InArthurian legend, theSiege Perilous (Welsh:Gwarchae Peryglus, also known asThe Perilous Seat,Welsh:Sedd Peryglus) is a vacant seat at theRound Table reserved byMerlin for the knight who would one day be successful in the quest for theHoly Grail.[1]
The English word "siege" originally meant "seat" or "throne" coming from theOld Frenchsege (modern Frenchsiège); the modern military sense of aprolonged assault comes from the conception of an army figuratively "sitting down" before a fortress.[2]
InThomas Malory's 1485 bookLe Morte d'Arthur, in an account taken from the Vulgate CycleQueste del Saint Graal,[3] the newlyknighted SirGalahad takes the seat inCamelot onWhitsunday, 454 years after the death ofJesus. The Siege Perilous is strictly reserved and therefore is fatal to anyone unworthy who sits in it. Another version of this story is related inAlfred Tennyson'sIdylls of the King.[4]
Originally, this motif about the seat and the grail belonged toPerceval, but theLancelot-Grail Cycle transferred it to the newCistercian-based heroGalahad. It appears, for example, in the earlierPerceval de Didot attributed toRobert de Boron, in whichPerceval occupies the seat at Arthur's court at Carduel.[5][self-published source] According to many scholars, the motif of the dangerous seat can be further traced to Welsh, Cornish, and Breton mythology, from which the bulk of the Arthurian legend was derived. According to this theory, the Siege Perilous was a half-remembered version of a Celtic kingship ritual that has parallels in the IrishLia Fáil.[6]
...he shall be born that shall sit there in that siege perilous, and he shall win the Sangreal.
And Merlin called it 'The Siege perilous'