The principal difference between the _Parzival_ and the _Conte del Graal_ is in the Introduction, which is missing entirely in Chrêtien, whose account of Perceval's father and of his death is at variance with all the other versions, and has been supplemented by a later Introduction, more in harmony with what seems to have been accepted as the original form of the story, _i.e._ with the fact of the death of the hero's father _before_ his birth, and the flight of the _widowed_ mother into the woods. Now, it is of course quite possible, it is even highly probable, that Chrêtien, had he known a version of the story such as Wolfram gives, would have rejected it on account of its connection with the House of Anjou, but we cannot base any argument on the absence of this introduction, since Chrêtien left his poem unfinished at a point before the close connection between the first two books and the ending of the story becomes apparent in Wolfram. Had Chrêtien lived to complete his work we should have then been in a better position to judge whether he knew Kiot's poem and deliberately set it on one side, or whether he was following another version. Closely as the two poems agree, it is noticeable that, in more than one instance, Chrêtien's version of an incident is more in harmony with the story as told in other members of the Grail cycle than is Wolfram's; _e.g._ Parzival's visit to the court of King Arthur, and Gawain's adventure in the Château Merveil, both of which have been fully treated in the Notes. It is curious also that in the three versions of the story most closely agreeing, the _Conte del Graal_, _Parzival_, and _Peredur_, we find the bleeding lance and the sword in each, while for the 'Grail' talisman we have variously, an enigmatic object of gold set with precious stones, a stone, and a bleeding head on a dish; this variation seems to point to the conclusion that the lance and sword, and not the 'Grail,' were the original features of the story; and accordingly we find in Chrêtien that it is the lance, and not the Grail, which Gawain goes to seek; and the lance is also treated at greater length than is the Grail. If Wolfram and Chrêtien were drawing from the same source it seems strange that it is in the work of that one of the two who avowedly places a high value on adherence to the traditional form of the story that we miss just these archaic features. Again, Wolfram and Chrêtien differ very decidedly in their presentment of the Grail knights and their organisation; if so striking and effective a feature existed in a source common to both, it is difficult to understand why Chrêtien omitted it; he could have had no such grudge against the Order of Templars as he would reasonably have against the House of Anjou, and it is equally difficult to believe that if it was _not_ in the source, Wolfram departed from his avowed principle of fidelity so far as to introduce it.