![]() Scholars disagree as to the exact relationship between Peredur and Percival. This may represent an epithet that denoted a local association, possibly pointing to Eliffer's son as the prototype, but which came to be understood and used as a patronymic in the Welsh Arthurian tales. Efrawg, on the other hand, is not an ordinary personal name, but the historical Welsh name for the city of York (Latin Eburacum, modern Welsh Efrog). The Peredur of Welsh romance differs from the Coeling chieftain if only in that his father is called Efrawg, rather than Eliffer, and there is no sign of a brother called Gwrgi. Peredur may derive in part from the sixth-century Coeling chieftain Peredur son of Eliffer. A comparable list in the last pages of The Dream of Rhonabwy refers to a Peredur Paladr Hir ("of the Long Spear-Shaft"), whom Peter Bartrum identifies as the same figure. Peredur does appear in the romance Geraint and Enid, which includes "Peredur son of Efrawg" in a list of warriors accompanying Geraint. However, the earliest Welsh Arthurian text, Culhwch and Olwen, does not mention Peredur in any of its extended catalogues of famous and less famous warriors. It is generally accepted that Peredur was a well-established figure before he became the hero of Peredur son of Efrawg. ![]() The name "Peredur" may derive from Welsh par (spear) and dur (hard, steel). In the Welsh romance Peredur son of Efrawg, the figure goes by the name Peredur. He then becomes the protagonist in Chrétien's final romance, Perceval, the Story of the Grail. ![]() The earliest reference to Perceval is in Chrétien de Troyes's first Arthurian romance Erec et Enide, where, as "Percevaus li Galois" ( Percevaus of Wales), he appears in a list of Arthur's knights in another of Chrétien's romances, Cligés, he is a "renowned vassal" who is defeated by the knight Cligés in a tournament. ![]() Percival in Newell Convers Wyeth's illustration for Sidney Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur (1922)
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