Still stands the destined Knight, aloof in his passionate patience, His hand over his eyes? Is he doomed to fulfil or fail? Shall he dare the hells and the heavens of the strange illuminations, Initiate at last of the dread mysterious Graal? The editor, John Matthews, tells us that, at the beginning of the twelfth century, the poet Crétien de Troyes composed a poem he called Il Conte del Graal ("The Story of the Grail"). It told the story of a search taken up by a simple young man who was brought up away from the ways of ordinary people. His search was for a mysterious object known as the "Graal," but Crétien left the poem unfinished, dying before he could complete it, thus creating a mystery that has stirred the imagination of countless seekers ever since. The Grail may be almost anything--or it may be something that has no form at all or even exist in our world. The important thing is that it provides an object for personal search, for growth and human development. We are dealing here with high things, with a Mystery that is almost too much for us. But we can learn and grow from studying it and by sharing the adventure of the Quest. Sources of the Grail is the most complete anthology of Grail texts available. Organized into three parts, the first deals with the Celtic sources; the second presents the medieval quest; and part three continues the search and represents some of the most far-reaching and deepest contemporary Grail seekers. Anyone interested in Western spiritual traditions will find this a valuable, thought-provoking resource.

This very uneven book undertakes an analysis of two romances by Chretien de Troyes, Le chevalier de la charrette and Le conte du graal, that seeks to uncover Welsh sources for the stories. The work was written as a doctoral thesis, we are not told where. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In this verse translation of Perceval; or, The Story of the Grail, Ruth Harwood Cline restores to life the thematically crucial Arthurian tale of the education of a knight in his search for the Holy Grail. Cline's translation, faithful to the highly synthetic, deliberately ornate nature of medieval French, follows Perceval from his home in Wales, through his rich and raucous adventures as a member of the fraternity of knights, to his climactic meeting with the Fisher King. Paralyzed by his first glimpse of the Grail, Perceval fails to save the ailing king. Distraught, the knight begins a new quest for the Grail, a journey on the road of penitence and faith. Perceval's venture, the true test of his knighthood, ends without conclusion; the death of author Chrétien de Troyes left unsaid and undetermined the success of Perceval's quest.

This is the extraordinary story of the discovery of the ultimate secrets of some of the world's most enigmatic mysteries - including the Holy Grail, the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher's Stone.

The medieval legend of the Grail, a tale about the search for supreme mystical experience, has never ceased to intrigue writers and scholars by its wildly variegated forms: the settings have ranged from Britain to the Punjab to the Temple of Zeus at Dodona; the Grail itself has been described as the chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper, a stone with miraculous youth-preserving virtues, a vessel containing a man's head swimming in blood; the Grail has been kept in a castle by a beautiful damsel, seen floating through the air in Arthur's palace, and used as a talisman in the East to distinguish the chaste from the unchaste. In his classic exploration of the obscurities and contradictions in the major versions of this legend, Roger Sherman Loomis shows how the Grail, once a Celtic vessel of plenty, evolved into the Christian Grail with miraculous powers. Loomis bases his argument on historical examples involving the major motifs and characters in the legends, beginning with the Arthurian legend recounted in the 1180 French poem by Chrtien de Troyes. The principal texts fall into two classes: those that relate the adventures of the knights in King Arthur's time and those that account for the Grail's removal from the Holy Land to Britain. Written with verve and wit, Loomis's book builds suspense as he proceeds from one puzzle to the next in revealing the meaning behind the Grail and its legends.

The secrets of Arthurian history revealed

The Holy Grail is a subject that fascinates and intrigues. Through its various guises as magic cauldron, cornucopia, horn of plenty and chalice cup it has remained at the centre of popular culture from antiquity right up to the present day. An object of marvel and mystery it inhabits a place in mythology that has its roots in historical facts. The Grail has been a major inspiration and catalyst for literature and the arts in Western Culture. From Celtic mythology to the flowering of the medieval romances it has in many ways fulfilled its mythical role as a nurturing and regenerative vessel by providing such a rich and seemingly perpetual source of interest to writers and artists. Charting the emergence of the story of the Grail offers a revealing insight into the cultural shift from Celtic paganism to the emergence and domination of Christianity in Western Europe. The influence of Eastern mysticism emerges in the Grail romances as a result of the medieval crusades with its clash of cultures and subsequent cross-pollination of ideas. The Grail has come to symbolise the ultimate achievement in the modern mind and it became an object of fascination for the psychologist Carl Jung and the poet TS Eliot. Wagner, William Blake and the Pre-Raphaelites are just some of the artists to have fallen under its enduring spell.

This is the first book-length study of the origins of the Grail legend to have been undertaken by a specialist in medieval Irish literature. Drawing on a detailed reexamination of the relevant texts in Irish, Welsh, Latin and French, extensive sections of which are presented in new translations, the author argues that the roots of the Grail legend are to be sought in the lost Old Irish manuscript known as the Book of Druimm Snechtai .