Parsifal's Page (21 page)

"You shall have it," Queen Connie said.

Piers's mother turned beseeching eyes toward her husband, but the armorer was already nodding. "Ay," he said. "'Tis time." Then Trebuchet looked again at Piers. "And you shall live in a castle, as you always wanted, and you can become a squire and courtier."

Piers shook his head, his eyes gleaming. "I'd rather not, thank you. But do you think you could teach me to make nails?"

When the legends about King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table were first written down, there were no spelling rules. There were no dictionaries, no helpful rhymes about "i" before "e," and no weekly spelling quizzes. No one ever had to ask "Does spelling count?" because it didn't. As a result, different writers spelled words differently, depending on their taste, their country of origin, and sometimes, I suspect, according to their mood. This state of affairs wasn't all bad, of course (see "no weekly spelling quizzes" above), but it could be confusing.

The confusion seems particularly noticeable when it comes to names. The name of King Arthur's great knight Gawain, for instance, is also spelled Gawaine, Gawan, and (by the Welsh) Gwalchmai. (The Welsh
tend to be independent-minded; for instance, their spelling of the name Merlin is "Myrddin.")

The story that I have retold in this book is an ancient one, but the first written form of it that we know is by a French poet named Chrétien de Troie, and he called his hero Perceval. Chrétien never finished his story, though, and so other writers took it up and wrote their own endings—each in his own language, using his own spelling. The hero became Percival, Parzival, Parsifal, and (to the Welsh again) Peredur. In my own retelling, I have followed the version of the story that was written in 1415 by a German knight and singer of tales named Wolfram von Eschenbach, but like earlier storytellers, I have spelled the names however I wanted. Thus Wolfram's Condwiramurs became Conduiramour; Meljahnz became Malchance; Antikonie became Antigone; Vergulaht became Virgil; and Parzival became Parsifal. I just liked those spellings better.

No matter how his name's spelled, there is no knight whose story has been told more often than Parsifal's. His story has been the basis of countless tales, songs, operas, movies, and at least one silly and self-important psychology book. Something about a wild man of the woods who wants to become a knight catches our fancy. Something about a quest for a miraculous, life-giving object (the Grail) speaks to people in
all ages. There's even something deep and meaningful about how Parsifal achieves his quest—not by doing great deeds, but by asking one simple question. I don't pretend to understand why these things are so powerful—because I try very hard not to sound like a silly and self-important psychologist—but whatever it is, people love this story.

At any rate, I do.

—Gyrraldd Mwrys (Welsh spelling)