Sir Perceval of Galles is a Middle English Arthurian verse romance whose protagonist, Sir Perceval (Percival), first appeared in medieval literature in Chrétien de Troyes' final poem, the 12th-century Old French Conte del Graal, well over one hundred years before the composition of this work. Sir Perceval of Galles was probably written in the northeast Midlands of England in the early 14th century, and tells a markedly different story to either Chretien's tale or to Robert de Boron's early 13th-century Perceval. Found in only a single manuscript, and told with a comic liveliness, it omits any mention of a graal or a Grail.
Beginning in a similar vein to Chretien's story of a boy brought up in the forest by his mother, who comes naively to King Arthur's court seeking knighthood then wanders out again into the forest wearing the armour of the Red Knight whom he has just killed, the story then diverges. The hero finds no mysterious castle of a Fisher King. Instead, he travels to a Land of Maidens, alone defeats an entire army, and, near the end of the tale, discovers that the ring he has been wearing ever since an incident in a lady's tent when he first approached Arthur's court is a magic ring that has made him incapable of being killed.
Manuscript
The story of Sir Perceval of Galles is found in a single manuscript, the 15th century Lincoln Thornton Manuscript (Lincoln Cathedral MS 91), which dates to around 1440. There are no known printed versions prior to 19th- and 20th-century transcriptions of this unique manuscript text. The story is told in 2,288 lines, arranged in sixteen-line stanzas rhyming AAABCCCBDDDBEEEB. It was probably composed in the northeast Midlands of England, although the entire Thornton Manuscript is influenced by the North Yorkshire dialect of its copyist, manor lord and amateur scribe Robert Thornton. The poem itself probably dates to the early 14th century.
Near the beginning of the poem, the reader is informed that "[Perceval] dranke water of the welle". This tale, or at least this style of romance, was later parodied by Geoffrey Chaucer in his late 14th-century Canterbury tale, Sir Thopas, in which the knight Thopas "Him-self drank water of the wel, as did the knight Sir Percivel."
Synopsis
Like the boy Perceval in Chrétien de Troyes' romance Perceval, le Conte du Graal, the hero of Sir Perceval of Galles is brought up alone in the forest by his mother. He is the son of Sir Perceval and Acheflour, sister of King Arthur (probably a corruption of Chrétien's Blancheflour). Sir Perceval, the father, was a valiant knight, killed in combat by the wicked Red Knight. Grieving over her husband's death, and distressed that her child might grow up to share this same fate, Acheflour retires into the forest to bring up her young son in seclusion, away from the temptation of arms.
But the wielding of arms is in the boy's blood. When he is old enough, his mother gives him a small hunting spear, the only weapon that she had brought into the forest with her. Soon no animal is safe from him, and the young boy Perceval fills his mother's table with all the game of the forest. One day, in an episode perhaps indicating that Sir Perceval of Galles is itself a parody, and in line with advice given to the young Perceval in Chrétien's tale which leads him into error, Perceval's mother tells him to honour the 'Great God'. Soon afterwards, the boy encounters Sir Gawain and Sir Kay riding through the forest. Perceval asks if either is the Great God of whom his mother has spoken, who created the world in six days. Kay is characteristically rude to the boy, but Gawain answers politely, telling him that they are called knights. Perceval immediately wishes to become a knight himself.