Parzival and the stone from heaven - Lindsay Clarke

A wonderful retelling of the legendary story of Parzival, the knight who is given the task of finding the Holy Grail. In the same vein as Seamus Heaney's Beowulf but written as magically as The Alchemist.

"If you are to appear before the High King in his court, you'd better have the proper finery," his mother said craftily. "Let me see what I can do." So she cut a tabard out of old sackcloth and a rough pair of buskins out of calf-skin. "And you must have a plume, such as knights wear on their helmets," she said, threading the stems of holly leaves through the crown of his cowl so that he looked like a savage green man from the woods.

And so, Parzival arrives at King Arthur's court: a holy fool whom all the knights in that glittering company will mock.'

Yet in a world ravaged by war, a world in which men are ruled by fear, hatred and distrust, there is a need for a champion who is innocent of heart and pure of spirit. Arthur's knights are proud and corrupt: none has yet succeeded in finding the Grail, the stone of healing which has the power to make life whole again. But Parzival's destiny may prove greater than that of any other knight.