60 Fun Facts About Holy Grail

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which knight fights on after losing both arms and both legs?

The Black Knight loses both arms and both legs to King Arthur, calls the first wound a scratch, offers to call it a draw, and threatens to bite his legs off as Arthur rides away.

The Grail became identified with the vessel Jesus used at which event?

The Last Supper link comes from the poet Robert de Boron, writing around 1200; in the earliest grail story, composed shortly before, the dish is a holy mystery with no past at all.

Which biblical figure is said to have used the Grail to catch Christ's blood at the crucifixion?

Joseph of Arimathea is thrown in prison in the legend, where the risen Christ visits him and explains the cup's mysteries; only later tellings send Joseph himself to Britain with it.

Which medieval poet wrote the earliest surviving story to feature a 'grail', in the late 1100s?

Chrétien de Troyes left the poem unfinished and its grail only half explained, so the writers who followed were free to decide for themselves what the thing was.

In The Da Vinci Code, the Holy Grail turns out to be not a cup but which woman from the Gospels?

Mary Magdalene, in Dan Brown's plot, is the 'vessel' because she bore the child of Jesus; the book ends with its hero kneeling at the Louvre, sure that her tomb lies beneath the inverted glass pyramid.

Wolfram von Eschenbach's medieval German epic portrays the Grail as what?

A stone: Wolfram's Grail is a precious gem that keeps its guardians young, and anyone who looks on it cannot die within the following week.

In the Vulgate Queste and in Malory, which knight finally achieves the Grail?

Galahad achieves it: in Malory, as he dies a hand reaches down from heaven and carries the vessel away, and no one has dared claim to see the Grail since.

In the Vulgate Cycle, the virgin knight who achieves the Grail is the son of which famous knight?

Lancelot fathered him by trickery: an enchantress made Elaine, the Grail king's daughter, appear to him as his beloved Guinevere.

The wounded ruler who guards the Grail in its hidden castle is known by what title?

The Fisher King gets the title in the earliest Grail romance, where the hero first meets him fishing from a boat: his wound has left him unable to ride or hunt.

Which Indiana Jones film sends Indy and his father racing the Nazis for the Grail?

The Last Crusade gave Indy a father because its makers doubted the Grail could carry a film alone; George Lucas later called the relic 'sort of feeble' as a prize.

Who plays Indy's father, the Grail scholar Henry Jones, in the 1989 Indiana Jones film?

Sean Connery played Harrison Ford's father despite being only twelve years older; his character reveals that Indy is really Henry Jones Jr. and that Indiana was the family dog.

In the third Indiana Jones film, what happens to Donovan after he drinks from the wrong cup?

He ages rapidly and dies, crumbling to dust, after drinking from a golden cup that Elsa picked out for him; the Grail's knight guardian remarks, 'He chose... poorly.'

The Grail temple in the 1989 Indiana Jones film was shot at Al Khazneh, in which ancient city?

Petra's rock-cut Treasury is named for a legend that its carved urn held hidden riches; Bedouins fired guns at the urn hoping to break it open, and the bullet scars remain.

In the third Indiana Jones film, a knight's shield in Venice points to which city, today Turkey's İskenderun?

Alexandretta, now İskenderun, is said to have been founded by Alexander the Great to mark his victory over Persia at nearby Issus; both names preserve his.

Who played symbologist Robert Langdon in the 2006 film of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's Grail thriller?

Tom Hanks played Langdon; Westminster Abbey refused to let the film shoot inside, calling the book's claims 'wayward', so Lincoln Cathedral doubled for it.

Which bestselling 1982 book by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln claimed Jesus married and his descendants settled in France?

Holy Blood, Holy Grail grew out of three BBC Chronicle documentaries and recast the Grail as Jesus's bloodline; two of its authors sued Dan Brown's publisher for copying the idea and lost in 2006.

The Grail-bloodline theory rests on a hoax about which supposed secret society?

The Priory of Sion was set up in 1956 by Pierre Plantard, a convicted fraudster who planted a forged list of its past Grand Masters, Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton among them, in France's national library.

According to the bloodline theory, the descendants of Jesus became which French royal dynasty?

Merovingian kings had long been figureheads when the last of them, Childeric III, was deposed in 751 with the pope's consent and shut in a monastery; his palace mayor Pippin took the crown.

In 15th-century England, a pun on the Old French for Holy Grail made the words mean what instead?

Royal blood: move the break in 'sangreal' one letter to the right and 'san greal', holy dish, becomes 'sang real'; the pun is often credited to the chronicler John Hardyng, and modern conspiracy writers revived it.

In the earliest Holy Grail romance, what does the grail hold as it is carried past the hero?

A single communion wafer: a grail then meant a wide serving dish for rich food, yet a hermit later explains that this one holds only the wafer that keeps the wounded king's father alive.

In the earliest Holy Grail romance, what is carried past the hero first, ahead of the grail itself?

A bleeding lance comes first, carried by a young man, with the grail only third in line; later writers explained it as the spear that pierced Christ's side on the cross.

In the earliest grail romance, why does the young hero fail to heal his wounded host?

Never asks about the grail: his tutor had taught him that talking too much was bad manners, so he holds his tongue, and learns the next day that one question would have cured the king.

In Wolfram's medieval German epic, the Grail is kept safe at which castle?

Munsalvaesche, usually read as 'mount of salvation', cannot be found by looking: the hero is told that many seek the castle, but only those who come upon it unawares ever see it.

In Wolfram's Grail poem, the hero's son reaches a duchess in need aboard a boat guided by what?

A swan guides the Grail knight to Brabant, where he weds the duchess on one condition, that she must not question who he is; years later she does, and the swan returns with a little boat to carry him away.

In Wolfram's telling, which beings tended the Grail before it passed to a human dynasty?

Angels who stayed neutral when Lucifer rebelled were sent down to tend it, the hermit Trevrizent tells the hero; near the poem's end he admits he bent the truth to talk him out of the quest.

In the Welsh romance Peredur, the hero is shown not a grail but a platter carrying what?

A severed head lies on the salver, and nobody explains it; the hero later learns it was his cousin's, killed by the Nine Witches of Gloucester, whom he then helps Arthur destroy.

In the German poem Diu Crône, unusually, which knight achieves the Grail?

Gawain breaks the spell on the Grail castle: its old lord and his court turn out to be dead men kept in a semblance of life, and only the maidens who serve the Grail are alive.

Which Victorian poet retold the quest for the Holy Grail in Idylls of the King?

Alfred Tennyson has Arthur warn that most of his knights will 'follow wandering fires' and be lost; when the quest ends only a remnant comes home, 'scarce returned a tithe', barely a tenth.

In the Vulgate Queste, the Grail leaves Britain for which Eastern city?

Sarras first throws the Grail knights into prison, then makes one of them its king; a year later he dies there, and a hand from heaven carries the vessel away for good.

When the Grail feeds Arthur's court in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, what odd property does it have?

It is invisible when it visits Arthur's court at Pentecost: Malory says none might see it 'nor who bare it', so the knights vow to search until they have seen it more openly, and the quest begins.

In Robert de Boron's Merlin, what does the wizard build for Arthur's father, copying one used by the Grail's first keepers?

The Round Table is here the third of three holy tables; Merlin builds it for Uther Pendragon, and in later tellings it reaches Arthur only as a wedding gift from Guinevere's father.

What name is given to the empty seat at Arthur's table, kept for the knight destined to achieve the Grail?

The Siege Perilous means 'perilous seat', siege being Old French for a chair; it stood empty to mark the place of Judas at Christ's table and was fatal to any unworthy knight who tried it.

The Sacro Catino, a glass dish claimed to be the Grail, is held in which Italian city's cathedral?

Genoa's crusaders carried it home from the capture of Caesarea in 1101 and prized it for centuries as a treasure beyond price; under Napoleon it was taken to Paris, and it came back broken.

When the Sacro Catino broke in Napoleon's conquest, it proved to be glass rather than which stone?

The dish had been carried off to Paris and came back in pieces.

The Holy Chalice of Valencia, another Grail claimant, is a cup carved not from wood or metal but from which gemstone?

Agate forms only the small cup itself, which the cathedral counts as ancient; the handles and foot are medieval additions that turned a plain bowl into the chalice seen today.

Valencia's tradition says its cup stayed in Rome until which deacon sent it home to Spain, shortly before his own martyrdom?

Lawrence, by tradition a Spaniard from Huesca, is said to have sent the cup there to save it from Emperor Valerian's persecution of 258, in which he and the pope he served were both put to death.

Which Somerset town, identified with Avalon since the 12th century, became a major focus of Grail legend?

Glastonbury's monks announced in 1191 that they had dug up King Arthur's coffin beneath a lead cross naming the Isle of Avalon; later legend said the man who buried Christ planted his staff here, where it flowered as the Holy Thorn.

The silver Antioch Chalice, once promoted as the Holy Grail itself, now belongs to which New York museum?

The Metropolitan Museum bought it for its Cloisters collection in 1950 and dates it to around 500 to 550, some five centuries too late to have been used by Christ.

Which 15th-century Scottish church was tied to the Grail by modern conspiracy books and then by The Da Vinci Code?

Rosslyn Chapel, founded in 1446, was leaking and wrapped in scaffolding when the novel set its closing chapters there; yearly visitors then climbed past 150,000, and the repairs were finished in 2013.

Which Cathar stronghold, where some 200 believers were burned when it fell, did twentieth-century writers cast as the Grail castle?

Montségur's fall left a legend that a few Cathars had slipped out beforehand with a treasure; later writers, among them Otto Rahn, whom Himmler took onto his SS staff, turned that treasure into the Grail.

During a 1940 visit to Spain, Heinrich Himmler personally asked about the Grail at which abbey?

Montserrat's monks had a German-speaking brother act as his guide; Himmler had come up the mountain looking for the Grail itself, and he left without it.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail was adapted by Eric Idle into which Tony-winning stage musical?

Spamalot won three Tony Awards in 2005, Best Musical among them; the film's producer later sued the Pythons for a bigger share of its royalties and won in the High Court in 2013.

In which 1981 John Boorman film does the Grail revive an ailing Arthur and his barren land?

Excalibur has a knight hold the cup to the dying king's lips and tell him 'You and the land are one'; Arthur drinks, and he and his kingdom revive together in time for the last battle.

Which 1922 T. S. Eliot poem drew its title and plan from Jessie Weston's study of the Grail legend?

The Waste Land is the blighted kingdom of the Grail story's wounded king; Eliot's first note says the title, the plan and much of the symbolism were suggested by Weston's book.

Which Jessie Weston book on the Grail did Eliot cite as the source of his poem's title?

From Ritual to Romance argued that the Grail romances record the secret ritual of a fertility cult; Eliot's note says the book will explain the poem's difficulties much better than his own notes can.

Which Richard Wagner music drama, premiered in 1882, is built around the Grail?

Parsifal was Wagner's last work, and he billed it not as an opera but as a solemn 'festival play' for his own Bayreuth theatre, where it opened in July 1882; he died the following February.

Edwin Austin Abbey painted his Grail quest murals for which library, also home to John Singer Sargent's murals on religion?

Boston Public Library hired both expatriate Americans in the 1890s; Abbey spent years on the frieze in his English studio, and Edward VII then chose him to paint his coronation.

Jay-Z's 2013 single 'Holy Grail' features which guest artist?

Justin Timberlake guests on the song from Magna Carta Holy Grail, an album Samsung paid $5m to give a million of its phone owners three days early; none of those copies counted towards the Billboard chart.

In the Fate anime and game franchise, what does the Holy Grail grant the winner of the 'Holy Grail War'?

A single wish goes to the last pair standing: seven mages each summon a hero of history or legend to fight for them, and one of those heroes is King Arthur, reimagined as a young woman.

In 2014, crowds swarmed a basilica in which north-western Spanish city after two historians declared its jewelled goblet the Holy Grail?

León's San Isidoro basilica took the cup off display until it could give it a room of its own, big enough for the crowds; until then it was known only as the goblet of Doña Urraca, an 11th-century princess.

The Nanteos Cup, a medieval wooden bowl once promoted as the Grail, is named after a mansion in which country?

Wales now shows it at its National Library; in 2014 burglars took it from the home of a seriously ill woman who had borrowed it for its supposed healing powers, and it was recovered a year later.

Which Pre-Raphaelite painter, a lifelong friend of William Morris, designed the figures for the Holy Grail tapestries woven by Morris's firm?

Edward Burne-Jones drew the figures and his Oxford friend's weavers made them in the 1890s; a rock guitarist came to own the 24-foot final scene and sent it to auction in 2008 with an estimate near £1m.

In Malory, three knights achieve the Grail in a distant city, but which one alone returns to Arthur's court?

Bors sails home to a court that had given him up for dead, and Arthur has clerks write his account into great books; both his companions had died in the East, one of them as a hermit.

Which modern intruders halt Arthur's final charge in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Police officers pull up mid-charge with the widow of a modern historian killed earlier in the film; they arrest Arthur and break the camera, and the film just stops, with no battle and no Grail.

Which two rock bands helped finance Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were among the backers; Terry Gilliam recalled that no studio would pay and that, with income tax as high as 90%, rock stars took the film for 'a good tax write-off', which a hit was not.

Which Scottish fortress stood in for most of the strongholds in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Doune was privately owned, which saved the shoot: shortly before filming, permission to use the other castles the Pythons had chosen was withdrawn, so Doune, shot from different angles, plays nearly all of them.

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the killer rabbit's cave was really a disused what?

A copper mine at Tomnadashan, by Loch Tay, played the cave; a Victorian marquess had it dug hoping for copper and gold, and the venture came to nothing.

Why do Monty Python's Holy Grail knights mime riding to coconut clops?

The budget could not afford real horses, so squires trot behind banging coconut halves, an old radio sound effect; the gag stuck so well that German cinemas released the film as The Knights of the Coconut.

The 2001 Holy Grail DVD from Monty Python has 'Subtitles for People Who Don't Like the Film', lifted from which playwright?

William Shakespeare wrote them: the track runs lines from Henry IV, Part 2 under the comedy, and reviewers found that the borrowed words more or less fit what was happening on screen.

Which American comedy outranked Monty Python and the Holy Grail in both Total Film's 2000 and Channel 4's 2006 comedy polls?

Airplane! came second both times, and the winner each time was the Pythons' own Life of Brian; Holy Grail itself placed sixth with Channel 4's viewers.