PERCEVAL, The hero of one of the most famous and widespread legends in the Arthurian Cycle. Speaking with the uncertain ty which always attaches to any attempt to determine positively the history of these legends, it may be held that the version of the Grail story in which Pereeval is the hero is earlier than that in which Galahad hold, this place. Those scholars who maintain the theory of a Welsh origin for the whole cycle attempt with determination to identify Percival with the Pere dur of the Nabinogion and other Welsh legends; but it is only by straining a possible allusion that any reference to the Grail can be found in them. This feature becomes of prime im portance in the romance of Percerale le Gallois, begun by Chrestien de Troyes, continued by Gau ehier de Donlan, and finished by \lanessier in the closing years of the twelfth century. This French version was taken by the great German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, and adapted rather than translated. In his Parziral, the
work of his highest genius, rendered additionally famous from its selection by Wagner as the basis of a libretto, we get further away from the Arthurian legend proper into regions of Germanic mysticism. Yet, though there are defects of dramatic structure in Wolfram's treat ment as a whole. and though we find ourselves in a strange country and the Grail mountain, Montsalvatseh, is altogether in fairy-land, there is in him something higher and larger and more human than in the Western versions. For the Welsh theory consult Rhys, Studies in the Ar thurian Legend (Oxford, 1891) ; for Chrestien's romance, the edition by Potvin (Mons, 1866 i0) ; for Wolfram, Hertz. I'urzirui (Stuttgart, 1898), which contains good notes and a rich bibliography, and a rendering in English verse by Weston (London, 1894). See GRAIL: and, for the Wagner treatment, PARSIFAL.