The Legends of KING ARTHUR and his KNIGHTS
Sir James Knowles
Illustrated by Lancelot Speed
TO
ALFRED TENNYSON, D.C.L.
POET LAUREATE
THIS ATTEMPT AT A POPULAR VERSION OF
THE ARTHUR LEGENDS
IS BY HIS PERMISSION DEDICATED
AS A TRIBUTE
OF THE SINCEREST AND WARMEST RESPECT
1862
PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH EDITION
The Publishers have asked me to authorise a new edition, in my own name,
of this little book--now long out of print--which was written by me
thirty-five years ago under the initials J.T.K.
In acceding to their request I wish to say that the book as now published
is merely a word-for-word reprint of my early effort to help to popularise
the Arthur legends.
It is little else than an abridgment of Sir Thomas Malory's version of
them as printed by Caxton--with a few additions from Geoffrey of Monmouth
and other sources--and an endeavour to arrange the many tales into a more
or less consecutive story.
The chief pleasure which came to me from it was, and is, that it began for
me a long and intimate acquaintance with Lord Tennyson, to whom, by his
permission, I Dedicated it before I was personally known to him.
JAMES KNOWLES.
_Addendum by Lady Knowles_
In response to a widely expressed wish for a fresh edition of this little
book--now for some years out of print--a new and ninth edition has been
prepared.
In his preface my husband says that the intimacy with Lord Tennyson to
which it led was the chief pleasure the book brought him. I have been
asked to furnish a few more particulars on this point that may be
generally interesting, and feel that I cannot do better than give some
extracts from a letter written by himself to a friend in July 1896.
"DEAR ----,
"I am so _very_ glad you approve of my little effort to popularise the
Arthur Legends. Tennyson had written his first four 'Idylls of the King'
before my book appeared, which was in 1861. Indeed, it was in consequence
of the first four Idylls that I sought and obtained, while yet a stranger
to him, leave to dedicate my venture to him. He was extremely kind about
it--declared 'it ought to go through forty editions'--and when I came to
know him personally talked very frequently about it and Arthur with me,
and made constant use of it when he at length yielded to my perpetual
urgency and took up again his forsaken project of treating the whole
subject of King Arthur.
"He discussed and rediscussed at any amount of length the way in which
this could now be done--and the Symbolism, which had from his earliest
time haunted him as the inner meaning to be given to it, brought him back
to the Poem in its changed shape of separate pictures.
"He used often to say that it was entirely my doing that he revived his
old plan, and added, 'I know more about Arthur than any other man in
England, and I think you know next most.' It would amuse you to see in
what intimate detail he used to consult with me--and often with my little
book in front of us--over the various tales, and when I wrote an article
(in the shape of a long letter) in the _Spectator_ of January 1870 he
asked to reprint it, and published it with the collected Idylls.
"For years, while his boys were at school and college, I acted as his
confidential friend in business and many other matters, and I suppose he
told me more about himself and his life than any other man now living
knows."
ISABEL KNOWLES.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
The Finding of Merlin--The Fight of the Dragons--The Giants' Dance--The
Prophecies of Merlin and the Birth of Arthur--Uther attacks the
Saxons--The Death of Uther
CHAPTER II
Merlin's Advice to the Archbishop--The Miracle of the Sword and Stone--The
Coronation of King Arthur--The Opposition of the Six Kings--The Sword
Excalibur--The Defeat of the Six Kings--The War with the Eleven Kings
CHAPTER III
The Adventure of the Questing Beast--The Siege of York--The Battles of
Celidon Forest and Badon Hill--King Arthur drives the Saxons from the
Realm--The Embassy from Rome--The King rescues Merlin--The Knight of the
Fountain
CHAPTER IV
King Arthur conquers Ireland and Norway--Slays the Giant of St. Michael's
Mount and conquers Gaul--King Ryence's Insolent Message--The Damsel and
the Sword--The Lady of the Lake--The Adventures of Sir Balin
CHAPTER V
Sir Balin kills Sir Lancear--The Sullen Knight--The Knight Invisible is
killed--Sir Balin smites the Dolorous Stroke, and fights with his brother
Sir Balan
CHAPTER VI
The Marriage of King Arthur and Guinevere--The Coronation of the
Queen--The Founding of the Round Table--The Quest of the White Hart--The
Adventures of Sir Gawain--The Quest of the White Hound--Sir Tor kills
Abellius--The Adventures of Sir Pellinore--The Death of Sir
Hantzlake--Merlin saves King Arthur
CHAPTER VII
King Arthur and Sir Accolon of Gaul are entrapped by Sir Damas--They fight
each other through Enchantment of Queen Morgan le Fay--Sir Damas is
compelled to surrender all his Lands to Sir Outzlake his Brother their
Rightful Owner--Queen Morgan essays to kill King Arthur with a Magic
Garment--Her Damsel is compelled to wear it and is thereby burned to
Cinders
CHAPTER VIII
A Second Embassy from Rome--King Arthur's Answer--The Emperor assembles
his Armies--King Arthur slays the Emperor--Sir Gawain and Sir
Prianius--The Lombards are defeated--King Arthur crowned at Rome
CHAPTER IX
The Adventures of Sir Lancelot--He and his Cousin Sir Lionel set
forth--The Four Witch-Queens--King Bagdemagus--Sir Lancelot slays Sir
Turquine and delivers his Captive Knights--The Foul Knight--Sir Gaunter
attacks Sir Lancelot--The Four Knights--Sir Lancelot comes to the Chapel
Perilous--Ellawes the Sorceress--The Lady and the Falcon--Sir Bedivere and
the Dead Lady
CHAPTER X
Beaumains is made a Kitchen Page by Sir Key--He claims the Adventure of
the Damsel Linet--He fights with Sir Lancelot and is knighted by him in
his True Name of Gareth--Is flouted by the Damsel Linet--But overthrows
all Knights he meets and sends them to King Arthur's Court--He delivers
the Lady Lyones from the Knight of the Redlands--The Tournament before
Castle Perilous--Marriage of Sir Gareth and the Lady Lyones
CHAPTER XI
The Adventures of Sir Tristram--His Stepmother--He is knighted--Fights
with Sir Marhaus--Sir Palomedes and La Belle Isault--Sir Bleoberis and Sir
Segwarides--Sir Tristram's Quest--His Return--The Castle Pluere--Sir
Brewnor is slain--Sir Kay Hedius--La Belle Isault's Hound--Sir Dinedan
refuses to fight--Sir Pellinore follows Sir Tristram--Sir
Brewse-without-pity--The Tournament at the Maiden's Castle--Sir Palomedes
and Sir Tristram
CHAPTER XII
Merlin is bewitched by a Damsel of the Lady of the Lake--Galahad knighted
by Sir Lancelot--The Perilous Seat--The Marvellous Sword--Sir Galahad in
the Perilous Seat--The Sangreal--The Knights vow themselves to its
Quest--The Shield of the White Knight--The Fiend of the Tomb--Sir Galahad
at the Maiden's Castle--The Sick Knight and the Sangreal--Sir Lancelot
declared unworthy to find the Holy Vessel--Sir Percival seeks Sir
Galahad--The Black Steed--Sir Bors and the Hermit--Sir Pridan le Noir--Sir
Lionel's Anger--He meets Sir Percival--The ship "Faith"--Sir Galahad and
Earl Hernox--The Leprous Lady--Sir Galahad discloses himself to Sir
Lancelot--They part--The Blind King Evelake--Sir Galahad finds the
Sangreal--His Death
CHAPTER XIII
The Queen quarrels with Sir Lancelot--She is accused of Murder--Her
Champion proves her innocence--The Tourney at Camelot--Sir Lancelot in the
Tourney--Sir Baldwin the Knight-Hermit--Elaine, the Maid of Astolat, seeks
for Sir Lancelot--She tends his Wounds--Her Death--The Queen and Sir
Lancelot are reconciled
CHAPTER XIV
Sir Lancelot attacked by Sir Agravaine, Sir Modred, and thirteen other
Knights--He slays them all but Sir Modred--He leaves the Court--Sir Modred
accuses him to the King--The Queen condemned to be burnt--Her rescue by
Sir Lancelot and flight with him--The War between Sir Lancelot and the
King--The Enmity of Sir Gawain--The Usurpation of Sir Modred--The Queen
retires to a Nunnery--Sir Lancelot goes on Pilgrimage--The Battle of
Barham Downs--Sir Bedivere and the Sword Excalibur--The Death of King
Arthur
ILLUSTRATOR'S NOTE
Of scenes from the Legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round
Table many lovely pictures have been painted, showing much diversity of
figures and surroundings, some being definitely sixth-century British or
Saxon, as in Blair Leighton's fine painting of the dead Elaine;
others--for example, Watts' Sir Galahad--show knight and charger in
fifteenth-century armour; while the warriors of Burne Jones wear strangely
impracticable armour of some mystic period. Each of these painters was
free to follow his own conception, putting the figures into whatever
period most appealed to his imagination; for he was not illustrating the
actual tales written by Sir Thomas Malory, otherwise he would have found
himself face to face with a difficulty.
King Arthur and his knights fought, endured, and toiled in the sixth
century, when the Saxons were overrunning Britain; but their achievements
were not chronicled by Sir Thomas Malory until late in the fifteenth
century.
Sir Thomas, as Froissart has done before him, described the habits of
life, the dresses, weapons, and armour that his own eyes looked upon in
the every-day scenes about him, regardless of the fact that almost every
detail mentioned was something like a thousand years too late.
Had Malory undertaken an account of the landing of Julius Caesar he would,
as a matter of course, have protected the Roman legions with bascinet or
salade, breastplate, pauldron and palette, coudiére, taces and the rest,
and have armed them with lance and shield, jewel-hilted sword and slim
misericorde; while the Emperor himself might have been given the very suit
of armour stripped from the Duke of Clarence before his fateful encounter
with the butt of malmsey.
Did not even Shakespeare calmly give cannon to the Romans and suppose
every continental city to lie majestically beside the sea? By the old
writers, accuracy in these matters was disregarded, and anachronisms were
not so much tolerated as unperceived.
In illustrating this edition of "The Legends of King Arthur and his
Knights," it has seemed best, and indeed unavoidable if the text and the
pictures are to tally, to draw what Malory describes, to place the fashion
of the costumes and armour somewhere about A.D. 1460, and to arm the
knights in accordance with the Tabard Period.
LANCELOT SPEED.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Marriage of King Arthur
Then fell Sir Ector down upon his knees upon the ground before young
Arthur, and Sir Key also with him.
The Lady of the Lake
The giant sat at supper, gnawing on a limb of a man, and baking his huge
frame by the fire
The castle rocked and rove throughout, and all the walls fell crashed and
breaking to the earth
Came forth twelve fair damsels, and saluted King Arthur by his name
Prianius was christened, and made a duke and knight of the Round Table
Sir Lancelot smote down with one spear five knights, and brake the backs
of four, and cast down the King of Northgales
Beyond the chapel, he met a fair damsel, who said, "Sir Lancelot, leave
that sword behind thee, or thou diest"
"Lady," replied Sir Beaumains, "a knight is little worth who may not bear
with a damsel"
So he rode into the hall and alighted
Then they began the battle, and tilted at their hardest against each other
And running to her chamber, she sought in her casket for the piece of
iron ... and fitted it in Tristram's sword
By the time they had finished drinking they loved each other so well that
their love never more might leave them
Waving her hands and muttering the charm, and presently enclosed him fast
within the tree
Galahad ... quickly lifted up the stone, and forthwith came out a foul
smoke
"This girdle, lords," said she, "is made for the most part of mine own
hair, which, while I was yet in the world, I loved full well"
At last the strange knight smote him to the earth, and gave him such a
buffet on the helm as wellnigh killed him
Then was Sir Lancelot sent for, and the letter read aloud by a clerk
But still the knights cried mightily without the door, "Traitor, come
forth!"
THE LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR
CHAPTER I
_The Prophecies of Merlin, and the Birth of Arthur_
King Vortigern the usurper sat upon his throne in London, when, suddenly,
upon a certain day, ran in a breathless messenger, and cried aloud--
"Arise, Lord King, for the enemy is come; even Ambrosius and Uther, upon
whose throne thou sittest--and full twenty thousand with them--and they
have sworn by a great oath, Lord, to slay thee, ere this year be done; and
even now they march towards thee as the north wind of winter for
bitterness and haste."
At those words Vortigern's face grew white as ashes, and, rising in
confusion and disorder, he sent for all the best artificers and craftsmen
and mechanics, and commanded them vehemently to go and build him
straightway in the furthest west of his lands a great and strong castle,
where he might fly for refuge and escape the vengeance of his master's
sons--"and, moreover," cried he, "let the work be done within a hundred
days from now, or I will surely spare no life amongst you all."
Then all the host of craftsmen, fearing for their lives, found out a
proper site whereon to build the tower, and eagerly began to lay in the
foundations. But no sooner were the walls raised up above the ground than
all their work was overwhelmed and broken down by night invisibly, no man
perceiving how, or by whom, or what. And the same thing happening again,
and yet again, all the workmen, full of terror, sought out the king, and
threw themselves upon their faces before him, beseeching him to interfere
and help them or to deliver them from their dreadful work.
Filled with mixed rage and fear, the king called for the astrologers and
wizards, and took counsel with them what these things might be, and how to
overcome them. The wizards worked their spells and incantations, and in
the end declared that nothing but the blood of a youth born without mortal
father, smeared on the foundations of the castle, could avail to make it
stand. Messengers were therefore sent forthwith through all the land to
find, if it were possible, such a child. And, as some of them went down a
certain village street, they saw a band of lads fighting and quarrelling,
and heard them shout at one--"Avaunt, thou imp!--avaunt! Son of no mortal
man! go, find thy father, and leave us in peace."
At that the messengers looked steadfastly on the lad, and asked who he
was. One said his name was Merlin; another, that his birth and parentage
were known by no man; a third, that the foul fiend alone was his father.
Hearing the things, the officers seized Merlin, and carried him before the
king by force.
But no sooner was he brought to him than he asked in a loud voice, for
what cause he was thus dragged there?
"My magicians," answered Vortigern, "told me to seek out a man that had no
human father, and to sprinkle my castle with his blood, that it may
stand."
"Order those magicians," said Merlin, "to come before me, and I will
convict them of a lie."
The king was astonished at his words, but commanded the magicians to come
and sit down before Merlin, who cried to them--
"Because ye know not what it is that hinders the foundation of the castle,
ye have advised my blood for a cement to it, as if that would avail; but
tell me now rather what there is below that ground, for something there is
surely underneath that will not suffer the tower to stand?"
The wizards at these words began to fear, and made no answer. Then said
Merlin to the king--
"I pray, Lord, that workmen may be ordered to dig deep down into the
ground till they shall come to a great pool of water."
This then was done, and the pool discovered far beneath the surface of the
ground.
Then, turning again to the magicians, Merlin said, "Tell me now, false
sycophants, what there is underneath that pool?"--but they were silent.
Then said he to the king, "Command this pool to be drained, and at the
bottom shall be found two dragons, great and huge, which now are sleeping,
but which at night awake and fight and tear each other. At their great
struggle all the ground shakes and trembles, and so casts down thy towers,
which, therefore, never yet could find secure foundations."
The king was amazed at these words, but commanded the pool to be forthwith
drained; and surely at the bottom of it did they presently discover the
two dragons, fast asleep, as Merlin had declared.
But Vortigern sat upon the brink of the pool till night to see what else
would happen.
Then those two dragons, one of which was white, the other red, rose up and
came near one another, and began a sore fight, and cast forth fire with
their breath. But the white dragon had the advantage, and chased the other
to the end of the lake. And he, for grief at his flight, turned back upon
his foe, and renewed the combat, and forced him to retire in turn. But in
the end the red dragon was worsted, and the white dragon disappeared no
man knew where.
When their battle was done, the king desired Merlin to tell him what it
meant. Whereat he, bursting into tears, cried out this prophecy, which
first foretold the coming of King Arthur.
"Woe to the red dragon, which figureth the British nation, for his
banishment cometh quickly; his lurkingholes shall be seized by the white
dragon--the Saxon whom thou, O king, hast called to the land. The
mountains shall be levelled as the valleys, and the rivers of the valleys
shall run blood; cities shall be burned, and churches laid in ruins; till
at length the oppressed shall turn for a season and prevail against the
strangers. For a Boar of Cornwall shall arise and rend them, and trample
their necks beneath his feet. The island shall be subject to his power,
and he shall take the forests of Gaul. The house of Romulus shall dread
him--all the world shall fear him--and his end shall no man know; he shall
be immortal in the mouths of the people, and his works shall be food to
those that tell them.
"But as for thee, O Vortigern, flee thou the sons of Constantine, for they
shall burn thee in thy tower. For thine own ruin wast thou traitor to
their father, and didst bring the Saxon heathens to the land. Aurelius and
Uther are even now upon thee to revenge their father's murder; and the
brood of the white dragon shall waste thy country, and shall lick thy
blood. Find out some refuge, if thou wilt! but who may escape the doom of
God?"
The king heard all this, trembling greatly; and, convicted of his sins,
said nothing in reply. Only he hasted the builders of his tower by day and
night, and rested not till he had fled thereto.
In the meantime, Aurelius, the rightful king, was hailed with joy by the
Britons, who flocked to his standard, and prayed to be led against the
Saxons. But he, till he had first killed Vortigern, would begin no other
war. He marched therefore to Cambria, and came before the tower which the
usurper had built. Then, crying out to all his knights, "Avenge ye on him
who hath ruined Britain and slain my father and your king!" he rushed with
many thousands at the castle walls. But, being driven back again and yet
again, at length he thought of fire, and ordered blazing brands to be cast
into the building from all sides. These finding soon a proper fuel, ceased
not to rage, till spreading to a mighty conflagration, they burned down
the tower and Vortigern within it.
Then did Aurelius turn his strength against Hengist and the Saxons, and,
defeating them in many places, weakened their power for a long season, so
that the land had peace.
Anon the king, making many journeys to and fro, restoring ruined churches
and, creating order, came to the monastery near Salisbury, where all those
British knights lay buried who had been slain there by the treachery of
Hengist. For when in former times Hengist had made a solemn truce with
Vortigern, to meet in peace and settle terms, whereby himself and all his
Saxons should depart from Britain, the Saxon soldiers carried every one of
them beneath his garment a long dagger, and, at a given signal, fell upon
the Britons, and slew them, to the number of nearly five hundred.
The sight of the place where the dead lay moved Aurelius to great sorrow,
and he cast about in his mind how to make a worthy tomb over so many noble
martyrs, who had died there for their country.
When he had in vain consulted many craftsmen and builders, he sent, by the
advice of the archbishop, for Merlin, and asked him what to do. "If you
would honour the burying-place of these men," said Merlin, "with an
everlasting monument, send for the Giants' Dance which is in Killaraus, a
mountain in Ireland; for there is a structure of stone there which none of
this age could raise without a perfect knowledge of the arts. They are
stones of a vast size and wondrous nature, and if they can be placed here
as they are there, round this spot of ground, they will stand for ever."
At these words of Merlin, Aurelius burst into laughter, and said, "How is
it possible to remove such vast stones from so great a distance, as if
Britain, also, had no stones fit for the work?"
"I pray the king," said Merlin, "to forbear vain laughter; what I have
said is true, for those stones are mystical and have healing virtues. The
giants of old brought them from the furthest coast of Africa, and placed
them in Ireland while they lived in that country: and their design was to
make baths in them, for use in time of grievous illness. For if they
washed the stones and put the sick into the water, it certainly healed
them, as also it did them that were wounded in battle; and there is no
stone among them but hath the same virtue still."
When the Britons heard this, they resolved to send for the stones, and to
make war upon the people of Ireland if they offered to withhold them. So,
when they had chosen Uther the king's brother for their chief, they set
sail, to the number of 15,000 men, and came to Ireland. There Gillomanius,
the king, withstood them fiercely, and not till after a great battle could
they approach the Giants' Dance, the sight of which filled them with joy
and admiration. But when they sought to move the stones, the strength of
all the army was in vain, until Merlin, laughing at their failures,
contrived machines of wondrous cunning, which took them down with ease,
and placed them in the ships.
When they had brought the whole to Salisbury, Aurelius, with the crown
upon his head, kept for four days the feast of Pentecost with royal pomp;
and in the midst of all the clergy and the people, Merlin raised up the
stones, and set them round the sepulchre of the knights and barons, as
they stood in the mountains of Ireland.
Then was the monument called "Stonehenge," which stands, as all men know,
upon the plain of Salisbury to this very day.
Soon thereafter it befell that Aurelius was slain by poison at Winchester,
and was himself buried within the Giants' Dance.
At the same time came forth a comet of amazing size and brightness,
darting out a beam, at the end whereof was a cloud of fire shaped like a
dragon, from whose mouth went out two rays, one stretching over Gaul, the
other ending in seven lesser rays over the Irish sea.
At the appearance of this star a great dread fell upon the people, and
Uther, marching into Cambria against the son of Vortigern, himself was
very troubled to learn what it might mean. Then Merlin, being called
before him, cried with a loud voice: "O mighty loss! O stricken Britain!
Alas! the great prince is gone from us. Aurelius Ambrosius is dead, whose
death will be ours also, unless God help us. Haste, therefore, noble
Uther, to destroy the enemy; the victory shall be thine, and thou shalt be
king of all Britain. For the star with the fiery dragon signifies thyself;
and the ray over Gaul portends that thou shalt have a son, most mighty,
whom all those kingdoms shall obey which the ray covers."
Thus, for the second time, did Merlin foretell the coming of King Arthur.
And Uther, when he was made king, remembered Merlin's words, and caused
two dragons to be made in gold, in likeness of the dragon he had seen in
the star. One of these he gave to Winchester Cathedral, and had the other
carried into all his wars before him, whence he was ever after called
Uther Pendragon, or the dragon's head.
Now, when Uther Pendragon had passed through all the land, and settled
it--and even voyaged into all the countries of the Scots, and tamed the
fierceness of that rebel people--he came to London, and ministered justice
there. And it befell at a certain great banquet and high feast which the
king made at Easter-tide, there came, with many other earls and barons,
Gorloïs, Duke of Cornwall, and his wife Igerna, who was the most famous
beauty in all Britain. And soon thereafter, Gorloïs being slain in battle,
Uther determined to make Igerna his own wife. But in order to do this, and
enable him to come to her--for she was shut up in the high castle of
Tintagil, on the furthest coast of Cornwall--the king sent for Merlin, to
take counsel with him and to pray his help. This, therefore, Merlin
promised him on one condition--namely, that the king should give him up
the first son born of the marriage. For Merlin by his arts foreknew that
this firstborn should be the long-wished prince, King Arthur.
When Uther, therefore, was at length happily wedded, Merlin came to the
castle on a certain day, and said, "Sir, thou must now provide thee for
the nourishing of thy child."
And the king, nothing doubting, said, "Be it as thou wilt."
"I know a lord of thine in this land," said Merlin, "who is a man both
true and faithful; let him have the nourishing of the child. His name is
Sir Ector, and he hath fair possessions both in England and in Wales.
When, therefore, the child is born, let him be delivered unto me,
unchristened, at yonder postern-gate, and I will bestow him in the care of
this good knight."
So when the child was born, the king bid two knights and two ladies to
take it, bound in rich cloth of gold, and deliver it to a poor man whom
they should discover at the postern-gate. And the child being delivered
thus to Merlin, who himself took the guise of a poor man, was carried by
him to a holy priest and christened by the name of Arthur, and then was
taken to Sir Ector's house, and nourished at Sir Ector's wife's own
breasts. And in the same house he remained privily for many years, no man
soever knowing where he was, save Merlin and the king.
Anon it befell that the king was seized by a lingering distemper, and the
Saxon heathens, taking their occasion, came back from over sea, and
swarmed upon the land, wasting it with fire and sword. When Uther heard
thereof, he fell into a greater rage than his weakness could bear, and
commanded all his nobles to come before him, that he might upbraid them
for their cowardice. And when he had sharply and hotly rebuked them, he
swore that he himself, nigh unto death although he lay, would lead them
forth against the enemy. Then causing a horse-litter to be made, in which
he might be carried--for he was too faint and weak to ride--he went up
with all his army swiftly against the Saxons.
But they, when they heard that Uther was coming in a litter, disdained to
fight with him, saying it would be shame for brave men to fight with one
half dead. So they retired into their city; and, as it were in scorn of
danger, left the gates wide open. But Uther straightway commanding his men
to assault the town, they did so without loss of time, and had already
reached the gates, when the Saxons, repenting too late of their haughty
pride, rushed forth to the defence. The battle raged till night, and was
begun again next day; but at last, their leaders, Octa and Eosa, being
slain, the Saxons turned their backs and fled, leaving the Britons a full
triumph.
The king at this felt so great joy, that, whereas before he could scarce
raise himself without help, he now sat upright in his litter by himself,
and said, with a laughing and merry face, "They called me the half-dead
king, and so indeed I was; but victory to me half dead is better than
defeat and the best health. For to die with honour is far better than to
live disgraced."
But the Saxons, although thus defeated, were ready still for war. Uther
would have pursued them; but his illness had by now so grown, that his
knights and barons kept him from the adventure. Whereat the enemy took
courage, and left nothing undone to destroy the land; until, descending to
the vilest treachery, they resolved to kill the king by poison.
To this end, as he lay sick at Verulam, they sent and poisoned stealthily
a spring of clear water, whence he was wont to drink daily; and so, on the
very next day, he was taken with the pains of death, as were also a
hundred others after him, before the villainy was discovered, and heaps of
earth thrown over the well.
The knights and barons, full of sorrow, now took counsel together, and
came to Merlin for his help to learn the king's will before he died, for
he was by this time speechless. "Sirs, there is no remedy," said Merlin,
"and God's will must be done; but be ye all to-morrow before him, for God
will make him speak before he die."
So on the morrow all the barons, with Merlin, stood round the bedside of
the king; and Merlin said aloud to Uther, "Lord, shall thy son Arthur be
the king of all this realm after thy days?"
Then Uther Pendragon turned him about, and said, in the hearing of them
all, "God's blessing and mine be upon him. I bid him pray for my soul, and
also that he claim my crown, or forfeit all my blessing;" and with those
words he died.
Then came together all the bishops and the clergy, and great multitudes of
people, and bewailed the king; and carrying his body to the convent of
Ambrius, they buried it close by his brother's grave, within the "Giants'
Dance."