The Holy Grail

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Holy Grail.Tennyson wrote:”A cracking and a riving of the roofs,And rending, and a blast, and overheadThunder, and in the thunder was a cry.And in the blast there smote along the hallA beam of light seven times more clear than day:And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail”.The sacred allure of the Grail has fascinated writers and ensnared knights for a thousand years. From Malory to Monty Python, it has the richest associations of any artefact in British myth. But where does the story spring from? What does it symbolise and why are its stories so resolutely set in these Isles and so often written by the French?

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Guests

• Dr Carolyne Larrington 5 episodes
  Tutor in Medieval English at St John's College, Oxford
• Jonathan Riley-Smith 2 episodes
  Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University
• Dr Juliette Wood 11 episodes
  Associate Lecturer in the Department of Welsh at the University College of Wales in Cardiff

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Programme ID: p00548y9

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548y9

Auto-category: 809.93356 (Arthurian legends and the Holy Grail)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, Tennyson wrote, a cracking and deriving of the roofs and rending and a blast an overhead thunder and in the thunder was a cry and in the blast there smote along the hall a beam of light seven times more clear than day and down the long beam stole the holy grail.