A To Z Blogging Challenge 2020: H is for...the Holy Hand Grenade Of Antioch!

Today I am going to be silly, and refer to a scene from one of my favourite Arthurian films, Monty Python And The Holy Grail. In the scene I’m referring to, King Arthur and his knights, on their quest for the Grail, arrive at the cave of Caerbannog. The cave, which is supposed to give them information they need, has a guardian: the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. 

They get a warning from one Tim the Enchanter. This animal has a mean streak a mile wide, he tells them. It kills! The bones of many men lie outside, but it takes them a while, and the loss of three knights - Bors, Gawain and Ector - to convince them. The fluffy white bunny can leap into the air and bite your head off - and does. They need a weapon. 

Fortunately they have a group of monks travelling with them, led by Brother Maynard. And the monks carry a holy relic: the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! 

When Arthur remembers about it, he asks them to fetch it and read out the instructions. They bring it out with great reverence, from a reliquary. The instructions are from the Book Of Armaments, in King James Bible style. 

Arthur follows the instructions, though he can’t count to three, and says, “One...two...five...” and throws it into the cave, where it presumably kills the rabbit.

Take a look at the picture. It’s the Sovereign’s Orb of the UK, which inspired the Holy Hand  Grenade. Doesn’t it look like you could pull out the cross and throw it? It is used at coronations. Fortunately for the last sovereign who used it, Monty Python And The Holy Grail was about twenty years in the future, or her solemn face might have had a hard time staying that way! 

Public Domain

A lot of fans have re-created this prop, because it’s easy to make. 

The Pythons were not ignorant. They met at Cambridge university and one of them, at least, Terry Jones, wrote lots of history books when he wasn’t clowning for our pleasure. When they sent up something, they knew what they were doing. I used two scenes from this film for my Year 8 mediaeval history class - “Bring out your dead!” and the “witch weighed against a duck” scene. The kids laughed, but they remembered those particular bits of history later, if nothing else. 

In fact, when I first saw this film, I was busy writing my Honours thesis on Arthurian literature and I laughed all the harder because I picked up the in jokes. It’s a very funny film, but even funnier if you are familiar with the background. 

Caerbannog, or Caer Bannog, was a name for Carbonek, the castle of the Holy Grail. The rabbit, of course, was sending up all the monsters of Arthurian, and other, mediaeval tales. And the enchanter was not Merlin, he was ... Tim! 

And that’s it for today. I had some good news when I woke up yesterday morning: a story of mine has been accepted for an anthology, and I need to focus on doing the edits, however minor. 

See you tomorrow, with something a bit more solemn. I just had to have a break for silliness!