The season was spring, trees Were sprouting leaves, meadows Were green, every morning Birds sang in their own Sweet language, and the world was joyful. And the son of the widowed lady Living alone in the Barren Forest rose, and quickly Saddled his hunting horse. He is a youth brought up in the forest, without any knowledge of his high lineage, knighthood, the basic rules of polite behaviour, or his own name. It is so common in romances, as in fairy tales, to have the characters defined only by their status or their attributes, that the anonymity does not worry us; it feels like an intrusion into the story to attach a name to either the princess or the frog.
The Story of the Grail to give it its original title is a story about naming; about what things are. He determines to go to King Arthur and get himself made a knight.
Before he sets out, his mother gives him instructions on how to behave in the world, and tells him something of his own history how his father and brothers were killed in combat and she had withdrawn to the forest to preserve her last remaining child.
Her son rides off to find King Arthur, leaving her swooning with grief. He still does not know who he is. There follows a series of adventures that alternate high martial prowess and social disaster, until he is taken in hand by an old knight who trains him in the arts of chivalry and courtesy: in particular, he is not to chatter.
After defending and falling in love with a noble maiden named Blanchefleur, he decides he must visit his mother, and in the course of his journey takes lodgings in a distinctly fishy castle. It appears at the moment he needs it in the middle of a deserted landscape; it is an uncertain distance from anywhere else. In the morning, he awakes to find the castle empty. As he rides out, the drawbridge is raised so close behind him that his horse has to leap to get clear, but his calls go unanswered.
