T h e H o l y G r a i l
The Holy Grail is published on Amazon Kindle.Text and 100 b/w illustrations
http://www.amazon.co.uk
This is a recently upgraded ebook version of the original best seller published by both Penguin Viking in the USA and Bloomsbury in the UK.
So far it has sold over 160,000 copies worldwide but is out of print in English.
In this digital version the enigma of the Grail is explored in a way that has not really been attempted before. It simultaneously explores
nine major versions of the legend which span 25 fascinating years at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century.
The legends are as diverse as those of the wild and pagan Celts, the courtly troubadours, celibate Cistercian monks,
to the first and greatest novelist of the 13th century.
Remarkably the legend still proves to be a timely mirror of our own era, hovering between a possible Earthly Paradise and an all too likely Wasteland.
REVIEWS
A rather backhanded review of the printed version:
"...Godwin is.. "possibly our only half-decent mystic”
Independent on Sunday, UK
"A magical new look at a very old story!"
"The tales of King Arthur and the Quest for the Holy Grail are still among the most entertaining stories anywhere.
I double dare you, however, to remain unchanged after reading this book. One doesn't so much read it as experience it.
And it's a downright uncanny experience. If the Holy Grail exists, here is your map to find it."
Guardian, UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk
This is a recently upgraded ebook version of the original best seller published by both Penguin Viking in the USA and Bloomsbury in the UK.
So far it has sold over 160,000 copies worldwide but is out of print in English.
In this digital version the enigma of the Grail is explored in a way that has not really been attempted before. It simultaneously explores
nine major versions of the legend which span 25 fascinating years at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century.
The legends are as diverse as those of the wild and pagan Celts, the courtly troubadours, celibate Cistercian monks,
to the first and greatest novelist of the 13th century.
Remarkably the legend still proves to be a timely mirror of our own era, hovering between a possible Earthly Paradise and an all too likely Wasteland.
REVIEWS
A rather backhanded review of the printed version:
"...Godwin is.. "possibly our only half-decent mystic”
Independent on Sunday, UK
"A magical new look at a very old story!"
"The tales of King Arthur and the Quest for the Holy Grail are still among the most entertaining stories anywhere.
I double dare you, however, to remain unchanged after reading this book. One doesn't so much read it as experience it.
And it's a downright uncanny experience. If the Holy Grail exists, here is your map to find it."
Guardian, UK
Preview
Twelfth Century Europe was a time of unprecedented spiritual awakening. The Crusaders to the Holy Land had returned with new esoteric secrets from the East. The heretical Cathars were challenging the authority of a divided and corrupt Church of Rome and women were at last accorded a new power and position, forming their own Courts of Love. Out of this extraordinary new age arose a legend which was to surpass all previous Western myths—that of a mystical object called the Holy Grail and a knightly Quest in search of it. Between 1190 and 1220, there was an outpouring of stories about this sacred artifact. Deemed heretical by the Church and yet said to hold the blood of the crucified Christ, the Grail chalice was supposedly brought to Britain two thousand years ago. And although the legend is set in the Arthurian Britain of the sixth century, tradition traces the cup of the last supper to a Cathar stronghold in the Pyrenees, under the guardianship of the Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem. The legend of the Holy Grail is not one story, but many, and this book explores nine major, and very different, accounts which appeared within a twenty-five-year span. Some are taken from the earliest blood-thirsty pagan tales of the Celtic Peredur, the unfinished, courtly epic of Chrétien de Troyes, Le Conte del Graal, and a little-known poetic gem called the Diu Crone, or the Jeweled Crown.
The great Cistercian epic of the Vulgate Cycle, which includes the Queste del San Graal, is probably the account known best to Western readers, yet many more are examined including Perlesvaus, Joseph d'Arimathie, Merlin, the Didot-Perceval and Parzival. In addition we discover that Mary Magdalene is a central figure within the legends and that the miraculous Black Virgin statues, still found throughout Europe today, have strange and intimate ties with the Grail. Even the Tarot cards contain the sacred Hallows along with a complete map for the Grail Quest, devised by the Templars.
Barnes and Noble
The great Cistercian epic of the Vulgate Cycle, which includes the Queste del San Graal, is probably the account known best to Western readers, yet many more are examined including Perlesvaus, Joseph d'Arimathie, Merlin, the Didot-Perceval and Parzival. In addition we discover that Mary Magdalene is a central figure within the legends and that the miraculous Black Virgin statues, still found throughout Europe today, have strange and intimate ties with the Grail. Even the Tarot cards contain the sacred Hallows along with a complete map for the Grail Quest, devised by the Templars.
Barnes and Noble