de Montreuil Continuation is intercalated between the Second Continuation and
Manessier.
Composed in the late 12th century, the First Continuation (also known as the Pseudo-
Wauchier Continuation or Gawain Continuation) exists in three distinct versions, ranging
from about 9,500 lines to 19,600. All three, however, tell essentially the same story,
centering the action on Gawain, Arthur’s nephew, whose adventures in search of the
Grail castle were being recounted when Chrétien’s poem was interrupted. It opens with
Gawain’s defeat of Guiromelant, who is spared at the urging of Gawain’s sister
Clarissant, who loves him. When Arthur weds Clarissant to Guiromelant without obliging
him to retract his charge of treason against Gawain, his nephew leaves court in a huff and
rides to the Grail castle, where he observes a Grail procession that differs in important
details from that described by Chrétien. Most significantly, he sees a bier covered by a
silk cloth; there is a body in the bier and a broken sword upon the cloth; he who can
perfectly mend the sword would know all the secrets of the Grail castle. But Gawain falls
asleep and fails. The next morning he rides off to Escavalon to do battle with
Guinganbresil, who had accused Gawain of treason for killing his lord. But before
combat begins, Arthur arrives and makes peace by marrying his granddaughter to
Guinganbresil. At this point are interpolated the adventures of Sir Carados, which form
essentially an independent romance bearing no direct relationship to the Grail quest. It
includes a beheading game similar to that in the English romance Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight, an enchanted serpent that attaches itself to Carados’s arm, and a chastity
test with a magic drinking horn. Later in the romance, Gawain, mysteriously returned to
the Grail castle, learns that the Bleeding Lance was the one with which Longinus pierced
Christ’s side at the Crucifixion. Once again, he fails to mend the sword and falls asleep
before he can hear the other secrets of the castle. The following morning, he awakens
beside the sea and discovers the land to be once again green and fertile. The final episode
involves Gawain’s brother Guerrehet in an adventure with a swan-drawn boat, in which is
found a corpse with the broken end of a lance sticking in his chest that only Guerrehet
can remove.
Although it effects a smooth transition from Chrétien’s text, the First Continuation
soon charts new territory: it loses track of the Gawain-Perceval parallel pursued by
Chrétien to concentrate on Gawain and his brother Guerrehet; it christianizes the Grail
and Bleeding Lance; and it stresses the magical aspects of the story at the expense of
Chrétien’s psychological realism.
The 13,000 lines of the Second Continuation (also called the Wauchier de Denain
Continuation or Perceval Continuation) were composed in the last decade of the 12th
century by Wauchier de Denain, known for his free translation of the Vitae patrum for
Philippe de Namur (r. 1196–1212). Attention shifts back to Perceval’s adventures. After
defeating the Lord of the Horn, Perceval plays chess on a magical chessboard and falls in
love with a maiden who will return his love only if he brings her the head of a white stag;
she lends him her dog for the hunt, but the head and dog are stolen from him. Seeking to
recover the head and dog, Perceval meets with a long series of adventures, in which he
slays a giant, defeats a White Knight, and fights Gawain’s son, the “Fair Unknown,” to a
draw. After a brief interlude with his lady, Blancheflor, Perceval must continue the quest.
He returns to his mother’s castle ten years after having first left it; there, he sees his sister
for the first time and learns how his mother had died at his departure. With his sister,
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