Sir Percy of Scandia was born at the castle of King
Arthur Pendragon in England during the first years of Arthur’s reign in
the sixth century. Sir Percy adopted the guise of the Black Knight in
order to serve his king in a dual capacity: One, an unassuming man of
the royal court, and the other, a mysterious avenging champion. King
Arthur's court magician, Merlin, gave Percy the Ebony Blade after
enchanting it himself.
As the Black Knight, Sir Percy's greatest foe was King Artur’s nephew Mordred.
For years, Percy tried to gather evidence of Mordred's treachery, to no
avail. Soon after the fall of Camelot, the wounded Mordred dispatched
his men to ambush the Black Knight using a dagger constructed of the
same meteoric ore as the Ebony Blade. Sir Percy was slain, but Merlin,
however, cast a spell upon Percy's spirit, enabling it to return to the
earthly plane when the spirit of Mordred threatened the world again.
Percy’s spirit was also able to return by means of a magical brazier.
It returned to offer the Ebony Blade to his descendants, but only one, Dane Whitman,
proved a worthy heir to the magic sword. Dane would occasionally
consult the brazier for advice, such as when he needed to find where the
Ebony Blade had become lost in time, finding it finally in Olympus.
Years later, when Dane Whitman had fallen victim to the Blade's curse, the sorcerer supreme, Doctor Strange,
appealed to Sir Percy's spirit, allowing it to reside in the blade,
thinking this would end the curse. The effort freed Dane from his
affliction, but the curse remained, later affecting Dane’s squire Sean
Dolan, who became Bloodwraith. The final resting place of Percy’s spirit remains a mystery.
