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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wombat" data-source="post: 1324379" data-attributes="member: 8447">During the Middle Ages the Grail (or sometimes Graal) was described variously as the Cup from the Last Supper, the Plate from the Last Supper, or the Stone beneath the Cross (onto which Jesus dropped blood).  The tales of the Grail got intermixed with so many other stories (such as the Cauldron of Ceridwen) that it is often difficult to tease out a particular line in the legends.During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, during a period of "neatening up" various legend cycles, the concept of the Grail as Cup from the Last Supper became pretty firmly established in the English-speaking world (I am less sure in other areas, although Wagner draws from the old German Parzifal legends which use the Stone motif).  At that point suddenly all the hocum theories about bloodlines passing down and guarding the Grail for centuries cropped up (sort of like the whole "unbroken oral tradition of witchcraft"), leading to dozens of conspiracy theories.  Also this was the period of the whole Celtic Revival, so there was also more on the "Celtic Origins of the Grail" with time, which again may or may not be the case, although it is a popular concept.There are literally hundreds of the books on the subject, both fiction and "non-fiction" (the latter are often just as fictional, but don't want to admit it...).  Personally I love some of the short fiction collections that appeared a few years ago, such as The Chronicles of the Holy Grail edited by Mike Ashley and Grails: Visitations of the Night/Grails:Quests of the Dawn edited by Richard Gilliam, Martin Greenberg, and Edward Kramer.</blockquote>

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