The details vary: sometimes there is a Dead Body laid on the altar;
sometimes a Black Hand extinguishes the tapers; there are strange
and threatening voices, and the general impression is that this is
an adventure in which supernatural, and evil, forces are engaged.
Such an adventure befalls Gawain on his way to the Grail Castle.[1]
He is overtaken by a terrible storm, and coming to a Chapel, standing
at a crossways in the middle of a forest, enters for shelter. The
altar is bare, with no cloth, or covering, nothing is thereon but a
great golden candlestick with a tall taper burning within it. Behind
the altar is a window, and as Gawain looks a Hand, black and hideous,
comes through the window, and extinguishes the taper, while a voice
makes lamentation loud and dire, beneath which the very building
rocks. Gawain's horse shies for terror, and the knight, making the
sign of the Cross, rides out of the Chapel, to find the storm abated,
and the great wind fallen. Thereafter the night was calm and clear.
In the Perceval section of Wauchier and Manessier we find the same
adventure in a dislocated form.[2]
Perceval, seeking the Grail Castle, rides all day through a heavy
storm, which passes off at night-fall, leaving the weather calm and
clear.
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