GRAAL, GRA!, GRAIL, or GRAL (derived probably from the old French, perhaps Celtic, great, Provencal, grand, mediaeval LatIn, gradalas), signifies a kind of dish. In the legends and poetry of the middle ages, we find accounts of the holy graal—San Gr6a1 —a miraculous chalice, made of a single precious stone, sometimes said to be an emerald, which possessed the power of preserving chastity, prolonging life, and other wonderful properties. This chalice was believed to have been the first brought from heaven by angels, and was the one from which Christ dra44: at the last slipper. It was preserved by Joseph of Aritnathea, and in it were caught the last drops of the blood of Christ as he was taken from the cross. This holy chalice, thus trebly sanctified, NA as guarded by angels, and then by the templises, a society of knights, chosen for their chastity and devotion, who watched over it in a temple-like castle on the inaccessible mountain 'Monts:dyne. The legend, as it grew, appears to have combined Arabian. Jewish, and Christian elements, and it became the favorite subject of the poets and romancers of the middle ages. The eight centuries of warfare between the Christians and Moors in Spain, and the foundation of the order of •knight templars, aided in its development.
The stories and poems of Arthur and the round, table were connected with this legend, About 1170. Chretien of Troyes, and after loin other troubadors, sang of the search for the holy graal by the knights of the round table, in which'they met with many extraor dinary adventures. Some have supposed that the Story of the connection of the miraculous clnilice with the last supper and the blood of Christ arose from a wrong division of the words sea great, holy vessel, which were written sang real, royal blood, blood of the Lord; but although the coincidence is curious, there is no good reason to suppose that a pun 'could have been the foundation of a superstition which spread over Europe. The legend of the graal was introduced into German poetry in the 13th c. by Wolfram von Eschenbach, who took Guiot's tales of Parcival and Titurel as the foundation of his poem, but filled it with deep allegorical meanings. Tennyson's holy Grail has recently made the legend familiar to English readers. Much information on the subject may be found in Lang's Die Sage ram heiligen Graal (1802), Cassel's Der Grua at. rein Name (1865), Droysen's Dtv Tempel des h. Graal (1872), and Zarneke's her Gnat tempel (1876).