Parry's Fisher King Story

Hello again. For those of you who didn't get a handout, or perhaps would like a digital copy, I've decided to post Parry's version of the Fisher King tale as told in Terry Gilliam's Fisher King (1991). It's interesting to note how this one contrasts from the other Fisher King tales we've read. It's also interesting to note that Jeff Bridges' character wears a bandage on his right hand throughout the film. Pretty overt symbolism, but I like it nonetheless.

Chivalrically yours,
The Boar of Battelle

PS

After this, I'll cut it out. No more Fisher King posts--unless I'm forced.

Parry’s tale of the Fisher King:

It begins with the king as a boy having to spend the night alone in the forest to prove his courage so he can become king. And while he’s spending the night alone, he’s visited by a sacred vision: out of the fire appears the Holy Grail, the symbol of God’s divine grace, and a voice said to the boy: “You shall be keeper of the grail so that it may heal the hearts of men.” But the boy was blinded by greater visions of a life filled with power and glory and beauty, and in this state of radical amazement, he felt, for a brief moment, not like a boy, but invincible, like God. So he reached in the fire to take the grail and the grail vanished, leaving him with his hand in the fire, to be terribly wounded. Now, as this boy grew older, his wound grew deeper, until one day, life for him lost its reason. He had no faith in any man, not even himself; he couldn’t love or feel loved; he was sick with experience—he began to die. One day a fool wandered in tot the castle and found the king alone. Now, being a fool, he was simple-minded. He didn’t see a king, “what ails you, friend?” The king replied, “I’m thirsty. I need some water to cool my throat.” So the fool took a cup from beside his bed, filled it with water and handed it to the king. As the king began to drink he realized that his wound was healed. He looked in his hands and there was the Holy Grail—that which he had sought all of his life. He turned to the fool and said with amazement, “How could you find that which my brightest and bravest could not?” The fool replied, “I don’t know. I only knew that you were thirsty.”