The Grail Messenger, one who declaims the reason and purpose of the Grail and the Quest to attain it, is a figure that appears in the Arthurian romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She appears suddenly and sometimes mysteriously, delivers her message, and then is usually not heard from again.

In some tales, she appears at the end of the story to announce the successful end of the Grail Quest, and yet in others, she is also the maiden bearing the Grail in the strange procession seen by various Grail Questers in what is known by several names, the Grail Castle.

Who is this mysterious woman? Why is she often described as hideous, having a face composed of features taken from several animals?