The Virgin and the Grail: Origins of a Legend Joseph Goering Some fifty years before Chre'tien de Troyes wrote what is probably the first and certainly the most influential story of the Holy Grail, images of Virgin Mary with a simple but radiant bowl (called a "grail" in the local dialect) appeared in churches in the Spanish Pyrenees. In this fascinating book, Joseph Goering explores the links between these sacred images and the origins of one of the West's most enduring legends. In tracing the sources of the grail legend, Goering first follows it forward from its appearance as a mysterious vessel in Chre'tien's romance to its explicit association with the Last Supper only decades later. He shows how in the hands of other poets, the story grew to become the legend of the grail that we are familiar with today. But he also follows the story backward from Chre'tien, to the distant Pyrenees, and argues that the origins of this mysterious story lie in religious paintings. He explains how storytellers in northern France could have learned of these paintings, and how the enigmatic grail in the hands of the Virgin came to from the centerpiece of a story about a knight in King Arthur's court. Part of the allure of the grail, Goering argues, was that neither Chre'tien nor his audience knew exactly what it represented or why it was so important. And it is as an attempt to answer those questions that the literature of the Holy Grail was born. Joseph Goering is professor in the department of history, University of Toronto.