The part which the Holy Graal plays in the legend generally is not the least curious or interesting feature of the whole. As has been already said more than once, it makes no figure at all in the earliest versions: and it is consistent with this, as well as with the general theory and procedure of romance, that when it does appear the development of the part played by it is conducted on two more or less independent lines, which, however, the later compilers at least do not seem to think mutually exclusive. With the usual reserves as to the impossibility of pronouncing with certainty on the exact order of the additions to this wonderful structure of legend, it may be said to be probable, on all available considerations of literary probability, that of the two versions of the Graal story--that in which Percival is the hero of the Quest, and that in which Galahad occupies that place--the former is the earlier. According to this, which commended itself especially to the French and German handlers of the story,[58] the Graal Quest lies very much outside the more intimate concerns of the Arthurian court and the realm of Britain. Indeed, in the latest and perhaps greatest of this school, Wolfram von Eschenbach (_v._ chap. vi.), the story wanders off into uttermost isles of fancy, quite remote from the proper Arthurian centres. It may perhaps be conceded that this development is in more strict accordance with what we may suppose and can partly perceive to have been the original and almost purely mystical conception of the Graal as entertained by Robert de Borron, or another--the conception in which all earthly, even wedded, love is of the nature of sin, and according to which the perfect knight is only an armed monk, converting the heathen and resisting the temptations of the devil, the world, and more particularly the flesh; diversifying his wars and preachings only or mainly by long mystical visions of sacred history as it presented itself to mediaeval imagination. It is true that the genius of Wolfram has not a little coloured and warmed this chilly ideal: but the story is still conducted rather afar from general human interest, and very far off indeed from the special interests of Arthur. [Footnote 58: And contrariwise the Welsh _Peredur_ (_Mabinogion_, _ed. cit._, 81) has only a possible allusion to the Graal story, while the English _Sir Percivale_ (_Thornton Romances_, ed. Halliwell, Camden Society, 1844) omits even this.] [Sidenote: _How it perfects the story._]