3rd Path: Grail Search

Here are some of the graphics I created for another Arthurian theme, namely the Grail.

In the Arthurian Legends, I included several pages on the Grail themes. One for the general background of the Grail and other relics. The origin of the Grail, about Joseph of Arimathea and his family. And two separate pages about Arthur's time, showing how there were two different main Grail heroes in different traditions – Perceval and Galahad.

The image below was one of my earlier works on the holy vessel. Since then, I have shrunk the size of the Grail to a much smaller size. The smaller image was later used in my Flash animation, which I will speak more of later.

Most people recognised the Grail as being a chalice, a drinking vessel, but originally it wasn't a chalice. Chretien de Troyes, the French medieval romance author, was the one who started this legend, described it as a dish, not a cup.

I drew the content of the grail as red, because according to another French author, Robert de Boron, Joseph d'Arimathea caught Jesus' blood in a chalice.

Chretien and later authors also described a Grail procession in which one person carried the vessel (thus the Grail), and another person carried a spear that bled, which was known as the Bleeding Lance. Chretien didn't mention whose blood it was that bled into the Grail, but later authors, following Boron's lead, said that this was the spear that was used to stab Jesus' side when he was crucified.

For this reason, I created a simple Flash animation of the Bleeding Spear, with blood dripping from the spearhead into the Grail below. And this was the reason that I made the image of the Grail smaller.

Originally, the animation was accompanied with the sound of dripping, but I have since switched it off, because people found the sound annoying.