Thread:ProfDraco2/@comment-24588058-20170818003415

So, you may recall that I was confused by the Chalice of Dionysus being the Holy Grail. I do apologize, but I would like to bring this up again. I wrote everything below in the comments on the page, but I thought this would be better.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that this is the Holy Grail. I can see the Chalice being linked to Christianity pretty easily, considering it matches the water-to-wine story and effects matching up. But if we're talking a link to the Holy Grail, I'm not sure this is the best match to it.

That being said, I did so a little bit of research (I plan to do more). The Holy Grail was first mentioned in Perceval, le Conte du Graal, an unfinished romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Here, it is a processional salver used to serve at a feast. Wolfram von Eschenbach later perceived the grail as a Stone. In the late 12th century, Robert de Boron wrote in Joseph d'Arimathie that the Grail was Jesus's vessel from the Last Supper, interweaving it with the legend of the Holy Chalice (the cup from the Last Supper).

However, the likeliest TRUE origin of the Holy Grail comes from Celtic legends, which has mentions of magical cauldrons (helping to give rise to the idea that it is a chalice/cup, rather than a stone, and then being linked to the Last Supper). This likely combined with the Eucharist of Christianity and helped resulted in the Holy Grail legend. That being said, perhaps the Holy Grail is an artifact whose origins not only lie in Celtic mythology, but perhaps it became an artifact relating to Christianity in the first place after the legend grew in the 1200s, and someone holy (as pictures appear to have been started to be made depicting the Grail around this time) made it what it became

Personally, I prefer the idea that it was Celtic in origin and, like you suggested above, it got adopted by Christianity as a symbol of the Eucharist, though much later than you initially suggest. The effects would be based on the Celtic legends (again, going to do a bit more research so as to refine the effects), so they may not necessarily be your "standard" Grail effects, as Per commented. What do you think? 