Wandering for the Holy Grail: Read by Jan Hartl

The wondrous journey to the mystery of the Holy Grail begins... An adventure that no one has ever succeeded in before must be completed. A mythical tale from the time of noble knights, magical swords, righteous King Arthur and brave Lancelot. The classic medieval legend comes to life in Jan Hartl's excellent interpretation.
The sequel to The Quest for the Holy Grail is the fourth part of a large cycle of medieval prose novels written between 1215 and 1235. The book was published in 2006 in a translation by Jiří Pelán by the publishing house Triáda.

The Holy Grail cycle has survived in a number of different manuscript versions. The existing nine complete manuscripts can be grouped under five basic headings: 1) The story of St. Grail, which tells how the Grail was brought from the Orient to the castle of the Fisher Kings; 2) The story of Merlin, which begins with the birth of Merlin, tells of Arthur's enthronement, and ends with the birth of Lancelot; 3) Lancelot of the Lake, the most extensive section, which ends with the conception of Galad, son of Lancelot and daughter of King Peles; 4) The quest for the Holy Grail, which ends with the death of Galad and the disappearance of the Grail; 5) The death of King Arthur, in which the Arthurian empire succumbs to ruin.

The manuscript of The Quest for the Holy Grail was written sometime between 1225 and 1230. Literary historians have suggested that the author of the story was probably someone who was close to the Cistercian order and who captured the image of an ascetic and mystical ideal in the psychologically subtle description of Galad's journey. The story is an extraordinary work not only in the context of the entire five-volume cycle, but also in the context of the entire French literature of the 13th century. The perfectly crafted myth of the Grail quest becomes a magnificent metaphor for the path to personal perfection and a transcendent order. In the masterfully constructed narrative, New Testament reminiscences are intertwined with mythical elements (the dangerous table, the test with the sword), and it is evident that the author had a perfect command of both biblical and Arthurian legends. The linearity of the narrative of the characters' wanderings is constantly interspersed with conversations with hermits, who illuminate the meaning of the characters' adventures and place them in a historical or eschatological framework.
Radio recording from 2006