<P> Over the following 50 years four different poets took up the challenge left by Chrétien and continued the adventures of Perceval and Gawain . </P> <P> The First Continuation added 9,500 to 19,600 lines (depending on the manuscripts) to the romance . It was once attributed to Wauchier de Denain, and is still sometimes called the Pseudo-Wauchier Continuation for that reason . It exists in a short, a mixed, and a long version; the short was the earliest and the most loosely linked to Chrétien's work, while the mixed is considered to be the latest, drawing on both earlier versions . Roger Sherman Loomis believed that the short version, which was added to an existing Perceval manuscript ten or twenty years later, represents a version of the story that was originally independent of Chrétien's . </P> <P> The First Continuation picks up the narrative of Gawain's adventures where Chrétien left off: his mother and grandmother are reunited with Arthur and Gawain's sister Clarissant marries Guiromelant . In the long version, Gawain opposes the marriage and rides off in anger, reaching the Grail Castle . After further adventures he rejoins Arthur (and the long version rejoins the short) and helps him besiege a rebel's castle . </P> <P> The First Continuation is notable for its cavalier approach to the narrative agenda set by Chrétien . In particular it includes a seemingly independent romance, which in the long version spans over 6000 lines: The Livre de Caradoc, starring Arthur's knight Caradoc, explains how the hero got his nickname "Briefbras", or "Short Arm". All versions of the First Continuation describe Gawain's visit to a Grail castle quite unlike Chrétien's, a vividly imagined scene that introduces the motif of a broken sword that can only be mended by the hero destined to heal the Fisher King and his lands . Gawain is not this hero and he fails . The final episode recounts the misadventures of Gawain's brother Guerrehet (Gaheris or Gareth) who is humiliated by a dwarf knight before avenging himself and a mysteriously murdered stranger . In the closing scene he returns to court asleep on a swan boat . </P>

Chretien de troyes the story of the grail