Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch

A "squeeze toy" replica of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is a fictional weapon from the comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It bears a striking resemblance to the Sovereign's Orb of the United Kingdom, and seems to draw some inspiration from Holy Spear of Antioch. 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, notably in computer and RPG games, and also with TV and other movie references.

Description

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 center sphere of the Holy Hand Grenade appears to be made out of a coconut (another recurring gag in the film).

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.

Usage instructions

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.

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), parodying the King James Bible:

Arthur then holds up the Holy Hand Grenade Of Antioch and cries out "ONE! TWO! FIVE!", To which Sir Galahad says "Three Sir!" Arthur then yells "THREE!" and hurls it at the killer rabbit. The Grenade soars through the air, accompanied by a short bit of choral music, then bounces once and explodes. Presumably the killer rabbit is dead after this, for the Knights subsequently enter the cave which it has been guarding.

Cultural references

The Holy Hand Grenade, in Worms 3D

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 (can be modified in Worms 2), in reference to the film original. It's notable that when the timer reaches zero, a choir sings Hallelujah in the style of Handel's Messiah, after which the grenade erupts in a massive explosion that few other weapons in the series can match.
* In the computer game Fallout 2, the player may, when travelling through the wasteland, discover a "random encounter" consisting of a large number of knights, one of which asks the player whether he has seen the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. It was believed by many players that this random encounter was meant to be turned into a quest but the game designers ran out of time and did not complete it.
* 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.
* In Codex: Black Templars (an army rules supplement for the tabletop miniature wargame game of Warhammer 40,000) a 'Holy Orb of Antioch' appears as 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).
* In the Full Metal Panic! series of light novels, a Holy Hand Grenade is brandished by Sagara Sousuke (along with a magic shotgun, pre-loaded with one rubber slug) during his role as the good witch in a high school Cinderella play. The author Shouji Gatou is a self-proclaimed Monty Python fan.
* The web comic VG Cats has an episode, "Long Live PKs", [1] in which a "holy hand grenade" appears as bait for PK-ing unwary players, luring them into a sense of elation and accomplishment, then blowing them all up into tiny bits (Leo says they're all like "lambs to the slaughter", while Aeris mentioned that she "lost count around 200", clearly displaying how easily fooled the PK-ed players were).
* In the David Weber sci-fi novel Heirs of Empire (1996), the main characters, while stranded on Israel, a space battleship, watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail and later mention the Holy Hand Grenade.
* In the MMORPG Tibia, The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is mentioned in a passage in a book on how to defeat the demon-bunnyrabbit Hugo.
* In a syndicated foreign affairs column on terrorism, London-based military historian Gwynne Dyer suggested that Nelson Mandela's handgun, if found, would be treated with reverence, like the "holy hand grenade of Antioch".