Perceval stepped back and drew his sword and sprang towards the hand – but at the very moment he was about to strike he saw a head loom in at the window, and its body right down to the waist; and as it burst in it thrust a blazing brand at him, fully twelve feet long, singeing his moustache and eyebrows. Perceval invoked all the names of God – he realised he’d seen the Devil and was afraid; he raised his hand and made the sign of the true cross on his forehead and his face. And thereupon he heard a monstrous boom come crashing from the sky, and a bolt of lightning rent the wall and window where the hand and head had appeared. Then Perceval looked up and saw a gigantic demon all ablaze, its arm as black as coal – he was sure it was
the hand from the window. Then suddenly he remembered the veil – he hoped he wasn’t mistaken – that the Fisher King had told him would be lying in a cabinet.29 He went to fetch it – but the hand darted out and barred his way, and a terrible voice cried:

‘Vassal, it was rash of you to come in here! And you’ll regret it! I’m going to kill you with my own hand – in the morning you’ll be lying on the altar!’

Perceval uttered not a word, but at God’s prompting he raised his hand and crossed himself. With that a colossal thunderbolt crashed down, and the demon, looming in the breach of the riven wall, recoiled; and in terror of God’s thunder and in fear of the sign of the cross – a sign he loathed and dreaded – the demon leapt high on to the chapel roof. The lightning fell so awesomely, so terribly, that no one who’d been anywhere near could have stayed there and survived: it struck a wooden beam and set it aflame, and the fire spread till the whole chapel was ablaze – nothing could stop it. But Perceval was undismayed by anything he saw; instead he made straight for the cabinet to get the veil. But again the hand barred his way and the voice roared:

‘Stop this folly, Perceval! Don’t believe the Fisher King! You’re mad if you do! Be gone this instant or you’ll die! I’ve struck down many who’ve tried to fight me – so many knights I’ve killed – there’s one left dead here every day! Have some sense, and make sure you’re not another!’

Perceval made no reply; instead he fixed his mind on what he’d come for, and headed for the cabinet to win the veil. The hand seized his left arm to stop him, but in his right hand Perceval held his sword and tried to strike; again and again he strove to land a blow, but to no avail: every blow missed, all his efforts were vain. He was locked in a dreadful battle now, with little hope of winning: the devil was fighting awesomely to stop him getting the veil, and looking for a chance to wound him. He had him by the wrist and was wrestling and shaking him, sure he had him at his mercy; but the one with faith in God made the sign of the cross with his sword before his face, to stop the devil harming him – and the moment he did so, the hand recoiled. At that same instant a colossal bolt of thunder and lightning burst from the heavens, the most immense and
terrifying ever seen; Perceval was blinded and fell unconscious in the chapel – and he couldn’t be blamed for that: no man ever born saw such a fearful day in all his earthly life. No rafter, not a single lath, was left unburnt: the fire from the lightning strike spread everywhere. The devil fled away in terror of the lightning and the miraculous response of God to the sign of the cross.

Third Continuation of Perceval