The Holy Grail and the obsession with symbols

For extensive background on the Holy Grail, I would recommend these two sources:

“The Real History of the Holy Grail” — by Sandra Miesel (click here)

“From Water to Wine: Understanding the Concept of the Holy Grail in Light of the Crusader Ethos of the Middle Ages” — by Amelia Chouinard (click here)

Here are two versions of the Holy Grail:

“…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.”

“The Holy Chalice, also known as the Holy Grail, is in Christian tradition the vessel that Jesus used at the Last Supper to serve wine. The Synoptic Gospels refer to Jesus sharing a cup of wine with the Apostles, saying it was the covenant in his blood. The use of wine and chalice in the Eucharist in Christian churches is based on the Last Supper story. In the late 12th century, the author Robert de Boron associated the pre-existing story of the Holy Grail, a magical item from Arthurian literature, with the Holy Chalice. This association was continued in many subsequent Arthurian works…”

Emerging from these two depictions, a million tales and legends about the Grail have proliferated.

During the Medieval Crusades, men were offered the reward of eternal salvation, if they signed on as knights and fought bravely. The Grail appears to have been promoted to these knights as a symbol of that salvation.

For true believers, the Grail is of course a physical object as well as a symbol.

I see it as an element of STORIES.

Particularly, the Medieval Arthurian Romances of Knights of the Roundtable.

Stories have the power to shape minds and events.

Because people fail to SEE them as stories. Instead, they’re enraptured by them, and by their symbols which take on an independent life of their own.