When the question has been asked: "Le rois pescheor estoit gariz et
tot muez de sa nature." "Li rois peschiere estoit mues de se nature et
estoit garis de se maladie, et estoit sains comme pissons."[6] Here
we have the introduction of a new element, the restoration to youth of
the sick King.

In the Perceval of Chretien de Troyes we find ourselves in presence
of certain definite changes, neither slight, nor unimportant,
upon which it seems to me insufficient stress has hitherto been laid.
The question is changed; the hero no longer asks what the Grail is,
but (as in the prose Perceval) whom it serves? a departure from an
essential and primitive simplicity--the motive for which is apparent
in Chretien, but not in the prose form, where there is no enigmatic
personality to be served apart. A far more important change is that,
while the malady of the Fisher King is antecedent to the hero's visit,
and capable of cure if the question be asked, the failure to fulfil
the prescribed conditions of itself entails disaster upon the land.
Thus the sickness of the King, and the desolation of the land, are not
necessarily connected as cause and effect, but, a point which seems
hitherto unaccountably to have been overlooked, the latter is directly
attributable to the Quester himself.[7]

"Car se tu demande l'eusses
Li rice roi qui moult s'esmaie
Fust or tost garis de sa plaie
Et si tenist sa tiere en pais
Dont il n'en tenra point jamais,"

but by Perceval's failure to ask the question he has entailed dire
misfortune upon the land: