She carries with her
II. barisiax d'ivoire gent;
containing a "poison," the same whereof Christ made use in the Sepulchre, and which serves here to bring the dead back to life and to rejoin heads cut off from bodies. She goes to work thus:—
A la teste maintenant prise,
Si l'a desor le bu assise;
then taking the balm
Puis en froie celui la bouche
À cui la teste avoit rajointe;
Sor celui n'ot vaine ne jointe
Qui lues ne fust de vie plaine.
Perceval stops her when she has brought back three of her men to life; she recognises in him her conqueror:
Bien vous connois et bien savoie
Que de nului garde n'avoie
Fors que de vous; car, par mon chief
Nus n'en péust venir à chief
Se vous non. . . .
So long as she lives, Perceval shall be powerless to achieve his Quest. She wars against Gonemant by order of the King of the Waste City, who ever strives against all who uphold the Christian faith, and whose chief aim it is to hinder Perceval from attaining knowledge of the Grail. Perceval gets possession of somewhat of the wonder-working balm, brings to life the most valiant of his adversaries, slays him afresh after a hard struggle, in which he himself is wounded, heals his own hurt, and likewise Gonemant's, with the balsam. Compare now Campbell's above-cited tale, the Knight of the Red Shield. The hero, left alone upon the island by his two treacherous companions, sees coming towards him "three youths, heavily, wearily, tired." They are his foster-brothers, and from the end of a day and a year they hold battle against the Son of Darkness, Son of Dimness, and a hundred of his people, and every one they kill to-day will be alive to-morrow, and spells are upon them they may not leave this (island) for ever until they kill
