Hi there. I'm Mike Rugnetta this is Crash Course Mythology,
and today we're going to talk about the Holy Grail...
of Mythology. Which is the actual, literal,
non-metaphorical Holy Grail
King Arthur, Knights of the Round Table, and most importantly questing.
The Holy Grail is always just out of reach,
as the end of the road, ultimate goal
the greatest adventure. And so the Grail quest,
for whoever takes it, is a ready made hero's journey.
No. Nobody. It's a grail, not a scale.
Close though.
In this video we'll talk about two knights who quested after that pesky grail.
and we'll examine two things. First where's these stories depart
from Campbell's monomythic pattern
and second, how they combine the values of Christianity
with the tropes and characters of pre-Christian myths.
Grab your armor, and your coconut halves
and let's quest for knowledge.
The legends of King Arthur and his knights had been retold endlessly
from the Middle Ages trough today.
Many versions of the story contradict each other, or change focus.
Historians even disagree over whether there was a real
living breathing King Arthur.
That doesn't bother us though, because either way
the body of Arthurian legends remains incredibly influential.
Most of the stories that make up Arthurian hero myths
come from the late Medieval period, the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.
They coalesced in what most of us would recognize as Arthur's Tale
with Merlin, and Lancelot, and Guinevere, and all the rest in in [Sir] Thomas Malory's late 15th century stories collected as "Le Morte D'Arthur"
However we're going to focus on two other version of the grail story
centered around two other knights,
Percival and Galahad. To explore this paradigmatic
legend of England we're gonna start in France
because the first time the Holy Grail appears
as part of the Arthurian myth is in Chretien De Troyes, "Story of the Grail," a romance composed between 1181 and 1191 CE.
De Troyes not only made his Arthurian tale
about the quest for the elusive grail he also made Percival,
and not Arthur or any other knight
the hero. And Percival is maybe not the kind of
knight you're used to. He's a very brave young
man but, he's not the sharpest lance
in the armory. And it also turns out that his chivalry,
and naivety play big parts in his
hero's journey. When our story begins Percival is living alone with his mom in the Waste Forest which sounds unpleasant, and
almost like a Fallout location. Percival is an only child to a single mom
because his dad, and all his
older brothers were killed
serving as knights. Percival's mom never
tells him this. She's all he has left
and she worries that if young, not-so-bright Percy
learns the truth, he'll want to be a knight and
he'll get himself killed too.
Mom's plan works, until one day Percy's out
hunting, and he comes across five glittering figures on horses.
They are literal knights, in literal shining armor.
But Percy has no idea what a
knight is, because his mom has shielded him from them.
So he thinks they must be angels.
Like I said, not the sharpest. Once he realizes
they're not angels Percival starts asking the knights a ton of
questions, like "Whatcha carryin'?"
The knights look at each other like, "It's a lance, dude."
Eventually one of the knights leans over to his commander and says
"Sir, you must be aware that all Welshmen
are by nature more stupid than beasts in the field."
Percy's not making the best first impression.
Percial runs home and tells his mom
all about the knights. She sees
the writing on the wall. She breaks down and she tells him the truth. Your father and your brothers
were knights and they died because of it.
Percy's eyes light up.
It doesn't seem like he gets the moral of the story. He says, literally
"I don't understand your words, but I would gladly go to the king who makes knights;
and I will go, no matter what.
So off he goes on his quest
never to see his mother again. Right out of the gate
he gets in a fight with a knight, and defeats him in solo battle.
So, maybe he's got heroic talent after all. Shortly after
he encounters an old nobleman. In classic
spiritual adviser fashion the old man teaches Percy a lesson.
"Don't talk too much
because you don't want to offend others.
Percy takes this to heart, and you
should too. It's going to come back and bite him. We're going to continue Percy's
quest in The Thought Bubble. Percival next meets the Fisher King.
Who is, you guessed it, a fisher.
F.K. takes a shine to Percy,
and invites him to a special banquet at his castle. At dinner
Percy finds out the king has been grievously
wounded, and is on death's door.
None the less the Fisher King, a gracious host,
presents a sword he claims was destined for Percival.
Suddenly a progression
of squires parade in with all of these weird objects.
First a white lance
with blood dripping from it's tip. Next, a candelabra. After that a maiden enters
bearing a beautiful grail.
Psst... that's the Holy Grail y'all. Everyone turns, and looks at Percy. Being the good,
obedient boy that he is, he remembers the weird old
stranger's advice, and he doesn't say a thing.
Dinner wraps up, and Percival goes on his way.
Everything seems fine, until he meets a
damsel wailing and cradling the body
of a headless knight. Percival asks what happened, but
the maiden turns on him. She asks point blank,
"Did you say anything about the lance you saw?
Did you ask any questions about the grail?" Percy explains, "Of course not!"
He didn't want to be rude. The woman yells at him.
"That grail has great power! If you'd only asked about it,
just one question,
the dying king would have been healed."
She further explains "Hey, your mom's dead. I buried her.
Also, I'm your cousin. And also, also, you gotta suss out this grail thing.
I can't help, I got more burying to do. See ya; wouldn't want to be ya."
Thanks, Thought Bubble. So, this is a lot
to take in. Getting told off by his cousin though
is Percival's turning point. He swears an oath.
He won't rest until he learns what exactly
the deal with the grail and the bleeding lance is.
Such is the start of his grail quest, which lasts
five years. He has
wild adventures, meeting knights, doing battle,
and even learning a lesson about the meaning of Good Friday. This sets
up the particularly Christian faith based conclusion
of this particular tale. Because eventually
Percival comes across a wise hermit. And after years of
questing with nothing to show for it, Percy
confesses his sorrow. It turns out the hermit knows why
Percival has failed. "Remember your mom?" He asks.
"As soon as you left home she died of grief."
"That sinfulness is why you never asked
about the lance or grail."
And the man who was served from the grail? Percival's uncle.
And the Fisher King? Percy's cousin!
He's been letting his family down left and right.
The hermit tells him "You need to do penance."
"Go to mass. Have faith in G-d. Take
communion on Easter." This is where Chretien De Troyes' version of
the grail story ends, with Percival learning the truth about the grail,
and thereby fulfilling his oath.
You may have noticed all the standard
features of Campbell's hero's journey. Auspicious birth, and
hidden parentage, damsels, and father figures, sages
offering advice. But the grail never becomes the
ultimate boon. Percy doesn't find it.
He isn't even really looking for it.
Instead he's looking for knowledge. "Of
the grail!" you may interject, but really about himself,
and the world. You can also see how Christianity
gets wrapped up in the mythical grail.
Let's look at another version of this story from the anonymously written
"Quest of the Holy Grail" A thirteenth century
prose romance. The story differs from Chretien's
in at least two major ways. First, the hero isn't
Percival, it's Galahad. And second
while Percival didn't know much about Christianity or
anything for that matter, Galahad is a model
of Christian virtue, especially chastity. That's
important. This version has an overtly Christian
morality, connecting the grail to the doctrine
of transubstantiation, the explaination
of how bread and wine morphs into Jesus' body
and blood during communion. In this story our hero Galahad is
the son of Lancelot, and Galahad
is beautiful. So fair
and shapely a youth
that one could hardly find his equal in the world.
He's also crucially a virtuous virgin, with
no fever of lust in him
unlike his dad Lancelot. Sleeping with the Queen,
how disvirtuous. Galahad's virtue
marks him out for a special role that he's ushered into
by a spiritual guide. An old man who introduces
Galahad to Arthur, and the knights of the round
table. Galahad even gets a special seat
reserved for the grail knight.
It's called The Seat of Danger.
(echoes)
So Galahad sits in his danger chair, and announces that he'll take up
the grail quest. He proves his worthiness first
by pulling a sword from a stone
echoing Arthurs miraculous feat with Excalibur,
and again by defeating all the other knights in a tournament.
At a celebratory feast the grail appears
in a vision, and miraculously feeds everyone
especially hungry, hungry Arthur. Galahad
and the other knights have many adventures, but the crucial
turn comes when Galahad, Percival, and a knight named
Bors set out on a self sailing
ship. The ship takes them to a small island
where they find a magic sword, and Perceval's sister.
She says hi to Percy, and explains "This sword is
destined for Galahad. To complete your quest you must take it to the house of
the maimed king." Which is harder than it sounds, and
that's sayin' a lot because it doesn't sound easy. It takes
five years of running around
separating, reuniting, but finally the three
knights arrive at the castle of the maimed king,
Castle Corbenic, the castle of the grail.
And who do they meet inside?
Jesus. That is not a joke. They literally
meet Jesus, who explains at long last
the mystery, and significance of the grail.
With the truth of the grail revealed
Galahad continues to travel the land embroiled
in various adventures. ... However
Galahad never makes it home to Camalot.
Instead he ends up locked in a
dungeon, where he eventually dies, and is
miraculously lifted to Heaven. So it's left to Bors
to cross the threshold back into Camalot
and to tell everyone the true wonder
of the grail. Obviously there's more to these
Arthurian myths than just the quest for the Holy Grail. We haven't even
mentioned
the incest, and there's a fair amount of incest.
Still, the grail myths offer a nice paralell to other hero
myths. Miraculous feats, magical weapons, spiritual guides,
and epic road trips. In the end the quest
for a particular object gets intertwined
with the articulation of particular religious and cultural values.
Just like in the Ramayana, where
adherence to Dharma is the real heroism.
We might also compare these stories to the Aboriginal tale of The Seven Sisters
where the quest is one of self improvement
rather than the pursuit of some external wealth
or precious object. For Percival, and Galahad the quest isn't
about the grail itself, but the grail's meaning.
Perceval isn't seeing a bejeweled golden chalice
but the answer to a question he should've asked.
Galahad too finds out the meaning of the grail
which is what Bors must bring back to
the round table. Remember, for Campbell and other scholars
the hero's journey is a metaphor for any human being's journey
towards greater understanding of themselves.
Sure, these knights defeat enemies and save maidens
and fight with magical swords, but they're heroes because of the
knowledge they gain along the way.
Which I guess makes you a hero for watching Crash Course.
Which we're mighty thankful you do. We'll see you next time.
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