Verrine

1. Verrine
   Veronica

   In the Grail story this name is used to designate Saint Veronica. [More]

   
   

2. 'Verrine'

   This high-born damsel of Guenevere's court was mute until the arrival of Sir Percival, when at last she spoke. Greeting him, she led him to his seat at the left of the Siege Perilous and predicted his future greatness. She also predicted her own death, which took place four days later; she was buried in the cathedral at Cardiff. From the circumstances of the miracle, one can assume she had led a holy life.

   In Chrétien's version of the Percivale story, while the damsel who laughs is one of the queen's maids, there's no hard evidence that she had been speechless for six years - only that she had not laughed. Ruth Cline cites a suggestion that there may have been something of the geis about this not laughing; it remains a marvel that the courtly maid could look at the young backwoods simpleton and immediately recognize the future greatest knight of all.

   Nor can I find any indication of her premature death: in Chrétien, she returns Percivale's greeting with a smile as well as laughter, making her seem livelier and merrier than in subsequent versions. Nor does she even lead Percivale to his Round Table seat: Kay, angry because she has stated her opinion of the bumpkin's future greatness aloud for everyone to hear, knocks her down with a slap and kicks the court fool into the fire for siding with her, while Percivale simply takes off to defeat the Red Knight of Quinqueroi... though he does eventually return and avenge the maid.

   This maid and the fool (doubtful to be Dagonet) are almost always glimpsed in the same passages. I see no romantic tension in this, but neither do I see anything absolutely precluding such an interpretation.