The Legend of Parzifella : 

     

   I am the Grail Queen: the hero of the quest to seek and reclaim the sacred grail.  I restored the grail to my people and my lands so that its women could once again hold their heads up high and regain their rightful place as equals among men.  

 

  My name is Parzifella.  I was born to my mother, the great queen Herzeloyde, on a small farm many miles from the great events and battles of the world.     My mother was badly used by my father, a man who was so addicted to war and fighting that he broke women and men with impunity.   He married my mother (his second marriage) and then abandoned her with the full knowledge that she would bear his child.  My mother, heartbroken and sick, decided then and there to turn her back on the world of jousting, war, and knightly conquests.  She set up a new life for herself and left the city forever.  

 

  When I was born, my mother swore that I would never have to suffer the shame and humiliation that she had faced.  She kept me away from the world that she had known, and we lived a quiet life in a small cottage in the forest.   My mother was a strong woman and a hard worker, and so we were able to make our way on our own.  Occasionally, travelers would stop at our cottage to ask for food or shelter, and then we would hear stories from the world outside our small domain.    These visits both thrilled and depressed me.  I longed to hear the traveler’s tales, but I was saddened by the way that my mother always seemed to shrink in the presence of our visitors.  She confessed to me that she was afraid of men; that their mistreatment of her had left her full of fear.  My mother tried to hide her fear from me; she was determined raise me to make my own choices.   She wanted to protect me, but as I got older I watched the way men looked at me… stared at my budding breasts.  Even then, before I could name the feelings, I was filled with a sort of rage at the way my mother had been treated… at the way I was stared at… at the fear that shadowed my mother every time she ventured into the outside world. 

   

   One day, I was tending to the goats in the field by the road, and I saw a man and a woman on horseback riding by. They were a beautiful couple, polished and manicured and unlike any other human beings I had ever seen.  But it was the figures that arrived next that most astonished me.  They rode towards me like dark angels, covered in exquisitely fashioned armor that shone like the sun in its full glory.   I thought for a moment that they must come from the spirit realm, and stared at them in rapture.  The figure in the front began to speak in a disappointingly un-angelic and, to be honest, rather nasally voice.   “You Girl! Have you seen a couple astride white horses pass by?”  Shocked out of my reverie I nodded, pointed down the road, and quickly escaped into the cover of the forest.

When I was far enough away from their prying eyes I climbed up into a tree and crouched quietly, watching the men ride up the road and out of sight. 

If these were not angels, then WHAT were they?  Who were they?   That evening, I pressed my mother for information. 

“They are knights,” she replied.

“What is a knight?” I asked.

“A knight is a man who quests, who jousts, who wars, and who conquers or is conquered.  A knight is the one who protects the world that I gave up in order to protect you.”

“What about girl knights?” I asked.

“A girl cannot be a knight,” my mother replied with a sigh.  “You’d better go to bed and forget you ever saw them.” 

 

  I lay in my bed that night and tried to forget the dark angels called knights, but the vision of their glory had possessed me. I lay awake all night, burning with the possibility of adventure, and by sunrise the next day I had made up my mind; I would disguise myself as a man and become a knight.  I reasoned that I would not have to be afraid of men if I became one of them, and more than anything else I wanted to find adventure- to transform myself into one of those shining angels and ride off into the unknown.  Of course, I was terribly young and naïve, and I knew nothing of fighting or any other knightly endeavors.

 I told my plan to my mother, who reluctantly agreed to help me disguise myself as a man.  She cut my red hair close to my scalp and showed me how to bind my breasts.  Together, we sewed me a costume that was loose enough to conceal my woman’s body.

   When we were finished, my mother looked at me with sadness.  She would not try to stop me — all of my life she had taught me how to be strong enough to choose my own path — but the tears ran down her face as she warned me of the consequences if anyone discovered my true identity: death… or an even worse kind of violence that men brought upon women.   I bid my tearful mother farewell, and stubbornly set my face in the direction of the city.  I never turned back.  In the months, and then years, that followed, I learned well how to be a man; how to speak, how to dress, and how to carry myself.  I even took to wearing a false mustache.   I successfully concealed my identity from everyone but my wife, who kept my secret well.

 

   The first time I encountered the grail and the old Fisher King, I was afraid of being discovered, and remained in my disguise.  That quest failed.  Soon after, I began to tire of fighting, and with my mother in my heart, I searched in earnest for the grail.   It was many years before I found the Fisher King again, and this time — tired of hiding — I revealed my true identity as a woman.  This how I became the grail queen.  This is how that holy vessel, the grail, was returned to the guardianship of women.  We are beginning to remember the holiness of our bodies, the wholeness of our spirits, and potential of our intellects.  Now my mother no longer has to hide.