subsequent sterility of his lands; and to the restoring the King and make his lands fertile again. Island of Avalon Though no longer an island the high conical bulk of Glastonbury Tor had been surrounded by marsh prior to the draining of fenland in the Somerset Levels. In ancient times, Ponter's Ball Dyke would have guarded the only entrance to the island. The Romans eventually built another road to the island. Glastonbury's earliest name in Welsh was the Isle of Glass, which suggests that the location was at one point seen as an island. At the end of the 12th century, Gerald of Wales wrote in De instructione principis: Holy Grail The Holy Grail is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Different traditions describe it as a cup, dish or stone with miraculous powers that provides eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often in the custody of the Fisher King. The term "holy grail" is often used to denote an elusive object or goal that is sought after for its great significance. A "grail", wondrous but not explicitly holy, first appears in Perceval, le Conte du Graal, an unfinished romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Chrétien's story attracted many continuators, translators and interpreters in the later 12th and early 13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who perceived the Grail as a stone. In the late 12th century, Robert de Boron wrote in Joseph d'Arimathie that the Grail was Jesus's vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ's blood at the crucifixion. Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice, the Last Supper cup, a theme continued in works such as the Lancelot-Grail cycle and consequently Le Morte d'Arthur. Joseph of Arimathea was, according to all four canonical gospels, the man who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after Ηis crucifixion. A number of stories that developed during the Middle Ages connect him with Glastonbury. and also with the Holy Grail legend. Powys lists the forms that the Grail has been known "in those parts for five thousand years": "a cauldron, a horn, a krater, a mwys (basket), a well, a kernos, a platter, a cup, and even a nameless stone". W. J. Keith comments that cauldrons "are an especially common feature of Celtic literature, and include "Bran's cauldron of rebirth ...