"par coi amendé Somes, en si faite maniére Qu'en ceste regne n'avoit riviére Qui ne fust gaste, ne fontaine. E la terre gaste et soutaine."
Like Gawain he has 'freed the waters' and thus restored the land.[4]
In the prose Perceval the motif of the Waste Land has disappeared, the task of the hero consists in asking concerning the Grail, and by so doing, to restore the Fisher King, who is suffering from extreme old age, to health, and youth.[5]
"Se tu eusses demandé quel'en on faisoit, que li rois ton aiol fust gariz de l'enfermetez qu'il a, et fust revenu en sa juventé."
When the question has been asked: "Le rois péschéor estoit gariz et tot muez de sa nature." "Li rois peschiére estoit mués de se nature et estoit garis de se maladie, et estoit sains comme pissons."[6] Here we have the introduction of a new element, the restoration to youth of the sick King.
In the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes we find ourselves in presence of certain definite changes, neither slight, nor unimportant, upon which it seems to me insufficient stress has hitherto been laid. The question is changed; the hero no longer asks what the Grail is, but (as in the prose Perceval) whom it serves? a departure from an essential and primitive simplicity--the motive for which is apparent in Chrétien, but not in the prose form, where there is no enigmatic personality to be served apart. A far more important change is that, while the malady of the Fisher King is antecedent to the hero's visit, and capable of cure if the question be asked, the failure to fulfil the prescribed conditions of itself entails disaster upon the land. Thus the sickness of the King, and the desolation of the land, are not necessarily connected as cause and effect, but, a point which seems hitherto unaccountably to have been overlooked, the latter is directly attributable to the Quester himself.[7]
"Car se tu demandé l'eusses Li rice roi qui moult s'esmaie Fust or tost garis de sa plaie Et si tenist sa tière en pais Dont il n'en tenra point jamais,"
but by Perceval's failure to ask the question he has entailed dire misfortune upon the land:
"Dames en perdront lor maris, Tiéres en seront essiliés, Et pucielles desconselliés Orfenes, veves, en remanront Et maint chevalier en morront."[8]