10 Things You Never Knew About Holy Grails

THEY’RE ancient, they’re venerated and they’re the actual cup that our Lord Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. They’re Holy Grails, and chances are there’s one in a church near you. But despite their ubiquity, how much do you actually know about these sacred objects? What are they made from? How much are they worth? And how would you work out the volume of wine they could hold? Here’s the answer to that last question and 9 others, as we bring you…

CARBON dating has shown that many Holy Grails were made in the 15th century – a millennium-and-a-half after the Last Supper took place. You might think this discrepancy would cast doubt on their authenticity, but there is a simple explanation.

“Time and matter have no meaning to the Lord our God, for did He not make the world even before He made time?” says Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Justin Welby.

“So knocking up a Grail half a century after it was used would be a piece of piss for Him.”

HOLY GRAILS may be venerated objects and sacred symbols of faith to millions of Christians around the world, but the word GRAIL will only get you 6 points in a game of Scrabble, or 10 points if the G is on a triple letter square.

THAT bumps up to a massive 24 if it crosses the triple word square, with the G sitting on the double letter square.

IN ORDER to calculate how much wine a Holy Grail would hold, you need to make two assumptions. Firstly, that the top of the Holy Grail is circular, and secondly, that the height of the Holy Grail is exactly half of the ellipsoid that it forms. The volume is then given as r2h/2, where h is the depth of the Holy Grail and r is the radius at the top. Plugging these numbers into the equation, we find that a wine glass-sized Holy Grail, 8cm in diameter and 10cm deep, would hold 335ml of wine – about a wine glass full.

THE WORD GRAIL has no singleword anagrams. Neither does the word HOLY. Even more bizarrely, neither do its synonyms CHALICE, GOBLET and CUP.

HOWEVER, VESSEL – another synonym of grail – has one anagram – Selves.

AS WELL as being a vessel from which to drink wine, a Holy Grail could also be used as an egg-cup for a boiled ostrich egg. But forget about your 3-minute egg timer – the large flightless bird’s egg would have to be boiled for 50 minutes if you wanted to dip soldiers in, and a staggering hour-and-a-half if you wanted it hard-boiled for sandwiches.

GRAILS have been a staple of Hollywood films for decades, and many have these holy drinking vessels central to their plots, including Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The daVinci Code and probably a few of the Indiana Jones films.

MODERN drinking vessels like glasses and cups are designed to be thrown into the dishwasher after each use. However, Holy Grails were made thousands of years before the invention of these labour-saving devices, so it is unlikely that they are dishwasher safe. “If you’ve got a Holy Grail at home which you drink from, you should always hand wash it in warm soapy water, before rinsing it and drying it with a soft cloth,” says His Eminence Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster.

AS WELL as being a sacred drinking vessel, ‘Holy Grail’ is also a term used to denote a much sought after, yet elusive goal which someone hopes to achieve. Clearing the table with a 147-break for a snooker player, spotting a rare kakapo for an ornithologist, or having

10 men simultaneously orgasm for a bukakke scud flick director, are all the ‘Holy

Grails’ in their respective fields.