Holy Grail

The Holy Grail (French: Saint Graal) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a "holy grail" by those seeking such.

A mysterious "grail" (Old French: graal or greal), wondrous but not unequivocally holy, first appears in Perceval, the Story of the Grail, an unfinished chivalric romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Chrétien's story inspired many continuations, translators and interpreters in the later-12th and early-13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who portrayed the Grail as a stone in Parzival. The Christian, Celtic or possibly other origins of the Arthurian grail trope are uncertain and have been debated among literary scholars and historians.

Writing soon after Chrétien, Robert de Boron in Joseph d'Arimathie portrayed the Grail as Jesus's vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ's blood at the crucifixion. Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice, the Last Supper cup, an idea continued in works such as the Lancelot-Grail cycle, and subsequently the 15th-century Le Morte d'Arthur. In this form, it is now a popular theme in modern culture, and has become the subject of folklore studies, pseudohistorical writings, works of fiction, and conspiracy theories.

Etymology

The word graal, as it is spelled in its earliest appearances, comes from Old French common noun graal or greal, cognate with Old Occitan grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning "a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal" (or other various types of vessels in different Occitan dialects).