Follow the Grail
Malory, Books XIII–XVII, in seventeen stops
The whole quest, read in order, with a line of commentary at each stop telling you what to watch for. About four hours' reading; you can stop and resume anywhere.
17 chapters · about 10,958 words of primary text
Malory's Grail quest is a translation of the French Queste del Saint Graal, and it follows its source closely — which means it inherits the Queste's verdict that the Round Table is not good enough. What Malory adds is grief. Read it watching for two things: how systematically the fellowship is measured and found wanting, and how often Malory pauses to note the cost of the measuring.
- 1Malory XIII.iiHow the letters were found written in the Siege Perilous and of the marvellous adventure of the sword in a stone.
Letters appear on the empty seat, and a sword arrives in a floating stone. Watch Lancelot refuse to try — he already knows why he would fail.
- 2Malory XIII.ivHow the old man brought Galahad to the Siege Perilous and set him therein, and how all the knights marvelled.
Galahad takes the Siege Perilous and nothing happens to him. From this moment every knight in the hall is measurably not him.
- 3Malory XIII.viiHow the queen desired to see Galahad; and how after, all the knights were replenished with the Holy Sangreal, and how they avowed the enquest of the same.
The vessel enters, covered in white samite. The knights vow the quest — and in the same chapter Arthur tells Gawain the vow has nearly killed him. Read to the end of the chapter; the whole argument of this portal is in those four paragraphs.
- 4Malory XIII.viiiHow great sorrow was made of the king and the queen and ladies for the departing of the knights, and how they departed.
The departure, and the grief of the court. Arthur says he will never see them all together again, and he is right.
- 5Malory XIII.xiHow Joseph made a cross on the white shield with his blood, and how Galahad was by a monk brought to a tomb.
Galahad's white shield with the red cross, made by Joseph of Arimathea's blood. The Grail's Christian genealogy, made visible as a heraldic device.
- 6Malory XIII.xviHow Sir Gawaine came to the abbey for to follow Galahad, and how he was shriven to a hermit.
Gawain is told plainly that he will find nothing, because he has not confessed in years. The English tradition's favourite knight, dismissed in a paragraph.
- 7Malory XIII.xviiiHow Sir Launcelot, half sleeping and half waking, saw a sick man borne in a litter, and how he was healed with the Sangreal.
Lancelot, half asleep at a ruined chapel, watches the Grail heal a sick man in front of him and cannot move.
- 8Malory XIII.xixHow a voice spake to Sir Launcelot, and how he found his horse and his helm borne away, and after went afoot.
The voice: harder than stone, more bitter than wood, more naked and barren than the fig tree. He is told to withdraw.
- 9Malory XIII.xxHow Sir Launcelot was shriven, and what sorrow he made and of the good ensamples which were shewed him.
The confession. Twenty-four years, and the first time in his life he asks God for anything. The best writing in the quest.
- 10Malory XIV.iiHow Merlin likened the Round Table to the world, and how the knights that should achieve the Sangreal should be known.
Merlin likens the Round Table to the world. The quest's own account of what the fellowship was for.
- 11Malory XIV.xHow Sir Percivale for penance rove himself through the thigh; and how she was known for the devil.
Percival, tempted by a lady on a ship, wounds himself through the thigh as penance. The Queste's ethic at its most extreme.
- 12Malory XVI.xHow Sir Bors left to rescue his brother, and rescued the damosel; and how it was told him that Lionel was dead.
Bors's choice: his own brother being flogged, or a stranger about to be raped, and only time to reach one. He chooses the stranger. The best moral problem in the book.
- 13Malory XVI.xivHow Sir Bors met with his brother Sir Lionel, and how Sir Lionel would have slain Sir Bors.
Lionel comes for him, and Bors will not raise a sword against his brother. The choice is not made costless.
- 14Malory XVII.iiiHow Sir Galahad entered into the ship, and of a fair bed therein, with other marvellous things, and of a sword.
The ship, the bed, and the sword of the strange girdles. Malory's most openly allegorical stretch.
- 15Malory XVII.xiHow Sir Percivale’s sister bled a dish full of blood for to heal a lady, wherefore she died; and how that the body was put in a ship.
Percival's sister gives a dish of blood to cure a stranger, and dies of it. She achieves as much as Galahad and the text never gives her a name.
- 16Malory XVII.xxHow Galahad and his fellows were fed of the Holy Sangreal, and how Our Lord appeared to them, and other things.
The Mass at Corbenic, and the figure that comes out of the vessel. Galahad sees what tongue cannot tell, and asks to die.
- 17Malory XVII.xxiiHow they were fed with the Sangreal while they were in prison, and how Galahad was made king.
Sarras. The Grail is taken up to heaven and never seen again; two of the three are dead; Bors rides home alone to a court he knows is finished.
What happens next
Now read Book XVIII, chapter i. Malory's first sentence about what happened next is one of the quietest and worst in the book.
Where to go from here
For the argument rather than the narrative:the six Grails compared,the unasked question in four traditions, orthe Grail as a throughline.
For what the quest costs the kingdom it left behind:Follow the Fall picks up four books later and runs to the last page.