Movies - Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch

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The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is a fictional weapon from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail
. Although a minor gag in the film, the Holy Hand Grenade (as it is more popularly known) has gone on to be one of the most frequently referred to elements of Monty Python humour.

The fictional Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is a reference to the "actual" Holy Spear of Antioch. The supposed Holy Spear was unearthed from the floor of a Church during the Siege of Antioch (1098) by crusaders on the First Crusade, found by a poor and otherwise unknown monk named Peter Bartholomew. Its "discovery", during the darkest hours of the siege when all hope seemed lost, quickly became a source of contention between the pious crusaders who believed Peter, and the more pragmatic who didn't; yet in the end its "discovery" was credited by the crusaders in inspiring them to overcome seemingly impossible odds in breaking through the siege to continue on their quest to Jerusalem.

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is a visual satire of a type of royal regalia known as a globus cruciger, specifically the Sovereign's Orb of the United Kingdom. The Sovereign's Orb similarly has a band of jewels running along the center, and a half-band on the top hemisphere, with a cruciform at the crest.

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch was a "sacred relic" carried by Franciscan monk Brother Maynard and is used near the film's conclusion to destroy a killer rabbit that blocks the path of King Arthur and his hapless Knights Errant. Although unusually ornate in design, the Holy Hand Grenade functions like any other hand grenade. Its destructive power equals that of a medium size explosion.

Particularly important is the counting to three after the pulling of the triggering pin (the surmounted cross), complicated by King Arthur's mental block on counting. The instructions for its use are in the fictitious "Book of Armaments" ("Chapter 2, verses 9-21"): : "And the LORD spake, saying, first shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, is counted, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it." Some other parts of the ritual before using the Holy Hand Grenade are some blessings done beforehand, specifically, other readings from the Book of Armaments, such as "Chapter 4, Verses 16-20", read before Brother Maynard asks another monk to "skip a bit" to the instructions: "O Lord, bless this, Thy hand grenade, that with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits... in Thy mercy."

Cultural references

The very name "holy hand grenade" has become a part of popular culture.

The Worms series of computer games features a weapon called the holy hand grenade, which looks rather like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch and is distinguished by the fact that unlike the other types of grenade in the game, which have variable-length fuses that can be controlled by the player, it is equipped only with a three-second time fuse that only starts once the holy hand grenade has come to rest on the ground, in reference to King Arthur's mental block on counting. It's notable that the weapon's explosion is preceded by a chorus singing Hallelujah in the style of Handel's Messiah.
In the computer game Fallout 2, the player may, when travelling through the wasteland, come across a cave with a large number of knights near its entrance, one of which asks the player whether he has found the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. Inside the cave there is a foul beast, an allusion to the Killer Rabbit.
Computer RPG Moraff's World has a holy hand grenade as an instant-kill weapon
It is in the Bard's Tale series of games.
It is in the 2005 version of the Codex Black Templars for the tabletop miniature wargame game of Warhammer 40,000 It is a item called the Holy Orb of Antioch, which in its rules is a special type of grenade.
It is in the computer game Duke Nukem: Time to Kill as a grenade that bounces and follows the opponent, giving substantial damage when exploding. It has the same design as the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
It is in the American TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer
. Grenades containing holy water, designed to combat vampires, were called "holy hand grenades". This, in turn, spawned the Buffy-themed trading card game where the Holy Hand Grenade is card number 14 in the 1999 series. In the final Episode of the TV Series, Spike says "Holy Hand Grenade" when referring to the Slayer scythe.
In the roleplaying game Shadowrun's third edition, the generic grenade launcher from the previous two editions was renamed the Ares Antioch Grenade Launcher.
The GURPS worldbook GURPS Camelot not only gives full statistics for the Holy Hand Grenade in GURPS terms but also notes its peculiar absence from any Arthurian source other than Monty Python and the Holy Grail
.
Supervillain Mojo Jojo of The Powerpuff Girls uses the "five is right out" line in one of his speeches.
In the fantasy novel Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth, (2006) by Simon Green, the detective hero John Taylor refers to not wanting to fight a particular situation with "the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch in one hand and a tactical nuke in the other."
In the MMORPG video game Asheron's Call, there is an egg-shaped object affixed to a wall in the basement of the cottage owned by Ulgrim the Unpleasant. Identifying this object reveals it to be a "Holy Grenade" imbued with special "Rabbit slaying" properties; however it is not attainable and therefore presumably unusable against the Rabbit of Caerbannog
(a white rabbit in the game).

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