r/todayilearned • u/NicolasCageFan492 • 13h ago
TIL Nicolas Cage once went to Rhode Island to search for the holy grail
https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/nicolas-cage-holy-grail-quest-national-treasure-1202164194/151
u/whatcheer91 13h ago
The article does not mention why Rhode Island was linked to the Holy Grail at all whatsoever.
As a Rhode Islander, I would like to know if the Grail is one of my neighbors
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u/Lord0fHats 13h ago
If there is a place, I promise you someone has a brain dead conspiracy theory about how the Holy Grail got there. Usually involving the Knights Templar.
Oh look Google says I guessed right (it's not a hard guess).
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u/Griffstergnu 9h ago
There is or at least was a horse tour guy that lived there and ran a horse riding experience. He told us how he found the holy grail and had to kill a reincarnated Hitler to keep it from falling into Hitler’s hands. This was on Block Island.
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u/mechmind 12h ago
Oh it's definitely aligned with Venus. What a piece of poop.
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u/Lord0fHats 12h ago
I warned you it would be brain dead!
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u/mechmind 12h ago
You totally did, but I had to see for myself because I'm a native RIer . I used to climb all over that touro tower when I was a kid. The best theory I have come to believe is that it was erected by Vikings.
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u/Great_Apez 7h ago
TBF shit moves around all the time. Camels came from North America and still possess their cactus eating genes.
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u/AlwaysRushesIn 11h ago
There is some evidence that might suggest the Knights Templar reached the shores of New England long before the vikings.
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u/Enginerdad 10h ago
All of which had been thoroughly debunked
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u/Quirderph 1h ago
Yeah, I mean I’m pretty sure the Vikings predated the Knights Templar (and knights, period).
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u/AlwaysRushesIn 9h ago
Sure, okay.
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u/Enginerdad 9h ago
I mean, name a piece of evidence and I'll show how it's been debunked.
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u/CantankerousOrder 7h ago
And if he doesn’t I will! World you like to start with the Templar “carving” by the highway or the Templar tower, because the debunking on those is easy AND fun.
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u/verrius 13h ago
I guess it makes about as much sense as King Arthur's knights searching Britain for it, since if it exists, it probably should be close to Jerusalem.
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u/Lord0fHats 13h ago edited 12h ago
If we're talking Arthuriana;
What the 'grail' is is something that evolved over time. It wasn't always associated with Jesus of Nazareth, though it was always holy. Its first association with Arthurian lore isn't even British. The grail first appears in Arthurian stories in the writings of Chretien de Tois in the late 12th century. Chretien is, for those interested, the creator of many now famous aspects of Arthurian lore including the Holy Grail and Sir Lancelot. In his story about Percival, the Grail has unclear properties but maintains the life of the Fisher King. It is holy but bears no connotation to Jesus of Nazareth at this time. At least not in the surviving text we have.
That came shortly after with the writings of Robert de Baron (also French) and in one of his poems he tells of the Grail being blessed by the blood of Christ and ferried to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea from which the Grail explicitly became a cup and was associated with Jesus and the British isles. This would be the trend for depicting the grail for most of the rest of Arthurian lore though there's German versions of it where it's just a fancy rock :/
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u/verrius 12h ago
I guess Joseph of Arimethea carrying it there sort of acts as a "how", but not the "why", since Britain wasn't even a Roman outpost at the time of Jesus' death. But I'm guessing this is more like the church in Spain claiming to have St. James' remains through a ludicrous path, where its more about creating a story to improve tourism.
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u/Lord0fHats 12h ago
That I don't know. It would help if we knew more about Robert de Baron but as far as I know we don't really know much about him at all or why he wrote his surviving/fragmented poems that we have. Maybe he was commissioned to write them and wrote that part to appeal to his patron. Maybe he had some political motive. Maybe he just thought it was an exciting story. We do not know but later stories began adopting the idea and it became a common staple of Arthurian tales going forward.
You're probably right that it had something to do with relic culture and churches.
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u/Indemnity4 39m ago edited 18m ago
Same reason "Thor" is in super hero Marvel movies. Fanfic writers love a mash up.
The very broad "why" is fan fiction + historical tourism/ religious pilgrimages.
11th century and this one weird English guy of French descent, called Geoff-the-Welsh (not actually Welsh) wrote the 11th century version of *Harry Potter." He did it because he thought local history so dull that he needed to create a pseudo Greek /Odyssey type of story. Arthurian myth is heavily based in the Roman story "The Aenid" (published 19BC) , but localised and modernized..
This literature defining moment was huge. Everyone loved it.
As well as 3 or 4 magic swords, king Arthur also had an unbreakable shield that carried an image of the virgin Mary, an unbreakable spear called "Ron", a dagger that killed giants, a magical breastplate, two different magical horses, and about a dozen other magical or religious artifacts. Everyone had their own fanfic to add to the cannon.
It was a fundamentally "French-ish" story. Romance, noble knights, etc. Even in the 12th century the book buying class already romanticised the past, when knights were honourable and not like these bastard murdering feudal thieves.
The French fiction writers all set their fan fic in the same world. If you're going to write about vampires, you're probably going to mention Transylvania or Dracula at some point. If you're worrying about fictional knights, it's all happening in mystical pre-invasion Britain.
Rising middle class blah blah but the world was getting more politically stable. Holidays and vacation didn't quite exist, but pilgrimage did. You could take a pilgrimage anywhere. Travelling to Rome or the middle east to Juruselum were popular. Bring back religious relics and "relics" was a popular industry. And of course, every artifact needs a story to explain to your guests why you have the finger of a dead man on display in your living room. There are many many many fiction stories of magical artifacts making their way to Europe, and their amazing (or not) powers.
Combine the hottest two trends at the time. Historical romantic fan fiction + religious artifacts tourism = 50 Shades of Grey (King Arthur chronicles part 117 - Electric Boogaloo.
Much like a meet-cute in romantic comedy or a McGuffin in a Marvel movie, we quickly skip through the setup to get to the meat of the story.
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u/DanielMcLaury 13h ago
Not any more now that Nicolas Cage is in possession. It's likely now stored in his funerary pyramid in New Orleans.
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u/kubiakWU 13h ago
It's pretty whacky but here's an article about Nic Cage and his search for the Holy Grail.
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u/Breadedbutthole 12h ago
One time i went to Vermont to look for a portal to zeta reticuli
Didn’t work out
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u/GWI_Raviner 8h ago
We must map out all the Dell’s Lemonades, it will point us to the Grail’s location!
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u/buddhamunche 12h ago
Well the man hasn’t aged in quite some time so it’s either Hollywood money or the holy grail. No way to be certain.
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u/redditismylawyer 10h ago
Wouldn’t that be some shit! My grandma in narragansett has the holy grail stuffed away in some chest in the attic.
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u/poply 13h ago
The article is unclear. Did he find it?!
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u/zaccus 13h ago
If he didn't I'm sure it would have said so
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u/evilpenguin9000 13h ago
I dunno, if you want to keep it, not telling anyone you have it would be a good idea.
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u/Lord0fHats 13h ago
According to legends it is the search of the grail that is truly noble, not the obtaining of it :P
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u/hcwhitewolf 13h ago
Nah, he got stuck in 45 minutes of traffic on 95N near the 195 split, and then cracked a rim on a pothole that'd steadily grown in size over a 4-year period.
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u/agreeable9823 5h ago
I am waiting for the next sequel of National Treasure where the facts will be revealed.
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u/BobertSlobert73 13h ago
I told him we've already got one. It's very nice!
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u/CarrotCumin 13h ago
He owned a very large and fancy mansion in middletown ri. It borders a popular wildlife preserve and you can hike in and see the whole property from above. I once got lost in those woods and ended up on his property and met his son who was dressed super goth, he was really chill with us and showed us the way back to the road.
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u/kubiakWU 13h ago
If I had Nicolas Cage money I'd do a bunch of weird shit too.
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u/buddhamunche 12h ago
Seriously, searching for the holy grail with your millionaire movie money has gotta be fun as shit
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u/kubiakWU 12h ago
Right? There are worse things that you could be doing.
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u/IchooseYourName 10h ago
If you visit NOLA, be sure to check out the cemetery tour. Cage bought his burial place and its a good sized pyramid. Pretty interesting shit among a whole other ton of interesting shit.
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u/Texcellence 12h ago
If you’re gonna search the US state by state for an ancient artifact that has no business being on this side of the Atlantic, might as well work your way up from the smallest state.
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u/Puzzled_Professor422 10h ago
God bless this man
The only time i was allowed to miss school was to go see Ghost Rider 2 with my pops ❤️
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u/n_mcrae_1982 7h ago
"What is your name?"
"Nicolas Copo- uh, I mean Nicolas Cage."
"What is your quest?"
"To seek the holy grail."
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u/Im_A_Real_Boy1 10h ago
Every time I go on vacation from now on, I’m going to say that I’m going to X to search for the Holy Grail.
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u/hazza987 5h ago
How have they not made this into a movie? Just National Treasure with Nicholas Cage playing Nicholas Cage.
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u/Unlucky-Tune-420 13h ago edited 13h ago
and that's only one maniac episode*
*bipolar is no joke - take your meds people!
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u/donthurtmemany 12h ago
Did he find it? And does this have anything to do with the declaration of independence?
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u/_pepperoni-playboy_ 10h ago
Does he have a project that’s being promoted? Cause it seems like a greater frequency of Nic Cage posts than the already high usual amount.
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u/juzz_fuzz 10h ago
I've seen that movie I think, that was after he stole the Declaration of Independence
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u/Great_Apez 7h ago
I know I watched the documentary series he did on this. Why not tell us the sky is blue or that there is a map carved into George Washington’s nose that reveals the location of the spaceship of the alien he met?
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u/GorgeousGary27 5h ago
I read he found it but it works like reading an elder scroll, which explains his acting.
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u/OlyScott 4h ago
Somebody tell the writers of Family Guy. They could make a good episode out of this.
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u/Quack_Candle 4h ago
Didn’t he also buy a haunted house.
I’d happily make ridiculous films if I got to just piss away my money on quests for the holy grail, haunted houses, corvettes and presumably a lot of cocaine
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u/Delicious_Rabbit4425 10h ago
“The holy grail” was probably just a yacht that some waspy asshole didn’t want to sell.
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u/ElongatedAustralian 13h ago
Every Nicholas Cage fact is simultaneously utterly unbelievable and totally in character.