At this question the evil spell would be broken, Amfortas healed, and the newcomer appointed king and guardian of the Holy Grail.
This promise of ultimate cure saved Amfortas from utter despair, and all the Templars lived in constant anticipation of the coming hero, and of the question which would put an end to the torment which they daily witnessed.
[Sidenote: Parzival's early life.] Parzival, in the mean while, was growing up in the forest, where he amused himself with a bow and arrow of his own manufacture.

But when for the first time he killed a tiny bird, and saw it lying limp and helpless in his hand, he brought it tearfully to his mother and inquired what it meant.

In answering him she, for the first time also, mentioned the name of God; and when he eagerly questioned her about the Creator, she said to him: "Brighter is God than e'en the brightest day; yet once he took the form and face of man." Thus brought up in complete ignorance, it is no wonder that when young Parzival encountered some knights in brilliant armor in the forest, he fell down and offered to worship them.

Amused at the lad's simplicity, the knights told him all about the gay world of chivalry beyond the forest, and advised him to ride to Arthur's court, where, if worthy, he would receive the order of knighthood, and perchance be admitted to the Round Table.
Beside himself with joy at hearing all these marvelous things, and eager to set out immediately, Parzival returned to his mother to relate what he had seen, and to implore her to give him a horse, that he might ride after the knights.
"'I saw four men, dear mother mine; Not brighter is the Lord divine.
They spoke to me of chivalry; Through Arthur's power of royalty, In knightly honor well arrayed, I shall receive the accolade.'" WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH, _Parzival_ (Dippold's tr.).
The mother, finding herself unable to detain him any longer, reluctantly consented to his departure, and, hoping that ridicule and lack of success would soon drive him back to her, prepared for him the motley garb of a fool and gave him a very sorry nag to ride.
"The boy, silly yet brave indeed, Oft from his mother begged a steed.
That in her heart she did lament; She thought: 'Him must I make content, Yet must the thing an evil be.' Thereafter further pondered she: 'The folk are prone to ridicule.
My child the garments of a fool Shall on his shining body wear.
If he be scoffed and beaten there, Perchance he'll come to me again.'" WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH, _Parzival_ (Bayard Taylor's tr.).
[Sidenote: Parzival's journey into the world.] Thus equipped, his mind well stored with all manner of unpractical advice given by his mother in further hopes of making a worldly career impossible for him, the young hero set out.

As he rode away from home, his heart was filled with regret at leaving and with an ardent desire to seek adventures abroad,--conflicting emotions which he experienced for the first time in his life.