Over Sea, Under Stone

In Arthurian legend, the Holy Grail is a mystical artifact of utmost importance, and it is often depicted as a sacred chalice, which the Knights of the Round Table search for across Great Britain. In The Dark Is Rising series, the protagonists embark on a quest to find a copy of the grail that was hidden by the ancient knight Bedwin, who claims that it “[tells] upon its sides all the true story of Arthur soon to be misted in men’s minds” (77). This premise emphasizes the novel’s focus on the idea of Arthurian Legend as Living Myth in the Modern World, and the young protagonists are therefore framed as spiritual descendants of those heroic knights.

When Barney eventually finds Bedwin’s grail, the artifact looks like “a cup, heavy and strangely shaped” (215). Significantly, it is engraved with a depiction of “the promise and the proof of Arthur’s coming again” (77). This line foreshadows the grail’s narrative role as a prophetic artifact: a common trope in fantasy narratives. In short, the grail is the initiating event that sets the main characters on their series-long quest. Harking back to its mythical origins, the grail in Cooper’s narrative symbolizes