
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


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?With Dr Carolyne Larrington, Tutor in Medieval English at St John’s College, Oxford; Jonathan Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University; Dr Juliette Wood, Associate Lecturer in the Department of Welsh at the University College of Wales in Cardiff.
By BBC Radio 44.6
51095,109 ratings
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?With Dr Carolyne Larrington, Tutor in Medieval English at St John’s College, Oxford; Jonathan Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University; Dr Juliette Wood, Associate Lecturer in the Department of Welsh at the University College of Wales in Cardiff.

7,913 Listeners

314 Listeners

523 Listeners

1,067 Listeners

296 Listeners

3,196 Listeners

1,910 Listeners

870 Listeners

618 Listeners

743 Listeners

280 Listeners

2,113 Listeners

488 Listeners

4,791 Listeners

227 Listeners

346 Listeners

235 Listeners

326 Listeners

3,245 Listeners

3,358 Listeners

15,506 Listeners

1,920 Listeners

73 Listeners

689 Listeners

528 Listeners

2,552 Listeners

347 Listeners

630 Listeners

394 Listeners

239 Listeners

54 Listeners

80 Listeners

96 Listeners