One day Perceval was in the forest far up the mountain, and he looked over the blue distance far below across the moor, and saw a man riding on a wide road which he had never noticed before. And the man rode very fast, and as he went the sun seemed to flash from him as if he was clothed in glass. Perceval wondered what he was, and resolved to go across the moor to the road he had seen. When he reached the road he found it was very broad, and banked on either side, and went straight as the flight of a wild duck right across the moor, and never swerved by the hills or pools, but went over everything in its way. And as he stood marvelling what mighty men had builded it, he heard a strange rattling sound behind him, and, turning, he saw three men on horseback, and the sun shone from them as he had seen it shine from the first horseman. The foremost checked his horse beside Perceval, and said: 'Tell me, good soul, sawest thou a knight pass this way either this day or yesterday?' 'I know not what a knight is,' answered Perceval. 'Such a one as I,' said the horseman, smiling good-naturedly, for it was Sir Owen, one of King Arthur's knights. 'If ye will tell me what I ask, I will tell you,' said Perceval. [Illustration: YOUNG PERCEVAL QUESTIONS SIR OWEN] 'I will answer gladly,' said Sir Owen, smiling, yet wondering at the fearless and noble air of this youth in so wild a waste. 'What is this?' asked Perceval, and pulled the skirt of the hauberk. 'It is a dress made of rings of steel,' answered Sir Owen, 'which I put on to turn the swords of those I fight.' 'And what is it to fight?' 'What strange youth art thou?' asked Sir Owen. 'To fight is to do battle with spears or swords, so that you would slay the man that would slay you.' 'Ah, as I would have slain the buck that would have gored me,' said Perceval, nodding his head. Many other questions the youth asked eagerly, as to the arms they bore and the accoutrements and their uses. And at length he said: 'Sirs, I thank you for your courtesy. Go forward swiftly, for I saw such a one as ye go by here but two hours ago, and he flashed in the sun as he rode swiftly. And now I will be as one of you.' Perceval went swiftly back to his mother's house and found her among her women. 'Mother,' he said, 'I have seen a great and wonderful sight on the great road across the moor.' 'Ah, my dear son, what was that?' she asked. 'They were three honourable knights,' he said. 'And, mother, I will be a knight also.' With a great shriek his mother swooned away, and the women turned him from the room and said he had slain his mother. Much grieved was Perceval that he had hurt his mother, and so, taking his store of pointed sticks, he went off into the forest, and strayed there a long time, torn between his love for his mother, and the strange restlessness which the sight of the three warriors had caused in him.