Sir Percivale

Also known as: Percivale / Sir Percivale de Galis / Sir Percivale of Wales / Sir Pervivale · Family: Arthurian world · Role: knight · First appears: Book IV, Chapter XVIII

In Book IV, Sir Percivale is named among the knights who overmatched Sir Gawaine. By Book VII, he is listed among King Arthur’s nephews, is identified as the brother of Sir Lamorak, and encounters King Carados as a rival. In Book X, he is named as one of King Pellinore’s sons, alongside Sir Tor, Sir Aglovale, and Dornar, and King Arthur knights him at Camelot. A previously dumb maiden then proclaims him “the noble knight and God’s knight” and assigns him the Siege Perilous. He later delivers Sir Tristram from prison, meets Sir Ector, Sir Harry le Fise Lake, and Sir Bleoberis, and strikes down Breuse Saunce Pité before learning of Sir Lamorak’s death and swooning in grief.

At the urging of King Arthur and Queen Guenever, Sir Percivale joins Sir Gawaine, Sir Uwaine, Sir Sagramore, and Sir Aglovale in searching for Sir Launcelot. With Sir Aglovale, he avenges a slain servant, defeats the remaining defenders, and buries the dead with the aid of a priory, then secretly leaves his brother to continue the quest. He frees Sir Persides by cutting through his chain and is received generously at Sir Persides’s castle, but declares that he will not return to Sir Aglovale or the court until he has found Sir Launcelot, while also remembering the mockery of Sir Kay the Seneschal and Sir Mordred. His search brings him into a near-fatal fight with Sir Ector, but the Sangreal heals them; later, at Joyous Isle, he and Sir Launcelot fight severely before recognizing one another and forgiving the mistaken combat.

During the Grail adventures, Sir Percivale is defeated by Galahad in a joust, then learns his identity and later is rescued by him from twenty attackers. He meets Queen of the Waste Lands, who reveals herself as his aunt and tells him of his mother’s death, and he learns of King Evelake and the healing promised through the destined knight. After resisting temptations involving a fiend, a serpent, and a gentlewoman revealed as the master fiend of hell, he continues with Galahad and Sir Bors; the three exchange their adventures, defend a maid from a cruel custom, and endure the castle’s destruction and divine vengeance. Sir Percivale and Galahad then part in tears, later joining Sir Bors at Carbonek and Sarras, where they fulfill the Sangreal quest, bury Percivale’s sister with royal honors, and are imprisoned by King Estorause.