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Grail

Everything on the Grail, Graal, Holy Grail quest and knowledge related to the Maier files series. A cumulative deposit of knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings

The Rose of the World

The Rose of the world Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died. We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place Like the pale waters in their wintry race, Under the passing stars, foam...
arthur saga

Malory’s Death of King Arthur – Le Morte d’Arthur

Sir Thomas Malory came from a family steeped in the values and traditions of the chivalric code. His ancestors were ‘gentlemen that bear old arms’, and their blood relationship with both the Normans and the Vikings suggests that they were sufficiently robust to do so. They had settled at Newbold Revell, in Warwickshire, and had managed to acquire vast estates throughout that county. As the inheritor of a name and...
knight of the Grail

Who are the guardians of the Grail?

The mysterious guardians of the Grail. If the Grail had a home, wherein it was preserved for people who could come in search of it, that home needed guardians. This seems to have been a given from the very earliest grail testimonies, and when we look at the work of Chrétien de Troyes and Robert de Boron, Wolfram von Eschenbach or the writer of Sone, we are able to see that every one is very clear on this matter. Though […]...

Where’s the Grail Temple?

In search for the Grail and Grail Temple … Now, we have heard how Lancelot fared when he entered the chapel of the Grail to help the “man dressed like a priest” who was serving at the Mass. Even though his intention is good, he is not permitted to touch or look upon the mystery. So, too, in the story of the Ark’s journey from Gebaa, described in the biblical...

The Arabic Idris and the Alchemical Mercury

The name of Hermes, whether or not qualified as Trismegistus, henceforth served as guarantee or signature for a host of esoteric books on magic, astrology, medicine, etc., throughout the Middle Ages, and this despite the fact that, with the exception of the Asclepius, the Corpus Hermeticum was unknown. Picatrix At the same time, an inspired imagery unfolded in both Latin and Arabic literature in a succession of “visionary recitals” (as...
Gral Relic

The mysterious relic — The Gral

The mysterious relic —which could be at one and the same time a chalice, a book, a stone, or a person— was seen as existing both on the earth and at a remove from it. In the poem The Later Titurel, it hovers above the world, untouched by human hands and supported by angels. In the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes and the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, it is kept in a secret chamber within a great castle. In […]...

Jehan’s Last Steps – a remarkable mysterious story

In 1934 the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung published in Issue 48 an article by Otto Rahn entitled: Jehans Letzer Gang (Jehan’s Last Steps). The piece told the story of one Jehan Tessenre, a young family man moments away from his execution by Hugeunot troops in reprisal for the death of sixty—two of their brethren. They had been betrayed by Jehan to the townsfolk of Tarascon who lost no time in tossing...

Helias, the swan Knight and World’s Greatest Relic

Lohengrin to manhood grew And gave the Grail his service true … Across the sea a maiden dwelt … She a princess of Brabant. From Munsalvach he was sent Whom the Swan did bring … Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival   Swan Knight The Swan Knight tale occurs in the thirteenth-century Grail document Sone de Nansay. And Wolfram von Eschenbach links him, under the name of Lohengrin, with the Grail family...
Grail Prent

Grail Knights

In the early 1180s, as the shadow of Saladin lengthened over the Holy Land, a nobleman with Merovingian ancestry, Philip d’Alsace, count of Flanders, commissioned the greatest poet of the age, Chrétien de Troyes, to do a French reworking of a strange tale about a poor knight, the son of a widow, who attains the kingship of the Holy Grail. Philip d’Alsace Philip supposedly found the tale in an ancient Celtic/Germanic chronicle, and wanted Chrétien, the medieval version of a […]...
Water spring

In every drop of water dwells a deity

The Elucidation is an anonymous Old French poem of the early 13th century, which was written to serve as a prologue to Chrétien de Troyes‘ Perceval, le Conte du Graal. It is preserved in only one manuscript, Mons 331/206 (olim 4568), and in the Prose Perceval printed in 1530. Moreover, a German translation by Philipp Colin and Claus Wisse appeared in the Nüwe Parzefal of the 14th-century. Goethe The poet,...
Parzival logo Maier files

Parzival

Teutonic legend. a music drama by Richard Wagner: composed 1877-82; premiere 1882 a male given name: from Old French words meaning “pierce” and “valley” comparable to Percival a knight of King Arthur’s court who sought the Holy Grail a German mythical military division   What lies beneath the noun Parzival? In Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach tells us that the Grail is a stone that was brought from heaven to Earth...
Albruna rune sequence

The Power of the Runes

From his seat in Asgard, Odin, observed the Norns at the base of Yggdrasil, and envied their skills and their foresight. The god twisted his will toward the undertaking of coming to know the Runes. The native home of the runes is the Well of Urd with the Norns and since the runes do not reveal themselves to any but those who prove themselves worthy of such fearful insights and abilities, Odin hung himself from a branch of Yggdrasil, pierced […]...
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