Chapter 3 Summary

Queen Herzeloyde estranges herself from her three kingdoms and lives in isolation in the woods with Parzival. She forbids her people to teach him about knights and anything to do with knighthood, but one day as Parzival is hunting down a long slope, he sees three armed men and learns they are knights given knighthood by King Arthur. Overwhelmed by the knights' glory, Parzival causes his mother much grief when he insists on leaving her to become a knight. Herzeloyde dresses her son in fool's clothing with the hope that the people at court will laugh at him and he will not be made a knight. Then she gives him parting advice: it is good fortune to take the ring and greeting of a chaste lady, and always adhere if a wise man offers to teach him good manners. As Parzival rides away...