Peredur fab Ragnal

Peredur fab Ragnal

Peredur fab Ragnal is the leader of the Illuminati, who achieved the Holy Grail and became the Fisher King.

History

He married Lady Blanchefleur, and ruled over Castle Carbonek by her side. Peredur is apparently an illegitimate son of Sir Gawain, one of King Arthur's leading knights.

In the early 7th century A.D., Peredur founded the Illuminati Society, for some as yet unknown purpose.

In November, 1996, Peredur issued orders to David Xanatos, through Quincy Hemings, to seize the Stone of Destiny en route to Scotland. While the stone that Peredur received may not have been the original, the Spirit of Destiny spoke to Peredur stating that it cannot be possessed. It also informed Peredur that King Arthur had awakened. Not expecting Arthur to awaken for another two centuries, and fearing their plans had been disrupted, Peredur convened a meeting of the upper echelon members.

Blanchefleur and Duval are the two people he loves most in this world.

Appearances

• "Bash" (Mentioned)
• "Rock of Ages" (First Appearance)

Real-World Background

"Peredur" is the Welsh form of "Percival", the original hero of the legends about the Holy Grail; he was later on replaced by Galahad, though retaining a subordinate role.

Peredur's "surname", "fab Ragnal", is a reference to Roger Lancelyn Green's interpretation of Percival as the son of Gawain and Lady Ragnell ("fab" is one form of a Welsh word meaning "son of"). In the various versions of the Percival legend, he was raised by his mother in a remote forest in Britain, making it appropriate that he would be identified as her son rather than as his father's son.

Sir Percival first appeared in the 12th century French verse romance, Perceval, or the Story of the Grail, by Chretien de Troyes, which also introduced the Grail itself into Arthurian literature. In the early versions of the Grail legend, he was the knight intended to achieve the Holy Grail, although as the story developed, he was eventually shouldered aside by the newer figure of Sir Galahad, to become merely second-best. Even so, he still was preserved in the legends as one of the three knights who achieved the Grail, alongside Galahad and Bors de Ganis.

According to the traditional story of Percival, he was raised in secret in a remote forest in Britain by his mother, and kept ignorant of knighthood; his father and older brothers had all been slain in battle, and his mother, fearing that he would undergo the same fate, hid him here to prevent him from finding out about knights or warfare. However, one day he saw a few of King Arthur's knights riding through the forest.

Believing them to be angels, he went up to meet them, and learned of their true nature. Intrigued by what they told him about the work of a knight, he eagerly ran away from home to go to King Arthur's court and become a knight himself.

Percival came to King Arthur's court just as a knight in red armor stole a cup from the king's table and rode off with it, challenging any of Arthur's knights to meet him in single combat and battle him over the cup. Percival took up the challenge, and slew the Red Knight by hurling a javelin straight through the visor of his helmet and into his eye. He then, after removing the Red Knight's armor with some difficulty (being unfamiliar with armor, he was about to resort to the desperate measure of burning the knight out of it before one of Arthur's knights courteously showed him how to take the armor off the Red Knight) and donning it, set off for a life of adventure, during which he met his lady-love, Blanchefleur, for the first time. He also came to Carbonek, the Grail Castle, where his old uncle the Fisher King ruled. The Fisher King was crippled with a terrible spear-wound in the leg, which could only be healed by somebody asking him a specific question (what this question is varies from tale to tale; some versions make it "Whom does the Grail serve?", while others make it "What pains you so?"); when Percival ate dinner with him and his court, he wished to ask the question, but remained silent because he had been advised not to go around plaguing people with numerous questions. He only learned after he had left Carbonek that he had done the wrong thing by remaining silent, and that if he had asked the question, the Fisher King would have been healed, and would have recognized Percival as his nephew and heir.

Percival returned to Arthur's court, where he became a knight of the Round Table; however, not long afterwards, a hideous woman appeared and berated him before the entire court for not asking the question. Percival left Arthur's court at once in desperation to find Carbonek again and ask the question. He rode about looking for it for five years, in the process becoming increasingly forgetful of God and not even attending services at church, until he met some knights and ladies on Good Friday, who rebuked him for riding armed on such a day. Chastened, Percival sought out a nearby hermit, who gave him spiritual instruction, and told him also that he had failed in part to ask the question on his visit to Carbonek because he had abandoned his mother, who had consequently died of a broken heart.

Chretien's account of Perceval's story breaks off here, but other writers continued it. (There was also a Welsh variant of it, which called Percival "Peredur, son of Ebrawc".) Some have Percival return to Carbonek at last, ask the question, and succeed his uncle to the role of Fisher King and guardian of the Holy Grail. The later versions of the story, however, which introduce Galahad, give Percival a relatively minor role, also omitting the question that must be asked the Fisher King in the process. Percival, after many trials and tribulations, comes to Carbonek with Galahad and Bors, and achieves the Grail in their company. Afterwards, they go with the Holy Grail to the city of Sarras in the Middle East, where Galahad dies and the Grail is taken up to Heaven. Percival becomes a hermit and dies a year later.

Obviously, Greg Weisman's interpretation of Percival's fate follows the former account, since he is still alive in the Gargoyles Universe, and the Grail is still on Earth. Weisman's view of Percival in general shows some influence from Roger Lancelyn Green's version of his story in his "King Arthur And His Knights of the Round Table"; Green's version, like Weisman's vision, makes Percival a son of Gawain, or at least hints at it (perhaps inspired here by legends about Gawain having a son named Gingalin or "The Fair Unknown," who was similarly raised in obscurity); ironically enough, in Malory, Percival's father is identified as King Pellinor, whom Gawain slew in a family feud (Pellinor had slain Gawain's father, King Lot). Green also includes Blanchefleur as Percival's love and eventual wife and queen, something again found in Weisman's vision but not in Malory's (where Percival is virginal), and has the two of them rule over Carbonek after the ending of the Grail Quest, as per Weisman.

Percival's identity as the head of the Illuminati Society is particularly intriguing and almost ironic; in the original legends, Percival was portrayed as extremely naive, almost to the point of foolishness, while the role of leader of the Illuminati would certainly demand a considerable amount of deviousness and cunning. Evidently, Percival in modern times in the Gargoyles Universe is no longer "the pure fool" that he was in Arthur's day.

See also

• Peredur fab Ragnal at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia