Odd Staffordshire

If you want to know about the history of the Holy Grail, my advice is... don’t bother.
It’s too confusing, and the story changes whomever you speak to. Plus - it's just a legend, right?

Or... join in the fascination, and let me tell you a story.

A story

Below is the way I learnt the story as a child, and, though this is NOT the only interpretation, it is the easiest.

The Holy Grail is a type of goblet. It was used to collect the pouring-out of Christ’s blood from His wounds as he hung upon the Cross (some say it was the chalice used by Him at the Last Supper but that’s not what I was taught). 
One of Jesus’ supporters, possibly Mary Magdalene but, in the version I know best, it’s Joseph of Arimathea, is the person who is collecting the holy blood.

Joseph, now having the “Grail”, and who’s a bit of a merchant, ends up in England (don’t ask why), where he finds himself at Glastonbury in Somerset (which was then, with the way the sea works, a port). 
Here, for one reason or another he leaves it behind, somewhere, safely deposited.
We’re now are around the 1st century AD.

Skip forward.

By the twelfth century Europe is getting double-excited about the King Arthur legends, and one of the biggest Arthur legends is that of the quest to find the (now lost) Grail.
Other names for it (the French poets started it) are the Saint Grael or San Graal.
But there begins to be even more confusion because sang (which is close to san) means Blood, and there’s a little mix-up... which is why it could be that the version I learnt as a child involved the Holy Blood.

Now, King Arthur, as someone real, probably lived around the 4th century.
That doesn’t bother the medieval poets, who give him and his knights not just legendary status but thirteenth-century medieval attitudes and appearance.
In the stories, King Arthur orders his knights to find the Grail.

Still ok? Hold on, here we go.

Arthur

Right. Here’s how it comes down to us. 

King Arthur’s knights, far from being just after rape, pillage and general mayhem, are actually a godly lot. They are set the task - but (and here’s the sting) only a knight who is truly pure will ever find it.

To cut a long story short, Lancelot, Gareth, Gawain, Kay etc never get near it, and after years of fruitless looking (and adventures) abandon the search.
Eventually Bors, Perceval and Galahad get to the mysterious Chapel of the Holy Grail, but only Sir Galahad (who, by a twist of soap-opera Arthurian fate, is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot) is pure enough to approach it fully. 
He is the chosen one – and for his troubles, gets swallowed up into heaven.

Hiding place

Game over? Er. Apparently not.
Galahad is gone, but where is the Grail?

Does it pass into the keeping of (take your pick...): holy knights (like the Knights Templar); a trusted local family (the Peverells); or a secret society (the legendary Priory of Sion)? Whatever. The point is that it disappears from the sight of ordinary people once again.
It all gets even more confused as nineteenth century artists (Tennyson, Wagner etc) get in on the act, and go nuts with even more theories; and then in the 1920s & 30s, there's another boost with even more learned volumes - and poets like TS Eliot get carried away on the associated legend of the Fisher King.

But... I hear you ask... why do we care anyway?
Well, it could be, it’s said, that the goblet, having been once touched by Christ, possesses fantastic powers, so it continues into more legend - and becomes the subject of an Indiana Jones movie!

And some people (how did I get this far without mentioning him?) will read Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, which, IMHO, is the biggest load of rubbish this side of the moon made of cheese, and know that Mr Brown has his own ideas.

In fact, you might think that, because, as a kid I loved the Holy Grail legend, I’d have been ratsed off by the Monty Python film 'The Quest for The Holy Grail', but the fact is I was only mildly annoyed.
The MP team was more knowledgeable of the symbolism than a casual observer might realise.

Back home

And now, we come to the present day, and the Staffordshire/Shropshire/Wales connection.
If you believe the legend, then the “evidence” in the King Arthur stories has always pointed to locations around the Welsh/English border... and so we here in the Midlands come into the factoring for people who are still looking.

Are you still with me? More fool you. Because suddenly we’re into totally unproven territory.

Some people reckon that the “Shepherd’s Monument”, a memorial monument at Staffordshire’s Shugborough Hall, has a cryptic clue inscribed on it about those who are in the lineage of Jesus (supposedly), and therefore might be thought were the holders of the Grail.
And, they say, the clue might lead someone to the Grail’s local secret whereabouts (for more of this theory, see link at top right hand corner of this page).

On the other hand, some people think that the fabled “White Castle” where the Grail was locked away for many centuries, is in fact Whittington Castle, which is on the Shropshire border (for more of this theory, see link at top right hand corner of this page).
Also in Shropshire, the Grotto at Hawkstone Park has also been linked with the Grail. In 1920 a small stone cup was found hidden in the base of a statue that then stood there.

And some people even identify the mystery with the legends of Avalon located in nearby north Wales, and identify the Grail cache as being at Valle Crucis Abbey (for more of this theory, see link at top right hand corner of this page).

What’s it all about?

All the present-day theorising is just good fun I suppose, but what bothers me is that the true symbolism of the original legends is being forgotten.

Check out Burne-Jones’ depiction of Sir Galahad kneeling before the great power of the mystic Grail. In his work, you can see what the Grail means.
What that’s about is a vision of an ordinary human being coming face to face with the most overwhelming force on earth, the power of pure Truth. It’s frightening stuff.
Truth is not kindly, or fun, or happy, at all. You mess with it at your peril, and indeed, going back to Arthur's knights, many of them were destroyed by the quest.
The big meaning of the Grail is that those who cannot face truth are destroyed by coming into contact with it.

I guess that's really what makes it so enduring a symbol, and why it is so fascinating - whether you believe in the Grail as a reality or not.

Finally

But... you thought the Staffordshire connections were over? No.

Guess who played Sir Galahad in the (truly terrible) film of 'King Arthur' starring Clive Owen and Keira Knightley. The actor was Hugh Dancy.
And Hugh Dancy.... was born in North Staffordshire. 

Spooky, huh? (Well. A little bit!!)