Perceval’s Recovery

Summary

Meanwhile The Son of the Widowed Lady was still staying at the hermitage of his uncle King Pelles, and because of his distress from the suffering he had endured since his failure at the house of the Fisher King, he had made confession to his uncle and told him of his lineage and that his name was Perceval. But the good hermit, the good king, had named him Par-lui-fet, because he was a self-made knight. But one day, when the hermit had gone out to work in the forest, the Good Knight Perceval felt stronger and happier than usual, and hearing the birds singing in the forest his heart began to burn with chivalry, and he recalled the adventures he had found in the forest and the maidens and knights he had met; never had he felt such an eagerness for feats of arms as then: he had lingered there so long. And so, feeling a vigour in his heart, a surging in his limbs and a resolve in his spirit, he armed at once, saddled his horse and mounted, praying to God to lead him to an adventure where he might meet a worthy knight. Then he left his uncle’s hermitage and rode off into the forest, deep and shadowed.

On he rode until he came to a glade wide and long and beautiful, and there he saw a tree green with leaves and spreading wide with many branches. There in its shade he dismounted, thinking to himself that two knights could joust handsomely on that ground, for it was a most fair and pleasant place. Just as he was thinking this, he heard a horse in the forest neigh three times very loudly, and he rejoiced at the sound.

‘Oh God!’ he cried, ‘grant in Your gentleness that there may be a knight coming with whom I can test my strength and valour, for I don’t know now what my strength may be, except that I feel a health in my heart and a rejoicing in my limbs. But if a knight has no courage in him, then another knight cannot properly test his chivalry.