Holy Grail-O-Rama

From JUOD

The Holy Grail-O-Rama was a tremendous feat of joining that has only been completed on one occasion by Harley P. Mathewson himself. After five fruitless years of searching Mathewson learned that the location of the Holy Grail, though how is unknown. Immediately upon finding the grail he proceeded to travel the countryside for thirty years, challenging and besting the greatest competitive drinkers. This supposedly ended in 1921.

Sources

For approximately a thirty-year period, there are only partial accounts of Mathewson's exploits.

In 1917, two camel herders in northern Morocco wrote an account of a "demon shrouded in shadow, possessed strangely with friendship" who went around asking questions of citizens about a magical cup, only to kill them if they did not answer the questions correctly. Strangely, many of these questions the herders reported as what we now call trivia—Mathewson apparently did it for fun. Something brought him to Egypt, however, apparently not long after, because a photograph taken by a U.S. tourist of the Sphinx clearly shows what many scholars believe to be Mathewson, standing in the background with some sort of map, eyeing the Sphinx.

Another account exists of a shadowy figure in the December 22, 1921 edition of British newspaper The Guardian. A man by the name of Lionel Wickham reported that "an odd man, sort of like that of Dracula, bore a magical cup which he drank ale and wine out of. He would use no other cup." Mathewson apparently engaged several locals in drinking contests. After scoffing at using beer for the contest—he apparently said he had to watch his ghoulish figure—Mathewson pulled out a rare French wine from his suit, double the alcohol content of typical wine, and sat down at a table with the competitors. After 50 glasses of an apparently never ending bottle, Mathewson had bested all competitors. Three died of alcohol poisoning. Standing over their corpses, Mathewson proceeded to announce that the cup he used was in fact the Holy Grail. Amazed, the crowds drew near to look at the cup. It was then that Mathewson smashed it over his head, apparently very drunk, saying "Take that, King Arthur!" Angered, the crowd pursued him out of the pub and down Fleet Street, but Mathewson disappeared.