A single, consistent and accessible narrative of the Grail story,
constructed from the principal motifs and narrative strands of all the
original Grail romances.
The quest for the Holy Grail is one of the most important elements in
the story of King Arthur. Yet even among the many interested in the
stories of the Round Table, very few have read at first hand the
medieval masterpieces whichover a period of some forty years, in the
late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, together became the
foundation of the legend of the Grail.
These romances, full of bewildering contradictions and composed by a
numberof different writers with very different preoccupations, dazzle
with the sheer wealth of their conflicting imaginative detail. In this
new compilation, the enthralling material becomes truly accessible
through his interweaving ofthe principal motifs and narrative strands of
all the original Grail romances to construct a single, consistent
version of the Grail story, while clearly tracing the development of its
enigmatic and potent theme. All the mystery and drama of the Arthurian
world are embodied in the extraordinary adventures of Perceval, Gawain,
Lancelot and Galahad in their pursuit of the Grail. Told here as a
unified, coherent narrative, the Grail legend reasserts its relevance as
one of the great works of imaginative literature of the middle ages.
NIGEL BRYANT's previous Arthurian books include The High Book of the
Grail (Perlesvaus), Chretien de Troyes' Perceval and its Continuations,
and Robert de Boron's Merlin and the Grail.
