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Sangraal
Sangraal, Sangreal, Sancgreal, etc., generally said to be the holy plate from which Christ ate at the Last Supper, brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea. Whatever it was, it appeared to King Arthur and his 150 knights of the Round Table, but suddenly vanished, and all the knights vowed they would go in quest thereof. Only three, Sir Bors, Sir Percivale and Sir Galahad, found it, and only Sir Galahad had touched it, but he soon died, and was borne by angels up into heaven. The Sangraal of Arthurian romance is “the dish” containing Christ transubstantiated by the sacrament of the Mass, and made visible to the bodily eye of man. This will appear quite obvious to the reader by the following extracts:—
Then anon they heard cracking and crying of thunder.... In the midst of the blast entered a sunbeam more clear by seven times than the day, and all they were alighted of the grace of the Holy Ghost.... Then there entered into the hall the Holy Grale covered with white samite, but there was none that could see it, nor who bare it, but the whole hall was full filled with good odors, and every knight had such meat and drink as he best loved in the world, and when the Holy Grale had been borne through the hall, then the holy vessel departed suddenly, and they wist not where it became. Le Morte d'Arthur Book XIII
Then looked they and saw a man come out of the holy vessel, that had all the signs of the passion of Christ, and he said ... “This is the holy dish wherein I ate the lamb on Sher-Thursday, and now hast thou seen it ... yet hast thou not seen it so openly as thou shalt see it in the city of Sarras ... therefore thou must go hence and bear with thee this holy vessel, for this night it shall depart from the realm of Logris ... and take with thee ... Sir Percivale and Sir Bors.” Le Morte d'Arthur By Sir Thomas Malory. Book XVII
So departed Sir Galahad, and Sir Percivale and Sir Bors with him. And so they rode three days, and came to a river, and found a ship ... and when on board, they found in the midst the table of silver and the Sancgreall covered with red samite.... Then Sir Galahad laid him down and slept ... and when he woke ... he saw the city of Sarras (ch. 103).... At the year’s end ... he saw before him the holy vessel, and a man kneeling upon his knees in the likeness of the bishop, which had about him a great fellowship of angels, as it had been Christ Himself ... and when he came to the sakering of the Mass, and had done, anon he called Sir Galahad, and said unto him, “Come forth ... and thou shalt see that which thou hast much desired to see” ... and he beheld spiritual things ... Le Morte d'Arthur By Sir Thomas Malory. Book XIII
Thus we reach at last the completed conception of the
divining-rod, or as it is called in this sense the wish-rod, with
its kindred talismans, from Aladdin's lamp and the purse of
Bedreddin Hassan, to the Sangreal, the philosopher's stone, and
the goblets of Oberon and Tristram. These symbols of the
reproductive energies of nature, which give to the possessor
every good and perfect gift, illustrate the uncurbed belief in
the power of wish which the ancient man shared with modern
children. In the Norse story of Frodi's quern, the myth assumes a
whimsical shape.
Myths and
Myth-Makers by John Fiske. Chapter
II
The earliest story of the Holy Graal was in verse (A.D. 1100), author unknown.
Chrétien de Troyes has a romance in eight-syllable verse on the same subject (1170).
Guiot’s tale of Titurel, founder of Graalburg, and Parzival, prince thereof, belongs to the twelfth century.
Wolfram von Eschenbach, a minnesinger, took Guiot’s tale as the foundation of his poem (thirteenth century).
In Titurel the Younger the subject is very fully treated.
R. S. Hawker has a poem on the Sangraal, but it was never completed.
Tennyson has an idyll called The Holy Grail in the Idylls of the King
Boisserée published, in 1834, at Munich, a work On the
Description of the Temple of the Holy Graal.
Related Texts:
The
High History of the Holy Graal. Author Unknown
The Return from the
Quest by Oscar Fay Adams [1886]
The Vision of Sir
Lamoracke, by Oscar Fay Adams [1886]
The Ballad of Glastonbury br Henry Alford (1853)
The Quest of the
Sancgreal, by Sallie Bridges [1864]
Waste Land, by Madison Cawein
[1913]
The New Sangreal, by Rose
Terry Cooke [1888]
The Heavenly Kingdom of the
Holy Grail by Isabel Cooper-Oakley
The Vision of the Holy
Grail, by Eugene Field [1905]
The Quest of the
Sangraal, by Robert S. Hawker [1864]
The History of that Holy
Disciple Joseph Arimathea
The Dwarf's Quest: A Ballad,
by Sophie Jewett [1905]
Tales of
the Round Table. Edited by Andrew Lang. Illustrated by H. J.
Ford
The Holy Grail from Secret
Teachings of All Ages, by Manly P. Hall
The Chapel in Lyoness, by
William Morris [1858]
Sir Galahad, A Christmas
Mystery, by William Morris [1858]
Studies
on the legend of the Holy Grail. By Alfred Nutt With Especial
Reference To The Hypothesis Of Its Celtic Origin. 1888
The Romaunt of Sir Floris,
by John Payne [1870]
The City of Sarras, by Ernest
Rhys [1905]
Sir Launcelot and the
Sancgreal, by Ernest Rhys [1905]
God's Graal, by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti [1911]
The
Holy Grail in Idylls of
the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sir Galahad By Alfred Lord Tennyson 1834
Kathanal, by Katrina Trask
[1892]
The Quest Of The Saint Graal by
Michael West. 1913
From
Ritual to Romance by Jessie L. Weston
The Romance of Morien by
Jessie L. Weston
Knights of King Arthur's
Court, by Jessie Weston [1896]
The San-Grail, by Ella
Young [1920]
"The Achievement of the Grail" (1891-4) Tapestry by Edward Burne-Jones, Museum and Art Gallery of Birmingham
