Montsalvache

Here, on the northern edge of the Pyrenees some 110 years ago, a Catholic priest named Bérengier Saunière became unbelievably wealthy overnight, seemingly after discovering something of immense value or significance in his church. He is said to have spent lavishly redesigning the tiny hill-top structure, building a strange belvedere tower called Tour Magdala and constructing a guest house known as Villa Bethania. He is also reported to have started acting oddly, erasing inscriptions on tomb stones, carrying out nocturnal excavations in both the church and churchyard, and receiving visitors totally beyond his standing as a parish curé in a rural part of southern France.

There is a real, existing mountain in the south of France which is  rumored to house the Holy Grail. In fact, local legend says that the Grail has always been there, ever since a dove from Heaven descended upon the mountain, split it open with its beak, and dropped the Grail inside. This is the mountain of Montsegur, which was the last Cathari stronghold defeated by the Albigensian Crusade. (This was the only crusade waged by Christiandom against people who were Christians themselves.) The term “Cathar” was a catch-all term used by the Catholic Church for the numerous Gnostic Christian cults that proliferated across the Languedoc region of France during the Middle Ages. As they grew in numbers, they gradually became a threat to orthodox Christianity.

The Grail and the story of King Arthur is a myth, in the sense that things got added to it. The first Grail account did not mention the nature of the Grail, whereas Wolfram von Eschenbach particularly identified it with a black stone, speculated by some to be a meteor, by others to be a cousin of the Ka’aba stone.

The story of the Grail is like the myth of Jesus: From an interesting person, believed to have resurrected, he grew into the son of god, to the child of a virgin birth, its father the Holy Spirit. One aspect of the Grail mythology is the addition of the “Grail castle” to the original mythology.

Отто Ран (1904-1938 гг.), о котором говорили как о талантливом молодом литераторе и историке, был одной из действительно ярких личностей этого века. До своей загадочной смерти в возрасте 35 лет он успел написать две книги о катарах южной Франции: "Крестовый поход против Грааля" ("Kreuzzug gegen den Gral") и "Двор Люцифера" ("Luzifers Hofgesind"). О его жизни и трагической смерти ходят легенды. Хотя его книги оказали влияние на таких известных русскому читателю авторов как Тревор Равенскрофт (Trevor Ravenscroft) и Жан-Мишель Анжебер (Jean-Michel Angebert), на русский язык они никогда не переводились. В бестселлере 1982 года "Святая кровь, святой Грааль" (Holy Blood, Holy Grail - в русском переводе "Священная загадка") имя Отто Рана упоминается в небольшом, но интригующем примечании.