Percival
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Percival or Perceval is one of King Arthur's legendary Knights of the Round Table. In Welsh literature his name is Peredur (see the Peredur article for the historical figure). He is most famous for his involvement in the quest for the Holy Grail.
There are many versions of Percival's birth. In most accounts he is of noble birth; his father is either King Pellinore or another worthy knight. His mother is usually unnamed but plays a significant role in the stories. His sister is the bearer of the Holy Grail, she is sometimes named Dindrane. In tales where he is Pellinore's son his brothers are Sir Tor, Sir Aglovale, Sir Lamorak, and Sir Dornar.
After the death of his father, Percival's mother takes him to the Welsh forests where she raises him ignorant to the ways of men until the age of 15. Eventually, however, a group of knights passes through his wood, and Percival is stricken with their heroic appearance. Wanting to be a knight himself, the boy travels to King Arthur's court, and after proving his worthiness as a warrior he is knighted and invited to join the Knights of the Round Table.
Even in the earliest stories he is connected to the Grail Quest. In Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, le Conte du Graal, he meets the crippled Fisher King and sees the Holy Grail, but he fails to ask the question that would heal the injured monarch. Upon learning of his mistake he vows to find the Grail castle again and fulfill his quest.
In later accounts, the true Grail hero is Galahad, Lancelot's son. But though his role in the romances had been diminished, Percival remained a major character and was one of only two knights (the other was Sir Bors) who accompanied Galahad to the Grail castle and completed the quest with him.
In early versions, Percival's sweetheart was Blanchefleur and he became the King of Carbonek after healing the Fisher King, but in later versions he was a virgin who died after achieving the Grail. In Wolfram's version, Percival's son is Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swan.
In modern times his story has been used in such varied retellings as T.S. Eliot's modernist poem The Waste Land, Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal, John Boorman's Excalibur and the novel and film The Natural.
While some scholars once believed that Percival, along with the legend of the Holy Grail, was of Persian origin, those theories have been rejected by the weight of scholarly opinion. In that legend, as described in the Fargads of the Vendidad (see Avesta) and later, in verse, in the Shahnameh, Jamshid had a magical seven-ringed cup filled with the elixir of immortality. The cup was said to be in (the hands of) the Parsi-Var, or Var of the Persians, thus giving rise to the speculation that the character of Percival was derived from this legend.
Chrétien wrote the first story of Percival; Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, and the theoretical Perceval of Robert de Boron are other famous accounts of his adventures.
[edit] References
- Chrétien de Troyes, Nigel Bryant (translator) (1996) Perceval, the Story of the Grail, D.S. Brewer. ISBN 0-85991-224-8
- Chrétien de Troyes, D.D.R. Owen (translator) (1988) Arthurian Romances, Tuttle Publishing, reprinted by Everyman. ISBN 0-460-87389-X
