Holy Grail really existed and, if so, where was it locked? For many centuries we believed that Grail, the cup of the Last Supper, in which according to the Bible Joseph of Arimathea picked up the bloody of the crucified Christ, might have been one of the mystical objects guarded by Knights Templar and that its traces were lost with the apparent annihnilatino of the order in 1307. But the story could be very different.

Otto Rahn believed Grail was iat Montsegur

According to historian (and, from 1936, SS officer) Otto Rahn, Grail would have been among treasure guarded by Cahtar within their last stronghold, the Montsegur castle, in Southern France. According to a legend Rahn, discovered frozen to death on March 13, 1939, in never clarified circumstances in Tyrol, would eb really able to find the Grail, that later would hidden in Wewelsburg, the SS castle near Paderborn, in North Rhine-Westphalia, from which would have disappeared just before the end fo World War II.

That travel in Iceland

Less known is the expedition in Iceland and Greenland taken by Rahn in 1936 on the order of SS and the result of which are still covered by the most high classified. The shipment sailed off 2 June heading Iceland commanded by Rahn, coupled with Marcus Birnbacher, trusted person of Heinrich Himmler, war criminal in charge of SS, interested in occultism, who committed suicide May 23,1945 soon after being caught by british army. Both collaborated smoothly, Rahn in Iceland visited museums, talked with elders, collected stories and legends, while Birnbacher dealed with logistical issues.

En route to Greenland

Suddenly Rahn resolved to proceed to Greenland, the “green land” colonized by Norman chieftain and navigator Erik the Red befor the year one thousand. Rahn got very excited, found and studied rock carvings, arcane runes, until he found in stone what he believed to be a winged man's fossile! To be true fossile seemed like that of the famous Archaeopteryx, but Rahn was totally sure: what he had found was not a bird, but a human being! Skull, structure of limbs, vertebral column, ribs: everything seemed testify how the old Greenland had been populated by winged men.

Mysterious fossils, but no castle of the Gods

Rahn was also looking for a mysterious castle into the ice, “the castle of the Gods” described by a medieval Russian monk, Polycarp, the Archimandrite of Pechersk's monastery. The castle was supposed to have a huge rock staircase, but Rahn didn't find it. At the end he was forced to go back, certain to be able to return the following year to carry out a new search, now that he had avidence of the existence of ancient winged men who sounded like the confirmation of myths of Valkyrie, warrior girls equipped with winged horses to which Odin given the task of choosing who of those killed in battles were to be moved in Valhalla and who in the field of Folkvangr.

It was not a valkyrie

The reception on the way back of expedition was triumphant, but then silence fell on the exam of “winged man” fossil, until something started to leak out. First of all the size of fossil was too small in order to be that of a man, exceeding slightly those of a raven, too small even to sustain it was a winged boy, also because bones examination demonstrated that the winged being had at least 10 years before he died and end up fossilized. What's worse, ths study of the mold of the skull proved that the “winged man” was closer to the negroid race than to the aryan one!

Out of favor

A result that ideological German science in those days couldn't accept in any way. That's why on Rahn's expedition fell and embarressed silence and Rahn's efforts served to try to get clearance for a second expedition, or to have recognized the result of his studies by world scientific community, were useless. The dream of the historian who chased the Grail and the Norse gods ancient myths witness was over: to harm his reputation SS in1937 accused him of homosexuality and they transferred him to guards serving at the Nazi death camp Dachau. Rahn coulden't withstand the horrors he saw and resigned the following year. He died some months later, bringing with him the secrets, real or just alleged, of his studies about Grail and Valkyrie in Greenland.