainly believed so, and have attempted to locate the story in the real history of Britain. would have cured the Fisher King. of Perceval’s adventures, Parzival, in which the Back at Arthur’s court he si told that, if Holy Grail is a stone guarded by a secret order The quest for the Grail became an essential part the Fisher King is not healed, “ladies will lose of knights named Templeiesan. Parzival comes of the story of King Arthur, and gradually the their husbands, lands will be laid waste...and to the hall of the Maimed King and sees the sacred relic became associated with many knights will die.” Grail, “which surpasses all earthly perfection.” Glastonbury in Somerset, supposedly Arthur’s At dinner”whatsoever one reached his hand for, “sweet isle of Avalon,” where he ruled over his Origin of the Grill he found it ready, in front fo the Grail, food British kingdom. It was said that Joseph of This Grail of mystical powers became warm or food cold, dishes new or old, meat Arimathea had carried the Grail across Europe associated with the medieval Christian cult of tame or game...for the Grail was the fruit of until he reached Glastonbury, where he founded the relics of the Crucifixion. The wood of the blessedness, such abundance of the sweetness the first Christian church in England. His staff, cross itself, the nails, the crown of thrones, the of the world that its delights were very like what stuck into the earth, grew into the Glastonbury lance used by the centurion Longinus to pierce we are told of the Kingdom of Heaven.” thorn tree, which flowered every Christmas Christ’s side, the shroud in which his body was The story of the Holy Grail was never Day. And the Grail was hidden in the Chalice wrapped - all these were eagerly sought after, supported by the Christian church. And yet, as Well, which for centuries was renowned for its and fragments of extremely doubtful origin the Grail stories proliferated, they became even miraculous healing waters. were lovingly revered. But there was another more Christian. Authors wrote about the Grail Joseph was said to have been priceless relic that everybody searched for in religious context, and stressed that only the accompanied by his brother-in-law, Bron, a fruitlessly: the cup used by Christ at the Last pure could hope to see it. In the 13th-century name that is also given to the Fisher King in more than one of the Grail romances. This is Supper. In time this came to be identified as the Queste del Saint Graal, the saintly Sir Galahad Holy Grail. seeks and eventually finds the Grail. But he is sufficiently close to that of Bran, the hero of a Within twenty years of Chretien de dying, and at his death, “...the two remaining Celtic version of the story, to suggest that there Troyes’s Grail Story, the tale had been companions saw quite plainly a hand come is a connection. And above the waters of the elaborated upon by writers all over Europe, and down from Heaven, but not the body it River Dee at Llangollen, which Perceval would it has remained the subject of commentary and belonged to. It proceeded straight to the Holy have to had cross on his way back to Wales, controversy ever since. The many versions of vessel and took both it and the lance, and carried stand the ruins of Dinas Bran, Bran’s castle. Is the Grail legend differ in significant ways, but them up to Heaven, to the end that no man since this, then, the home of the mysterious Fisher all contain enough similarities to ink them in has ever dared to say ne saw the Holy Grail.” King? some way. In a second tale, written shortly after Magical objects Continued on Page 26 Troyes’s death, the knight Sir Gawain sees the Over the centuries and throughout the worlds Grail, which moves about the dinner table by storytellers and scribes have found a rapt "0- B&C (65- ),16 "$A!06= itself, filling the wine cups and serving each audience for their tales of a magical object, its with Rob McConnell course. The white lance dripping with blood, he origins shrouded in mystery, that will one day www.xzoneradiotv.com is told, is that used by the centurion Longinus to be found and reveal its secret power. Elements or listen to our podcasts pierce Christ’s side. Another author explains of the Grail story appear in many pre-Christian www.xzonepodcast.com