French writers, and chiefly to Walter Map, perhaps, that we owe
something new which was now added to the Arthur story.

Walter Map, like so many of the writers of this early time, was a
priest. He was chaplain to Henry II., and was still alive when
John, the bad king, sat upon the throne.

The first writers of the Arthur story had made a great deal of
manly strength: it was often little more than a tale of hard
knocks given and taken. Later it became softened by the thought
of courtesy, with the idea that knights might give and take these
hard knocks for the sake of a lady they loved, and in the cause
of all women.

Now something full of mystery was added to the tale. This was
the Quest of the Holy Grail.

The Holy Grail was said to be a dish used by Christ at the Last
Supper. It was also said to have been used to hold the sacred
blood which, when Christ hung upon the cross, flowed from his
wounds. The Holy Grail came into the possession of Joseph of
Arimathea, and by him was brought to Britain. But after a time
the vessel was lost, and the story of it even forgotten, or only
remembered in some dim way.

And this is the story which the poet-priest, Walter Map, used to
give new life and new glory to the tales of Arthur. He makes the
knights of the round table set forth to search for the Grail.
They ride far away over hill and dale, through dim forests and
dark waters. They fight with men and fiends, alone and in