by Mike Ashley
After a day’s journey he encounters a man fishing, who directs him to a magnificent castle where he can shelter for the night. Perceval is well received and given fresh clothing, and subsequently invited to dine with the lord of the castle. Perceval does not recognise the lord as the fisherman he saw earlier. He does, however, discover that the lord has been injured in some way. The lord presents Perceval with a fine sword. Perceval learns that only three such swords had been made and that this sword could never be broken save in one perilous circumstance. Perceval sits down to dine and witnesses the strange Grail procession. First into the room comes a youth holding a white lance with blood oozing from its tip. Perceval is puzzled, but heeding Gornemant’s advice does not ask how or why this is happening. Next into the room come two youths bearing gold candelabra inlaid with black enamel, followed by a damsel who holds a grail of gold which shines so brightly that it makes the candles seem dim. Behind the damsel comes another maiden with a silver carving dish. These are laid on the table, but once again Perceval fails to query their nature or who is to be served from the Grail. The elaborate procession is followed by a sumptuous meal, after which host and guest both retire to bed. When Perceval awakes the next day he finds the castle empty and is unable to find a soul, not even someone to raise the drawbridge as he leaves.
Perceval encounters a young damsel whose lover has been killed. From her he learns that he has stayed at the castle of the Fisher King, and she admonishes him for not asking about the Grail or the lance. She asks Perceval his name, and this is the first time we learn it. We discover the damsel is his cousin, and she tells him his mother is dead. Perceval now pursues the knight who had killed her lover and after defeating the knight sends him back to Arthur’s castle. There Arthur learns of Perceval’s wanderings and sends knights out to recover him. They do not recognise him, and Perceval defeats Sagremor and Kay before Gawain recognises him and returns him to Arthur.
A few days later a “Loathly Damsel” (called Cundrie by Wolfram) arrives and berates Perceval, saying that had he asked the right question, the Fisher King would have been cured and his land would not be waste. “All these evils will be your doing,” she tells Perceval. She invites any knights to accompany her on her quest to Proud Castle to rescue a besieged maiden. Many knights offer to go on the quest, including Perceval and Gawain, but before he can go Gawain is diverted in his quest.
The story now follows Gawain’s adventures to clear his name of a charge brought by Guigambresil, of having killed his lord, the king of Escavalon, without issuing a challenge. We learn that Gawaine is armed with the sword Escalibor (Excalibur). En route he encounters other adventures and it is some time before he is able to enter upon what has become the Grail Quest. He is given leave of a year to quest for the Bleeding Lance, before he must return to fight in single combat with Guigambresil.
In the meantime, we learn that Perceval has spent five godless years wandering, perhaps trapped in some fairy realm, and seeming to have lost all understanding. He meets a hermit, who he learns is his uncle, and who tells him that the Fisher King is also an uncle. The reason that Perceval had been unable to ask the right question was because he was impure, having sinned by leaving his mother when she collapsed and not helping her. At this point Chrétien stops his story of Perceval, leaving it uncertain, and instead continues with Gawain’s quest.
Gawain is led into the clutches of an evil damsel and an enchanted castle wherein lies the Bed of Marvels. Gawain is warned that anyone who lies on this bed will be killed. Gawain does so anyway, and manages to shield himself against five hundred arrows and a lion, which he kills. With this Gawain breaks the enchantment. Gawain then meets a knight called Guiromelant, who, although not recognising Gawain, regards him as his mortal enemy. From Guiromelant Gawain learns that the castle, the Rock of Champguin, also holds his own mother whom he has not seen for twenty years, and Arthur’s mother Igraine, whom Arthur has not seen for sixty. When Guiromelant discovers who Gawain is he challenges him to a duel, but as Guiromelant is not armed Gawain agrees to hold it in a week’s time. He sends a messenger to Arthur’s court so that Arthur can be witness to the combat. At this point Chrétien’s story ends, and the first continuation carries on.
→ Peredur son of Efraug. Although the Welsh version covers much the same territory as the first half of Chrétien’s, it is severely truncated and loses much of its mystical aspect, except for the Grail element. There is no mystery about Peredur’s name or identity, or that he is related to the Fisher King (who is not described as such). There is more about the nature of the sword presented to Peredur, which he breaks and repairs three times. The procession is led by two youths carrying the bleeding lance. They are followed by two maidens carrying the Grail (here called a salver) on which is a man’s head swimming in blood. Peredur does not ask, nor is he told, what it all means. Neither is the castle deserted the next day. It is as if whoever copied or revised this story did not comprehend its significance and simply edited it as an ordinary adventure. It may well have been revised from an earlier story common also to Chrétien, in which case Chrétien had a far better understanding of its significance.
The standard translations of Chrétien’s works are both called Arthurian Romances, translated by D.D.R. Owen (Dent, 1987) and by William W. Kibler (Penguin, 1991).
PERCEVAL, FIRST CONTINUATION, anon. (French, c.1190s) 19,600 lines.
The author was once believed to be Gautier de Denain, but with no clear attribution the author is now termed Pseudo-Gautier. This continues exactly where Chrétien finished and doubles the length of the story, though does not bring it to a conclusion. Because Gawain is the hero it is sometimes called the Gawain Continuation.
Arthur responds to Gawain’s summons and travels to the Castle Rock of Champguin where Gawain is trapped. Arthur witnesses the duel between Gawain and Guiromelant, and is reunited with his mother and sister. The various threads involving Guiromelant and Clarissant (Gawain’s sister) are resolved, allowing Gawain to continue on his Grail Quest.
Gawain reaches the Grail Castle but finds a new challenge: he is asked to repair a broken sword, which he is unable to do. He sees the Grail Procession as Perceval had described. For the first time the vessel is actually called the Holy Grail and the maiden bearing it is weeping. Gawain finds a dead knight with a broken sword and learns that whoever can mend this sword can explain the mysteries of the Grail. However, Gawain is entranced and when he recovers finds himself in a field. The Grail Castle has disappeared.
Gawain returns to Escavalon to fight in single combat against Guigambresil, as previously agreed. Fortunately, Arthur is able to resolve the matter and Guigambresil marries Arthur’s granddaughter. The continuation now gets rather lost in a series of other adventures, including Arthur’s siege of the castle of Brun de Branlant who has refused to swear fealty, and a separate substantial story about Caradoc. Many believe it was once a separate story, referred to as the Livre de Caradoc. Caradoc is portrayed as the illegitimate son of Arthur’s niece Ysave and the sorcerer Elïavrés, though he is long believed to be the genuine son of Caradoc, King of Nantes. He enters Arthur’s court and takes up the challenge of the Beheading Game, which he survives because his opponent is his true father. There is much conflict between Caradoc and his parents who attach a deadly serpent to his arm which will gradually drain away his life force. This image suggests Caradoc had a withered arm which his French epithet Briefbras (“short arm”) may also indicate. However, Caradoc is saved by Guigner, a maiden he had previously rescued. At the end Caradoc passes the drinking test as described in “The Lai of the Horn”.
There is also a quest by Girflet to Proud Castle (the subject of the Loathly Damsel’s request), where he is captured and imprisoned. In order to free him Gawain becomes involved in a series of single combats, which he wins. Only then does Gawain return to the Grail Castle. Gawain fails to mend the broken sword, but he learns that the Bleeding Lance was the one that pierced Christ’s side at the Crucifixi
on. He does succeed in asking the right question about the Grail, but once again falls into an enchanted sleep and does not hear the answer. The Continuation ends with an unconnected episode about Gawain’s brother Guerrehet (Gareth).
→ Gest of Sir Gawain (cl450). An English poem based on one of the episodes in the First Continuation, in which Gawain is interrupted by the brothers of a girl whom he is seducing. They each do battle with him but only one, Brandiles, is a match. Unable to complete their match they vow to meet again, but never do.
Available in The Continuations of the Old French “Perceval” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 5 vols., 1949–84). Extracts from all four are in King Arthur in Legend and History edited by Richard White (Dent, 1997), and are summarized at the end of Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances edited by William W. Kibler (Penguin, 1991). The separate Caradoc episode is in Three Arthurian Romances by Ross G. Arthur (Dent, 1996), and an abridged version is in both Secret Camelot (Blandford, 1997) and The Book of Arthur (Vega, 2002), both by John Matthews.
PERCEVAL, SECOND CONTINUATION, Gautier de Denain (French, c1190s) 13,000 lines.
In an attempt to wrap up previous unsatisfactory loose ends this story becomes overly episodic. Perceval finds himself on various quests, none of which he satisfactorily resolves. He also meets his sister and learns the truth about his mother’s death, and becomes involved in a tournament at Proud Castle where he defeats many of Arthur’s best knights. Most of these adventures are incidental to his main quest to recover a magic hound and the antlers of a white stag, which have been stolen from a maiden who declares her love for Perceval. He is not successful but does at length return to the Grail Castle. He restores the broken sword but a small notch remains, showing he has still not reached perfection and is thus not ready to learn the truth about the Grail. At this point Gautier abandons the story.
PERCEVAL, FOURTH CONTINUATION, Gerbert de Montreuil (French, late 1220s) 17,000 lines.
Although regarded as the fourth, this version fits best before the “Third Continuation”. Apparently both were written at the same time, with neither author knowing what the other was doing. Both continuations show the influence of the works of Robert de Boron.
Perceval realizes that he has failed because he has still not expiated the sin of neglecting his mother. As he leaves the castle we realize we are no longer in the secular world but in some transitional semi-paradise. Perceval had almost reached perfection, but not quite. He tries to enter a garden, breaking his sword in the process, but though he learns that the Earthly Paradise is beyond he cannot enter. Perceval finds himself fighting demons and ghosts. He returns to his first love Blancheflor, and they marry but do not consummate their marriage in the belief that they must remain pure.
In contrast to Perceval’s adventures, Gawain’s are far more mundane and he now seems far removed from his quest for an answer to the Bleeding Lance. Perceval, however, at last makes it back to the Grail Castle and mends the Broken Sword completely.
PERCEVAL, THIRD CONTINUATION, Manessier (French, late 1220s) 10,000 lines.
This version brings the story-line to completion. Manessier leaps in with an explanation of the Broken Sword, which seems to be of more significance than the Grail. The sword had been used by a knight called Partinial to kill the Fisher King’s brother, and wound the Fisher King. Perceval vows to kill Partinial, and much of the story is taken up with the quest to find him, during which time he encounters demons, and nearly kills Lancelot’s brother Ector, though both Perceval and Ector are cured by an appearance of the Grail carried by an angel. Eventually Perceval defeats Partinial and returns to the Grail Castle with his head. He and the Fisher King have a meal at which the Grail procession again appears, and Perceval is at last accepted. The Fisher King now dies and a final vision of the Grail appears at Perceval’s coronation as the new Fisher King. He rules for seven years before retiring as a hermit and the belief is that the Grail will be seen no more on Earth.
Between the first two and the last two Continuations, two Prologues appeared.
BLIOCADRAN PROLOGUE and THE ELUCIDATION PROLOGUE, anon. (French, early 1200s, post-Boron but pre-Perlesvaus) 800 and 484 lines respectively.
The first tells the story of Bliocadran, Perceval’s father. All of his brothers have been killed in tournaments and although his wife pleads with him not to go, especially as the birth of their first child is imminent, he still leaves. He is mortally wounded and dies soon after. Bliocadran’s widow takes her baby and flees to a remote wasteland forest in Wales. This prologue blends into the start of Chrétien’s story by repeating the opening lines, though it also contradicts some of Chrétien’s story, in that Perceval did have other brothers and sisters and his father was supposed to have died of grief over their deaths.
The second continuation, which may be of a later date, adds nothing substantive and tends to confuse. It implies that the castle of the Fisher King had become lost because twelve maidens, who served travellers from the local wells, were raped by King Amangon and his knights and their golden cups stolen. This is to be avenged by Arthur and his knights, and their exploits at the mysterious Proud Castle are seen as a parallel to those at the Grail castle. The author then explains the Grail mystery which, for a prologue, is unhelpful.
The first prologue is available as Bliocadran edited by Lenora D. Wolfgang (Niemeyer, 1976), whilst the second is only available as The Elucidation edited by Albert W. Thompson (Institute of French Studies, 1931).
JOSEPH D’ARIMATHIE (or L’Estoire dou Graal), Robert de Boron (French, late 1190s) 3,514 lines.
This work reveals the origin of the Grail, imbuing it with Christian symbolism. Robert is the first to identify the Grail as the vessel used by Christ at the Last Supper, and to make the connection between the table of the Last Supper and Arthur’s Round Table.
Joseph receives the Grail from Pilate and uses it to collect the blood of Christ when He is removed from the Cross. When Jesus’s body disappears (after the Resurrection), Joseph is cast into prison. Jesus visits him, with the Grail, and tells him to continue commemorating the Last Supper in memory of Him. There are explicit instructions from Jesus as to what individual items mean, such as “the vessel of the sacrament will be a reminder of the stone tomb in which you laid me.” All who see the vessel will have lasting joy and fulfilment for their souls, clearly meaning that those who believe in Christ will have everlasting life. At this stage Robert has done little more than repeat the message of the Gospels, but he now weaves that into the Arthurian myth.
Joseph is in prison for many years. Eventually the emperor Vespasian hears of the uproar over the death of Jesus and has it investigated, learning the story from Pilate. Pilate, in order to prove his story, has a search made for anything connected to Christ. In this process he finds Veronica, who has the cloth with which she wiped Christ’s face on the way to the Cross, and which still bears an image of His face. The cloth heals Vespasian of his leprosy. Though this is not the same as the shroud of Turin, it is evidently based on the same cloth. Robert tells us that, “this image was the only thing they found which had touched Our Lord.”
Joseph is now released and pardoned, and is reunited with his sister Enigeus and her husband Bron. They gather about them a following and leave Judea “into exile.” All goes well at first but then their crops fail and Joseph believes it is because some of them have sinned. He is directed by the Holy Spirit to create a second table, in imitation of the one at the Last Supper, at which the service of the Grail will be celebrated. Bron, who becomes the Fisher King, is charged with collecting a fish to serve at the Grail table, but only those who are free of sin will be able to approach the table and enjoy the benefits of the meal. When a banished sinner tries to sit at the vacant place at the table, one that equates to where Judas had sat, he is “swallowed up” as if he had never existed.
Bron has twelve children but only one of these, Alain, will be the ancestor of the final keeper of the Grail. Bron and his successors, the
Fisher Kings, become the guardians of the Grail and travel to the west, to the Vales of Avalon, to await the coming of the final keeper.
Robert continued his sequence of poems with Merlin (see page 401) before returning to Perceval which is treated below.
→ One of the more interesting translations is the Dutch Historie van den Grale by Jacob van Maerlant, completed in 1261. Maerlant took issue with Boron where he believed the work was at variance with the Gospels in how the apostles were dealt with by the Romans, and revised the text accordingly. Otherwise his translation is faithful.
A translation by Nigel Bryant is in Merlin and the Grail by Robert de Boron (Brewer, 2001).
PERCEVAL, Robert de Boron (France, early 1200s)
None of this poem survives (and it may never have been completed) but it is believed that it was adapted as the prose version of part or all of it appears in the so-called Didot-Perceval, composed in the 1220s. That exists in two variant manuscripts (known as the D and E).
This version starts abruptly, with no information on Perceval’s youth. We learn that his father is Alain le Gros, descended from Bron. Alain sends Perceval to Arthur’s court where he proves himself in a grand tournament. Perceval begs to sit at the Siege Perilous, the forbidden seat at the Round Table and does so. This causes an Armageddon-like darkening of the skies and Arthur is admonished for allowing someone impure to sit at that seat. The voice also commands that the knights prove their valour so that they may be judged and the finest knight in the world identified. Only then may that knight be taken to the castle of the Fisher King and, by asking what the Grail is for and who is served with it, cause the Fisher King to be healed and the land made free of enchantment.