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The points of difference are that whereas Morien is black all over, save his teeth, Feirefis is parti-coloured, black and white a curious conception, which seems to point to an earlier stage of thought; Morien is a Christian, Feirefis a heathen the more probable version.
All has disappeared, melted away; Christianity and Paganism themselves have melted away or into each other, as in the easy meeting of the Pagan Feirefis and the Christian Parzifal, and in the double marriage of Gachmuret with the Indian Belakane and the Welsh Herzeloid; there remains only a kind of Buddhistic Nirvâna of vague passive perfection, but without any renunciation; and in a world devoid of evil and full of excellent brocade and armour and eatables, and lovely maidens who dress and undress you, and chastely kiss you on the mouth; a world without desire, aspiration, or combat, vacantly happy and virtuous.
In this connection it appears to me that the evidence of the Parzival is of primary importance; the circumstances attending the birth of Feirefis are exactly parallel with those of Morien in both a Christian knight wins the love of a Moorish princess; in both he leaves her before the birth of her son, in the one case with a direct, in the other with a conditional, promise to return, which promise is in neither instance kept; in both the lad, when grown to manhood, sets out to seek his father; in both he apparently makes a practice of fighting with every one whom he meets; in the one version he is brother, in the other son or nephew, to Perceval.
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