In the _Queste_ Gawain and Hector de Maris come to an old and ruined Chapel where they pass the night. Each has a marvellous dream. The next morning, as they are telling each other their respective visions, they see, “a Hand, showing unto the elbow, and was covered with red samite, and upon that hung a bridle, not rich, and held within the fist a great candle that burnt right clear, and so passed afore them, and entered into the Chapel, and then vanished away, and they wist not where.”[4] This seems to be an unintelligent borrowing from the _Perceval_ version. We have, also, a group of visits to the Perilous Chapel, or Perilous Cemetery, which appear to be closely connected with each other. In each case the object of the visit is to obtain a portion of the cloth which covers the altar, or a dead body lying upon the altar. The romances in question are the _Perlesvaus_, the prose _Lancelot_, and the _Chevalier à deux Espées_.[5] The respective protagonists being Perceval’s sister, Sir Lancelot, and the young Queen of Garadigan, whose city has been taken by King Ris and who dares the venture to win her freedom. In the first case the peril appears to lie in the Cemetery, which is surrounded by the ghosts of knights slain in the forest, and buried in unconsecrated ground. The _Lancelot_ version is similar, but here the title is definitely _Perilous Chapel_. In the last version there is no hint of a Cemetery. In the _Lancelot_ version there is a dead knight on the altar, whose sword Lancelot takes in addition to the piece of cloth. In the poem a knight is brought in, and buried before the altar; the young queen, after cutting off a piece of the altar cloth, uncovers the body, and buckles on the sword. There is no mention of a Hand in any of the three versions, which appear to be late and emasculated forms of the theme. The earliest mention of a Perilous Cemetery, as distinct from a Chapel, appears to be in the Chastel Orguellous section of the _Perceval_, a section probably derived from a very early stratum of Arthurian romantic tradition. Here Arthur and his knights, on their way to the siege of Chastel Orguellous, come to the _Vergier des Sepoltures_, where they eat with the Hermits, of whom there are a hundred and more. “ne me l’oïst or pas chi dire Les merveilles del chimetire car si sont diverses et grans qu’il n’est hom terriens vivans qui poist pas quidier ne croire que ce fust onques chose voire.”[6] But there is no hint of a Perilous Chapel here. The adventures of Gawain in the _Atre Perilleus_,[7] and of Gawain and Hector in the _Lancelot_ of the final cyclic prose version, are of the most _banal_ description; the theme, originally vivid and picturesque, has become watered down into a meaningless adventure of the most conventional type.