Sir Perceval of Galles is a Middle English Arthurian verse romance whose protagonist, Sir Perceval (Percival), first appeared in medieval literature in Chrétien de Troyes' final poem, the 12th-century Old French Conte del Graal, well over one hundred years before the composition of this work. Sir Perceval of Galles was probably written in the northeast Midlands of England in the early 14th century, and tells a markedly different story to either Chretien's tale or to Robert de Boron's early 13th-century Perceval. Found in only a single manuscript, and told with a comic liveliness, it omits any mention of a graal or a Grail. Beginning in a similar vein to Chretien's story of a boy brought up in the forest by his mother, who comes naively to King Arthur's court seeking knighthood then wanders out again into the forest wearing the armour of the Red Knight whom he has just killed, the story then diverges. The hero finds no mysterious castle of a Fisher King. Instead, he travels to a Land of Maidens, alone defeats an entire army, and, near the end of the tale, discovers that the ring he has been wearing ever since an incident in a lady's tent when he first approached Arthur's court is a magic ring that has made him incapable of being killed. Manuscript The story of Sir Perceval of Galles is found in a single manuscript, the 15th century Lincoln Thornton Manuscript (Lincoln Cathedral MS 91), which dates to around 1440. There are no known printed versions prior to 19th- and 20th-century transcriptions of this unique manuscript text. The story is told in 2,288 lines, arranged in sixteen-line stanzas rhyming AAABCCCBDDDBEEEB. It was probably composed in the northeast Midlands of England, although the entire Thornton Manuscript is influenced by the North Yorkshire dialect of its copyist, manor lord and amateur scribe Robert Thornton. The poem itself probably dates to the early 14th century. Near the beginning of the poem, the reader is informed that "[Perceval] dranke water of the welle". This tale, or at least this style of romance, was later parodied by Geoffrey Chaucer in his late 14th-century Canterbury tale, Sir Thopas, in which the knight Thopas "Him-self drank water of the wel, as did the knight Sir Percivel." Synopsis Like the boy Perceval in Chrétien de Troyes' romance Perceval, le Conte du Graal, the hero of Sir Perceval of Galles is brought