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?

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

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

Related episodes

• Le Morte d’Arthur
  
  10 Jan, 2013 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
  
  13 Dec, 2018 820 English and Old English literatures
• Tristan and Iseult
  
  31 Dec, 2015 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism
• The Mabinogion
  
  10 May, 2018 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism
• Merlin
  
  30 Jun, 2005 390 Customs, etiquette and folklore
• The Fisher King
  
  17 Jan, 2008 390 Customs, etiquette and folklore
• The Song of Roland
  
  4 Nov, 2021 840 French and related literatures
• Chivalry
  
  13 Feb, 2014 940 History of Europe
• Chaucer
  
  9 Feb, 2006 820 English and Old English literatures
• Agincourt
  
  16 Sep, 2004 940 History of Europe

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

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.