Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: "PERCIVALE SAW A SHIP COMING TOWARD THE LAND."]
THE KNIGHTS OF
THE ROUND TABLE
_STORIES OF KING ARTHUR
AND THE HOLY GRAIL_
BY
WILLIAM HENRY FROST
ILLUSTRATED BY SYDNEY RICHMOND BURLEIGH
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1897
COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Each 1 vol., 12mo, Illustrated by SIDNEY
R. BURLEIGH. Price, $1.50
THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
THE COURT OF KING ARTHUR
THE WAGNER STORY BOOK
To
MY FATHER
John Dudley Frost
*CONTENTS*
*CHAPTER I*
On Glastonbury Tor
*CHAPTER II*
How We Discovered Camelot
*CHAPTER III*
The Boy from the Forest
*CHAPTER IV*
The Queen's Robing-Room
*CHAPTER V*
"Camelot, that is in English Winchester"
*CHAPTER VI*
The Boat on the River
*CHAPTER VII*
The Giants' Dance
*CHAPTER VIII*
On the Edge of Lyonnesse
*CHAPTER IX*
The Siege Perilous
*CHAPTER X*
Gawain
*CHAPTER XI*
Lancelot
*CHAPTER XII*
Bors
*CHAPTER XIII*
Percivale
*CHAPTER XIV*
Galahad
*CHAPTER XV*
The City of Sarras
*CHAPTER XVI*
Stories of Strange Stones
*CHAPTER XVII*
"And on the Mere the Wailing Died Away"
*CHAPTER XVIII*
The Abbess and the Monk
*CHAPTER XIX*
"Rexque Futurus"
*LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*
"Percivale saw a ship coming toward the land." . . . _Frontispiece_
Glastonbury Tor
"As he played a storm began to rise"
The abbot's kitchen
"The city and the fortress of the rabbits"
"Kay's horse galloped back alone" (missing from book)
The Tower of London
The Round Table at Winchester
Winchester Cathedral
Stonehenge
St. Michael's Mount
The Land's End
"The bright spot on the road grew smaller and smaller" (missing from
book)
"A pasture where a hundred and fifty bulls were feeding"
"Through woods where there were scarcely any paths to follow"
"He saw the water before him and a ship"
"'Knight,' she said, 'what are you doing here?'"
"'It was King Evelake's shield'"
"'I cut off my hair and wove it into a girdle'"
The Dove with the golden censer
The Cheesewring
St. Joseph's Chapel, Glastonbury Abbey
"The two great waves broke upon each other"
The Choir, Glastonbury Abbey
"On toward the gold and the purple in the west"
*SOME OLDER STORY-TELLERS*
There is really no need, perhaps, for me to tell you that all these
stories have been told before. But, though you know it already, I like
to say it again, because I can never say often enough how grateful I am
to those who told the world first of Arthur, of Guinevere, of Lancelot,
and of Gawain; of Galahad, of Percivale, and of Percivale's sister; of
the Siege Perilous and of the Holy Grail. If you do not now count Sir
Thomas Malory a dear friend, as I do, learn to do it, and you will be
the better for it. I do not know who made those wonderful tales the
Mabinogion, but I know who gave them to us in our own language--Lady
Charlotte Guest. I wish that I knew whom to thank for "The Romance of
Merlin" and for the story of "Gawain and the Green Knight." And there
were many other noble story-tellers of the old time who passed away and
left us no knowledge of themselves and not even their names to call them
by. But they left us their stories, and if anything from us can reach
them where they are, surely gratitude can, and that they must have from
every one of us who loves a story. And the great poet of our own days,
Lord Tennyson, must have it too, for teaching us how to read their
stories.
Some time you may read these tales and others as they wrote them, and
you cannot read them without thinking what a great and marvellous thing
it was that they, who lived no longer than other men, could give delight
to the people of so many centuries. But some of these stories are not
easy to find, and some are not easy to read, when you have found them. I
have tried to tell a few of them again in my own way, hoping that thus
some might have the stories and know them, for whom the older books
might be hard to get or hard to understand.
[Illustration: Glastonbury Tor]
*THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE*
*CHAPTER I*
*ON GLASTONBURY TOR*
It was when we were making a journey in the South of England one summer
that we found ourselves in the midst of the old tales of King Arthur and
of the Holy Grail. "We" means Helen, Helen's mother, and me. We
wandered about the country, here and there and wherever our fancy led
us, and everywhere the stories of King Arthur fell in our way. In this
place he was born, in that place he was crowned; here he fought a
battle, there he held a tournament. Everything could remind us, when we
knew how to be reminded, of the stories of the King and the Queen and
the knights of the Round Table.
It was I who told the stories and it was Helen who listened to them.
Sometimes Helen's mother listened to them too, and sometimes she had
other things to do that she cared about more.
One day we had been riding for many hours on the crooked railways of the
Southwest, where you change cars so often that after a little while you
cannot remember at all how many trains you have taken. And late in the
afternoon, or perhaps early in the evening, we saw from the window of
the carriage a big hill, lifting itself high up against the sky, with a
lonely tower on the top of it. And that was Glastonbury Tor.
There was no time to try to see anything of Glastonbury that night after
dinner, and we were too tired. But that big hill looked so inviting
that we decided that we would see it the next day and climb up to the
top of it, before we did anything else. I was a little disappointed
with Glastonbury, as we walked through the streets on our way to the
Tor. The place looked much too prosperous to please me, and not at all
too neat.
I cheered up a little when we came to the Abbot's Kitchen. It stands in
the middle of a big field, with a fence around it, and we had to borrow
a key from a woman who kept it to lend so that we could go in and see
it. We even spared a little time from the Tor to see it in. The Abbot's
Kitchen belonged to the old abbey of Glastonbury. It is a small, square
building, with a fireplace in each corner. It is still in such good
repair that it is hardly fair to call it a ruin, but it is a part of old
Glastonbury, and we carried back the key feeling glad that we had
borrowed it.
It was a good, stiff climb up the side of the Tor, and we stopped more
than once to look back at the town behind us and below us. It looked
prettier from here. Down there in the streets there was the noise of a
busy modern town. The ways were muddy and there were rather frowsy
women and children about some of the doors. But up here we were out of
sight and hearing of all that. From here the town looked quiet and
peaceful and beautiful--just its roofs and chimneys and towers showing
through the wide, green masses of the trees, and the sound of a church
chime, that rang every quarter of an hour, came to us softened and
mellow.
"Down there," I said, "we saw nothing but Glastonbury--to-day's
Glastonbury--but here we can see Avalon. That is Avalon down there
below us, the Island of Apples, the happy country, the place where there
was no sorrow, the place where fairies lived, the place where Joseph
brought the Holy Grail and where he built his church. A wonderful old
place it was, and it was a wonderful abbey that grew up where Joseph
first made his little chapel. Our old friend St. Dunstan, who pinched
the devil's nose, was the abbot there once. So was St. Patrick. When
he came to Glastonbury he climbed up to the top of this hill where we
are now and found, where this old tower is, the ruins of a church of St.
Michael. They used to have a way of building churches to St. Michael on
the tops of high hills. St. Patrick rebuilt this one and afterwards it
was thrown down by an earthquake. I don't know whether St. Patrick
built this tower that is here now or not.
"Did I say that fairies used to live here? Another abbot of Glastonbury
found that out. He was St. Collen, and he must have lived when there was
no church of St. Michael here on the top of the Tor. St. Collen was one
of those men who think that they cannot serve God and live in comfort at
the same time. When he had been abbot of Glastonbury for a time he
thought that he was leading too easy a life, so he gave up his post and
went about preaching. But even that did not please him, so he came back
here and made a cell in the rock on the side of Glastonbury Tor, and
lived in it as a hermit.
"One day he heard two men outside his cell talking about Gwyn, the son
of Nudd. And one of them said: 'Gwyn, the son of Nudd, is the King of
the Fairies.'
"Then Collen put his head out of the door of his cell and said to the
two men: 'Do not talk of such wicked things. There are no fairies, or
if there are they are devils. And there is no Gwyn, the son of Nudd.
Hold your tongues about him.'
"'Hold your own tongue about him,' one of the men answered, 'or you will
hear from him in some unpleasant way.'
"The men went away, and by and by Collen heard a knock at his door, and
a voice asked if he were in his cell. 'I am here,' he answered; 'who is
it that asks?'
"'I am a messenger from Gwyn, the son of Nudd, the King of the Fairies,'
the voice said, 'and he has sent me to command you to come and speak
with him on the top of the hill at noon.'
"Collen did not think that he ought to mind what the King of the Fairies
said to him, if there really were any King of the Fairies, so he stayed
in his cell all day. The next day the messenger came again and said
just what he had said before, and again St. Collen stayed in his cell
all day. But the third day the messenger came again and said to Collen
that he must come and speak with Gwyn, the son of Nudd, the King of the
Fairies, on the top of the hill, at noon, or it would be the worse for
him.
"Then Collen took a flask and filled it with holy water and fastened it
at his waist, and at noon he went up the hill. For a long time Collen
had been abbot of Glastonbury and for a long time he had been a hermit
and lived in his cell on the side of this very hill, but never before
had he seen the great castle that stood that day on the top of
Glastonbury Tor. It did not look heavy, as if it were built for war,
but it was wonderfully high and graceful and beautiful. It had tall
towers, with banners of every color hung from the tops of them and lower
down, and there were battlements where ladies and squires in rich
dresses stood and looked down at other ladies and squires below. And
those below were dancing and jousting and playing games, and all around
there were soldiers, handsomely dressed too, guarding the place.
"When Collen came near, a dozen of the people met him and said to him:
'You must come with us to our King, Gwyn, the son of Nudd--he is waiting
for you.'
"And they led him into the castle and into the great hall. In the
middle of the hall was a table, spread with more delicious things to eat
than poor St. Collen, who thought that it was wicked to eat good things,
had ever dreamed of. And at the head of the table, on a gold chair, sat
a man who wore a crown. 'Collen,' he said, 'I am the King of the
Fairies, Gwyn, the son of Nudd. Do you believe in me now? Sit down and
eat with me, and let us talk together. You are a learned man, but you
did not believe in me. Perhaps I can tell you of other things that so
wise a man as you ought to know.'
"But St. Collen only took the flask of holy water from his side and
threw some of it upon Gwyn, the son of Nudd, and sprinkled some of it
around, and in an instant there was no king there and there was no
table. The hall was gone, and the castle. The dances and the games
were done, and the squires and the ladies and the soldiers all had
vanished. The whole of the fairy palace was gone, and Collen was left
standing alone on the top of Glastonbury Tor.
"But Glastonbury has forgotten St. Collen, I suppose. The old town is
prouder now of Joseph of Arimathaea than of anybody else--prouder than
it is of King Arthur, I think, though King Arthur--but I won't tell you
about that now. You know how Joseph of Arimathaea buried the Christ in
his tomb after He was taken down from the cross. After He had risen
again the Jews put Joseph in prison, because they said that he had
stolen the body. But Joseph had with him the Holy Grail, the cup in
which he had caught the blood of the Saviour, when He was on the cross.
It was the same cup, too, from which the Saviour had drunk at the Last
Supper. It was a wonderful thing, that cup, and there are whole volumes
of stories about it. The blood that Joseph had caught in it always
stayed in it afterwards, and the cup and the blood seemed to have a
strange sort of life and knowledge and the power of choosing. One of
the wonderful things about the Holy Grail was that it could always give
food to any one whom it chose, and those who were fed by the Holy Grail
wanted no other food than what it gave them. And so Joseph wanted
nothing while he was in prison.
"At last the Emperor had Joseph let out of his prison. And some one
asked him how long it had been since he was put there, and he answered:
'I have been here in this prison for nearly three days.'
"Then they all stared at one another and whispered and looked at Joseph,
and then they whispered together again. 'Why do you look at one another
and at me so,' said Joseph, 'is it not three days, almost, since they
put me here?'
"'It is wonderful,' said one of them; 'Joseph, you have been in this
prison for forty-two years.'
"'Can it be?' said Joseph; 'it seems to me like only three days, and
barely that, and I have never been so happy in my life as I have been
for these three days--or these--can it be--forty-two years?'
"And this was because he had had the Holy Grail in the prison with him.
Afterwards he came to England. He brought the Holy Grail here to
Avalon, and the King of that time gave him some ground to build his
church on. They say it was really the island of Avalon then, for it was
all surrounded by marsh and water, and there was an opening, a waterway,
out to the Bristol Channel. And since it ceased to be an island the sea
has twice at least broken through and made it one again for a little
while. But the last time was almost two hundred years ago.
"Well, when Joseph and those who were with him first came here, they
rested on the hillside and Joseph stuck the staff that he carried into
the ground. It was not this hill where we are, but another, Wearyall
Hill. And Joseph's staff, where he had set it in the ground, began to
bud, and then leaves and branches grew on it. It struck roots into the
ground and became a tree. It was a thorn-tree, the Holy Thorn they
called it, and always after that it blossomed twice a year, once in the
time of other thorn-trees and again at Christmas. The tree was gone, of
course, long ago, but other trees had grown from slips of it, and they
say that descendants of it are still growing in Glastonbury gardens and
that they still bloom at Christmas. I am sorry that we cannot stay here
till Christmas to see if it is true.
"So, in the place that the King gave him, Joseph built his chapel of
wood and woven twigs, and it was the first Christian church in England.
Some of the stories say that the Holy Grail, that Joseph brought here
with him, was buried at last under one of these Glastonbury hills, but
that is not the story that I like the best. One story says that it was
not a cup at all that Joseph brought to Avalon, but two cruets. It says
besides that these two cruets were buried with Joseph when he died, and
that when his grave is found, and the two cruets in it, there will never
again be any drought in England. But according to the story that I like
best, Joseph did not die at all, as other men die, but was long kept
alive by the Holy Grail, waiting for the best knight of the world, for
it was foretold that he should never die till the best knight of the
world should come.
"Since it was here that the Grail was brought, I think it must have been
not far from here that King Pelles lived, before Balin gave him the
wound that was never to heal till the best of all knights should come.
And I fancy it was somewhere near here, too, that he lived after that.
He was the keeper of the Grail, and he had a castle called Carbonek.
When we talk of the Grail it seems to me that everything becomes
mysterious and uncertain, so that it is hard to tell where this Castle
of Carbonek was. At one time it seems to have been on the seashore and
at another time it seems to have been inland. But for that very reason
I think that Avalon is as likely a place for it as any, for this place
was inland, just as it is now, but then the waters of the sea came in
around it. Yet the land around King Pelles's old castle was all laid
waste, and I have never heard that the land around Avalon was so. But
you see that it is all uncertain and strange, and we cannot be sure of
anything about it.
"I think I have told you the story about King Pelles and Balin before,
but I will tell you a little of it again, because it fits in so well
just here. King Pelles was descended from Joseph of Arimathaea, and, as
I said, he was the keeper of the Holy Grail. Once Balin came to his
castle, seeking for Garlon, a knight who had the power of riding
invisible and who killed other knights, when they could not see him.
Balin found him there and killed him, and King Pelles tried to avenge
his death, because he was his brother.
"Balin had broken his sword and he fled from King Pelles and ran through
the castle till he came to a chamber where Joseph of Arimathaea, who was
kept alive by the power of the Holy Grail, was lying in a bed. And
beside him was a spear, with drops of blood flowing from the point. It
was the spear with which the Roman soldier wounded the side of the
Christ when He was on the cross. Balin seized it and turned upon King
Pelles and wounded him with it in the side.
"Then the whole castle fell down around them and all the country about
it became waste and dry and desolate. Balin lay under the ruins for
three days, and then Merlin, the great magician of King Arthur's court,
came and woke him and gave him a horse and a sword and sent him on his
way. Afterwards Balin met his brother Balan, and they fought, neither
of them knowing who the other was, till they killed each other. Then
Merlin took the sword with which Balin had killed his brother and drove
it into a great stone, up to the hilt, and set the stone floating on the
river. And he wrote on the stone that no knight should ever draw this
sword out of the stone except the one to whom it should belong, the best
knight of the world.
"I cannot tell you how King Pelles got out of the ruins of his castle,
but afterwards he had another castle, the one that was called Carbonek.
He was still the keeper of the Grail. And it was foretold that the
wound in the side that Balin had given to him with the spear would never
be healed till the best knight of all the world should come. So for
many years King Pelles lived in his castle and bore the pain of a wound
that always seemed new and fresh, and waited for the coming of the best
knight of the world.
"This is getting to be a rather rambling sort of story, and while we are
rambling perhaps I may as well tell you about the adventure that Sir
Bors had at the Castle of Carbonek. Bors was a knight of the Round
Table. He was one of the best of all of them. He sat at the table in
the next seat but one to the Siege Perilous. The Siege Perilous was the
seat on the right of the King's. Merlin had made it when he made the
Round Table, and he said that no one should ever sit in it without
coming to harm, except the best knight of all the world. So for many
years no one had sat in that seat. And no one sat in the one next to it
either, but Bors sat in the one next to that. Next to him sat his
cousin Lancelot. They were the sons of two kings who were brothers, Ban
and Bors, who had helped King Arthur, when he first came to his throne.
"Lancelot was counted as the best of all King Arthur's knights. He was
the strongest and the bravest of them all, people said, and the best
fighter, and the King and the Queen loved him more than any of the
others. Nobody could see why he should not sit in the Siege Perilous,
but whenever a knight came to the Round Table his name appeared of
itself, in gold letters, in the seat that he was to have; and nobody
could sit in the Siege Perilous till his name came in it.
"But I set out to tell you about Sir Bors. Once Bors came to the Castle
of Carbonek. A wandering knight, in those days, was always welcome in
every castle, and so King Pelles welcomed Bors. The King was brought
into the hall and Bors was placed at the table between him and his
daughter. And there in the hall, too, Bors saw a beautiful child, a
boy, with deep eyes and a bright, sweet face and golden hair. He was the
son of King Pelles's daughter, and I will tell you more about him
another time.
"It was a strange way of entertaining guests that they had here, Bors
thought, for, though they were sitting at the table, there was nothing
to eat on it. Just as Bors noticed this he saw a white dove fly into
the room. It carried a little golden censer, by a chain which it held
in its beak. The thin smoke from the censer spread through the hall and
filled it with a strange, sweet odor. And while the dove flew about the
hall a girl came in, carrying something covered with white silk, which
she held high up in her hands. Bors could not see what it was that she
carried, but all who were in the hall knelt down and looked up toward
it, and Bors did the same. But though the covering of silk hid the thing
itself which was under it, there was something about it that it could
not hide. For the white silk was all glowing with a rosy light that
came from within it, and it shone through it and shed a rosy brightness
all through the hall. The dove flew out of the room again and the girl
went away too. And this was the Holy Grail that had passed, and Bors
had not seen it.
"But when it was gone and Bors looked at the table again it was covered
with food, finer and more delicious than Bors had ever tasted or seen
before. 'There are strange things to see in your castle, King Pelles,'
said Bors.
"'There are stranger things than you have seen yet,' King Pelles
answered. 'It is a place of wonders and of danger for knights, and few
of them leave here without coming to harm. Only for the best of them is
it safe to stay all night in my castle. You, Sir Knight, may stay if
you will, but it will be better for you to go, and so I warn you.'
"'It is not for me to say,' Bors answered, 'that I am better than other
knights, and indeed I know some who are better than I. But I am not
afraid to be in your castle for a night, and here I will stay.'
"'Do as you please,' said the King, 'but I have warned you.'
"So, when it was time to go to bed, Bors was led to a chamber and left
alone in it. Nothing that the King had said had made him afraid, but he
thought that it would be better not to take off his armor. And as soon
as he had lain down in his armor a great beam of light shone upon him.
He could not tell where it came from, but suddenly, along in the beam of
light, came a spear, with no hand to hold it, and a little stream of
blood flowed from the point of the spear. And before Bors could move the
spear came upon him and went through his armor as if it had been a
cobweb and made a deep wound in his side. The spear was drawn away
again, but with the pain Bors fell back upon his pillow and did not see
where it went.
"Then there came a knight, all armed, with his sword drawn, and the
knight said: 'Sir Bors, arise and fight with me.'
"Bors was almost fainting, because of the wound in his side, but he
arose and tried to fight. And when he tried he found that he could fight
better than he thought. He fought the other knight till he gave ground
before him, little by little, and at last Bors forced him out of the
chamber. Then Bors lay down again to rest, and all at once the room was
full of falling arrows. He could not see where they came from, any more
than he could see where anything else came from, but they fell all
around him and upon him. They pierced his armor, just as the spear had
done, as if there had been no armor, and they wounded him in many
places. And these wounds and the wound that the spear had made burned
and smarted more than before, and Bors felt weaker and fainter.
"Then a lion came into the chamber and sprang upon Bors and tore off his
shield. But again Bors found that he could fight if he tried, and he
struck the lion's head with his sword and killed it.
"And next there came an old man, who had a harp. He sat down and began
to play on the harp and to sing, and as he played a storm began to rise
outside the castle. At first it was only a rising of the wind that Bors
heard, but it grew and grew, till it swept through the halls and the
corridors of the castle and through the room where Bors lay. It caught
at the curtains and the tapestries of the chamber and almost tore them
from their places, and it shook the arms that hung on the walls, till
they rattled together with a dull, ghostly clatter. Bors could hear the
wind, too, rushing and roaring and screaming up over the towers. And
then the rain came, and the thunder, with noises of splitting and
crashing as if the hills around were breaking and rolling down into the
valleys, and the very walls shuddered and trembled, and the lightning
was so fierce that it seemed to shine through the walls, as if they had
been made of glass.
[Illustration: "AS HE PLAYED A STORM BEGAN TO RISE."]
"But all through the dreadful noise of the storm Bors could hear the
soft voice of the old man who sang, as if there had been no other sound.
He sang a song of how Joseph of Arimathaea had come to England and had
brought the Holy Grail. When he had finished it he spoke to Bors, and,
as he talked and as Bors answered him, the storm grew louder and more
terrible. 'Bors,' said the old man, 'leave this place. You have done
nobly here. There are few knights in the world who could bear all that
you have borne to-night. Tell your cousin Lancelot all that you have
seen, and tell him that it is he who should be here and should see these
things and more, but that he is not so good a knight as to be allowed to
see what you have seen. These things are only for the best of knights.'
"'It is well for you,' said Bors, 'that you are old. I am weary with
fighting and I am faint and dizzy with many wounds, but in spite of all,
if you were not old and weak, I would not hear you say such things of my
cousin Sir Lancelot. Sir Lancelot is the best knight that lives, and
what any good knight can do or see Lancelot can do or see.'
"'Bors, Bors,' said the old man again, 'do not think that you can
frighten me with loud talk. In the strength of his arm and the sureness
of his spear and the power of his sword, Lancelot is the best knight
that lives, but, for all that, he is not so good a knight as you, Sir
Bors. Bors, what did you, and what did Lancelot swear when King Arthur
made you knights of his Round Table?'
"'We swore,' said Bors, 'that we would help the King to guard his
people, that we would do right and justice, that in all things we would
be true and loyal to God and to the King.'
"'Yes, Bors,' said the old man, 'that was what you swore, and have you
kept your oath, both by your deeds and in your heart?'
"'As far as God has given me power,' Bors answered, 'I have kept it.'
"'Yes,' said the old man, 'you have kept it well. But how has Lancelot
kept it?'
"'Old man,' said Bors, 'do you dare to say to me, Lancelot's cousin and
his friend, that he has not kept his oath?'
"'Bors, Bors,' said the old man again, 'do not try to frighten me. I
dare to tell you anything that it is good for you to know. In all his
deeds Lancelot has kept his oath, but how has he kept it in his heart?
Go and ask him. Ask him if in his heart he has always been true and
loyal to the King. Ask him if he has never grown proud of his strength.
Ask him if he has not sometimes done his deeds for the Queen's praise,
and not for the King's love and the King's glory. Ask him if he has
never wished that he himself were such a king, with such a queen. Ask
him if that wish was all true and loyal to the King. Bors, Bors, out
there in the world, where you and Lancelot live, the strongest knight is
the best, and Lancelot is the best knight--out there in the world. But
this is the castle of the Holy Grail, and the Holy Grail searches the
hearts of men. Here, in this chamber, Sir Bors, Lancelot could not stay
as you have stayed and see what you have seen and bear what you have
borne.'
"As the old man ceased to speak it seemed to Bors that the burning of
his wounds grew less. While he was thinking of this and of what the old
man had said, the old man was gone, he could not tell where. Then, he
could not tell from where, the white dove flew into the room. It was the
same dove that he had seen in the hall, and it held the same little gold
censer in its beak, and again there was the sweet odor through the room.
And when the dove came the storm was ended. There was no more blinding
lightning and the thunder sounded only a little and far off. The rain
ceased and all the wind died down.
"Then Bors saw four children pass through the room, carrying four
lighted tapers. With the four children was a figure like an old man. It
wore a long, white robe, and a hood hung low down over the face, so that
all that Bors could see of it was the end of a white beard. In the right
hand was that spear, with the little stream of blood flowing from the
point. There was no one to tell Bors who this was, but somehow he
seemed to know that it was Joseph of Arimathaea.
"They passed through the room, but still Bors could see them in the next
chamber. The children knelt around the old man and he held high up in
his hands that wonderful thing with the covering of white silk. Again
the soft, rosy brightness glowed through the silk, and Bors did not know
why it was that when he saw it he felt so peaceful and glad. Then he
heard a loud voice that said: 'Sir Bors, leave this place; it is not yet
time for you to be here.'
"Then all at once the door was shut and Bors could not see the children
or the old man or what he carried. The strange, bright light that had
shone upon him all this time was gone. Outside the storm and the clouds
were past, and a clear ray of moonlight shone through the chamber. All
the pain of his wounds was gone and he sank back upon his pillow and
slept.
"When he awoke in the morning it seemed to him that he had never felt so
strong and fresh. The wounds that he had had from the spear and the
arrows had left no scar. And when King Pelles saw him he said: 'Sir
Bors, you have done here what few living knights could do, and I know
that you will prove one of the best knights of the world.'
"Then Bors remembered that the voice had told him that it was not time
yet for him to be in this place, so he took his horse and rode away
toward Camelot, to find Lancelot and to tell him what he had seen."
[Illustration: The Abbot's Kitchen]
*CHAPTER II*
*HOW WE DISCOVERED CAMELOT*
One of the strangest things about this kind of travel is to find how
much more you know about the country than the people do who live in it.
Before we came to England at all I had read in certain books that the
real Camelot was in the county of Somerset. It was at Camelot that King
Arthur lived more than anywhere else and where he had his finest castle.
So of course we were anxious to see Camelot. Our trouble did not seem
to be that we could not find it; it was that we found it in too many
places. We had been to Camelford, a poor little village in Cornwall,
earlier in our journey, and they had told us that that was Camelot. We
did not really believe it, but neither did I feel quite sure that my
books were right about the place in Somerset. We thought that it would
be best to see all the Camelots, so that we could make up our minds
which one we ought to believe in, or whether we ought to believe in any
of them at all.
I had studied the books and I had studied the maps, till I almost felt
that I could go straight to this Camelot, without any help. It was
still called Camelot, it seemed, and it was a fortified hill, near a
place called Queen Camel, some dozen miles to the south of Glastonbury.
It was lucky that I knew all this, because when we asked the people of
the hotel in Glastonbury if they could give us a carriage and a driver
to take us to Camelot they said that they had never heard of any such
place. They had heard of Queen Camel. They did not know just where
even that was, but they thought that it might be found. I felt so sure
that the books and the maps and I were right about it that I told them
that we would take the carriage and go to Queen Camel, and then we would
see if we could find Camelot. No doubt they thought that we were
insane, but that made no difference to us, and as long as we paid for
the carriage it made no difference to them.
Helen's mother is one of those dreadfully sensible people who always
want you to take umbrellas and things with you. She was not going with
us to discover Camelot, but she said that we must take umbrellas and
mackintoshes with us, because it was going to rain. It is always hard
to argue with these people, because they are so often right. This time
we really had no excuse for not taking them, for they would simply be
put in the bottom of the carriage and they would be no trouble. So we
took them, and we were scarcely outside Glastonbury before we found that
this was one of the times when Helen's mother was right. For then it
began to rain. The driver had taken the way that he thought was toward
Queen Camel, and we were riding across a great stretch of low, level
land. The wind swept across it, and the rain came at us in sheets. We
didn't mind it much, with our mackintoshes on, but I did think that it
was fair to ask Helen what she thought of the poet who said that this
Avalon was a place "Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow."
"Maybe it is," she answered, pulling her water-proof hood down so that
scarcely a bit of her could be seen, except the tip of her nose; "this
rain doesn't fall; it just comes against us sideways." So the poet's
reputation was saved.
It could not rain so hard as this very long, and by and by it stopped
altogether. Then it began again, and there were showers all day.
Sometimes it looked as if it were going to stop for good, but we could
scarcely get our waterproofs off before it began all over.
"Isn't it curious," I said, "that a storm coming up just here should
remind me of a story? It is about a time when Gawain had to go out in
bad weather. This is the right time to tell the story, too, while we
are looking for this particular Camelot. For the story begins at
Camelot, and the learned man who first dug it out of its old manuscript
and printed it says that Camelot was in Somerset.
"King Arthur was keeping Christmas at Camelot with his knights. The
feast lasted for many days. On New Year's Day, as they all sat in the
hall, the King and the Queen and the knights, there rode in the most
wonderful-looking man whom they had ever seen. He was dressed all in
green, and the big horse that he rode was green. And that was not all,
for the hair that hung down upon his shoulders was like long, waving
grass, and the beard that spread over his breast was like a green bush.
He wore no helmet and he carried no shield or spear. In one hand he
held a branch of holly and in the other a battle-axe. It was sharp and
polished so that it shone like silver. 'Who is the chief here?' he
cried.
"'I am the chief,' Arthur answered; 'sit down with us and help us keep
our feast.'
"'I have not come to eat and drink,' said the man in green. 'I have
come to see if it is true that you have brave knights in your court,
King Arthur.'
"'Then sit and eat with us first,' Arthur answered, 'and afterwards you
shall have as many good knights to joust with you as you can wish, and
you shall see whether they are brave.'
"'It is not for jousting that I have come, either,' said the man in
green. 'Do you see this axe of mine? I will lend it to any knight in
this hall who dares to strike me one blow with it, only he must promise
that afterwards I may strike him one blow with it, too. He shall strike
me with the axe now, and I will strike him with it a year from this
day.'
"This was such a new way of proving whether they were brave or not that
for a minute none of the knights answered. Then the King himself rose
and went toward the man in green. 'Give me your axe,' he said; 'none of
us here is afraid of your big talk; I will strike you with the axe
myself, and you shall strike me with it whenever you like.'
"Then Gawain sprang from his seat. Gawain was the King's nephew. And he
cried: 'My lord, let me try this game with him! You are the King, and
if any harm should come to you it would be the harm of all the country,
but one knight more or less will count but little.'
"Then many other knights begged the King to do as Gawain had said, and
the King thought of it a moment, and then gave the axe, which he had
taken from the man in green, to Gawain.
"Sir Knight,' said the man in green, 'will you tell me who you are?'
"'I am Gawain,' he said, 'the nephew of King Arthur.'
"'I have heard of you,' said the other, 'and I am glad that I shall
receive my blow from so great a knight. But will you promise that a
year from now you will seek me and find me, so that I may give you your
blow in return?'
"'I do not know who you are or where you live,' Gawain answered. 'If
you will tell me your name and where to find you, I will come to you
when the year is over.'
"'I will tell you those things,' said the man in green, 'after you have
struck me. If I cannot tell you then, you will be free of your promise
and you need not seek me.'
"Then the man in green came down from his horse, knelt on the floor
before Gawain, put his long, green hair aside from his neck, and told
Gawain to strike. Gawain swung the axe above his head and brought it
down upon the neck of the man in green, and his head was cut cleanly off
and rolled upon the floor. Instantly the green man sprang after it and
caught it in his hands, by the long, green hair. He sprang upon his
horse again and held up the head, with its face toward Gawain. 'Sir
Gawain,' it said 'seek for me till you find me, a year from now, so that
I may return your good blow. Bring the axe with you, and ask, wherever
you go, for the Knight of the Green Chapel.' Then he rode out of the
hall and away, still carrying the head in his hands.
"Of course Gawain and the King and all the rest thought that this was
the strangest adventure that they had ever seen. They were all sorry
for Gawain and they all wondered what would become of him, but there was
no danger for a year, and that always seems a long time, at the
beginning of it. So, as the time went on, they almost forgot about the
Knight of the Green Chapel, and even Gawain himself seemed to have no
dread of him. And the year went past like other years. Yet Gawain was
not forgetting his promise, and, as the time came near when he must keep
it, he began to wonder more and more who this Knight of the Green Chapel
could be and where he must go to look for him. 'It may take me a long
time to find him,' he said to the King at last, 'and so I mean to leave
the court and to begin my search on All Saints' Day.'
"'Yes,' said the King,' that will be best. And we know all the places
and nearly all the knights here in the South and in the West of England,
and over in the East, but we have never heard of this Knight of the
Green Chapel, so it will be best for you to seek him in the North.'
"So, on All Saints' Day, King Arthur made a feast, that all the knights
of the court might be together and bid Gawain good-by. They called it a
feast, but there was no happiness in it. They were all sad at the
parting and with the fear that Gawain would never come back.
"And when the time came they helped Gawain to put on the finest armor
that could be found for him and he mounted his horse and left them. He
rode slowly at first, and as soon as he came to places that he did not
know he began to ask the people whom he met if they could tell him where
to find the Green Chapel and the Knight of the Green Chapel. But no one
had ever heard of such a place or of such a person.
"He went farther and farther into the North, and as his time grew
shorter he tried to travel faster, for he felt that it would be a shame
to him if he did not find the Knight of the Green Chapel by New Year's
Day. Up great hills he went and down into deep valleys, across wide,
lonely plains, with freezing winds sweeping over them, and through dark
forests, where the wind cried up among the treetops and the trees
groaned and sighed in answer. Often he met wild beasts, wolves that
barked and leaped and sprang about him and tried to pull down his horse.
But he killed them or beat them and drove them away. Then he came to
plains where for many miles he saw no houses and no people. Often he
had to sleep in his armor, lying on the ground. Often he had to go so
long without food that he was faint with hunger, as well as weary.
"As the days went by the winter came on rougher and stormier and colder.
Then the winds that swept across the plains were full of driving rain
and sleet and snow. They cut against his face and almost blinded him,
and his horse could scarcely labor through the drifts and stand against
the storm. The wet sleet found its way into the joints of his armor and
froze there, and it froze into the chains of his mail and choked them
up, so that it was all rigid and hard, and it was as if all that he wore
were one solid piece of iron or ice. So terrible it was that he almost
forgot why he had come, and all that he wanted was to find some place
where he and his horse could rest and be warm. But at night he must get
off his horse, though he could scarcely bend his limbs, in his frozen
armor, and lie down in it, with no shelter but a tree, or perhaps a high
rock, and try to sleep till the light came, so that he could go on
again.
"Yet wherever he saw any people he asked them if they knew of the Knight
of the Green Chapel, and always they answered no. Then he told them how
the knight looked, but they all shook their heads or stared at him or
laughed, and they all said that they had never seen such a knight. Some
of them thought that he must be mad, to be wandering all by himself and
asking for a knight with green hair and a green beard, and sometimes
Gawain himself almost thought that he must be mad. Sometimes he
thought: 'I will hunt for him only till New Year's Day. If I have not
found him then it is his fault that he did not tell me where to come,
and I shall be free of my promise.' And then at other times he thought:
'I will not count my promise as so small a thing; I will seek this
knight as long as I live, if I do not find him, for the honor of King
Arthur and the Round Table.'
"And the cold and the storm and the long, rough journey seemed worst of
all to Gawain on Christmas Eve, for then he thought most of the King and
the Queen and the knights whom he had left at Camelot. He knew that
they were all together in the great hall now, that the fires were
blazing, that the minstrels were singing, and that a noble feast was
spread upon the Round Table. He thought of his own place at that table,
where he had sat a year ago, empty now. Did the others look at that
seat and think of him and wonder where he was? It was a common thing,
he knew, for Arthur's knights to be away from the hall seeking
adventures, and he knew that those who were left behind went on with
their feasting at such times as these, just as if all were there. No,
it was a little thing to them that he was gone, he thought. They were
laughing together and eating and drinking, and perhaps some one was
telling them some strange old tale, and they were warm and happy; and
the light of the fires and the torches was shining on the windows of the
hall, so that the people of the country miles away could see it and
could say: 'King Arthur and his knights are at Camelot to-night keeping
the Christmas feast.' And here was he alone, cold, hungry, weary,
riding over the rough ways and through the rough night, to find a man
who was to kill him.
"Then there came another thought that made him stronger: 'The honor of
the Round Table to-night is not all with those who sit about it; it is
here with me too. I am here because it was I who dared to come, for the
King and for all of them. If I never go back the King and all of them
will know that, and they will not forget. And now my time is short and I
must not rest any more. I will ride all night and go as far as I can to
find the Knight of the Green Chapel by New Year's Day.'
"So Gawain rode all night. In the morning he was in a great forest,
where it would have been too dark for him to ride, but for the snow that
lay everywhere, so that he could dimly see the black trunks of the trees
against it. And before the first cold light of the late morning fell
into the forest, he saw it touch the top of a high hill before him, and
there he saw a castle. It was one of the greatest castles he had ever
seen, with strong towers and thick walls and high ramparts. And as soon
as he saw it, it seemed to him as if the last strength went out of him
and his horse too, so that they could scarcely climb the hill to come to
the gate and ask if they might come in.
"But they reached the gate and the porter said: 'Come in, Sir Knight;
the lord of the castle will welcome you and you can stay as long as you
will.' And the lord of the castle did welcome him and Gawain let his
men lead him to a chamber, where they took off his armor and gave him a
rich robe to wear. Then they led him back to the hall and placed him at
the table with the lord and his wife and his daughter.
"They asked him who he was, and he told them that he was Gawain, a
knight of the Round Table. 'It is a proud day for us,' said the lord,
'so far away up here in the North, when a knight comes to us from the
court of King Arthur, and now you will stay with us and help us keep our
Christmas.'
"'No,' said Gawain, 'I cannot stay, for I must go on and find the Knight
of the Green Chapel,' and then he told them all that he knew about this
knight and why he had made this journey.
"'Then you will stay with us,' said the lord, 'for the Green Chapel is
only two miles from here, and on New Year's Day some one of my servants
shall show you the way there.'
"So Gawain stayed, and, on the third day after he had come to the
castle, the lord told him that on the next day he was going hunting and
asked Gawain if he would go too. 'No,' Gawain answered, 'it is only four
days now before I must go to the Knight of the Green Chapel. I have no
magic, such as he has, to guard myself against him, and he will kill me.
It is not a time now for me to think of hunting or of other pleasures.
I must think of more solemn things.'
"'Then shall we make a bargain?' said the lord. 'I will go to the hunt
to-morrow, and you shall stay here at the castle. When I come home I
will give you all that I have got in the hunt, and you shall give me all
that you have got by staying here.'
"'It shall be so, if you wish it,' said Gawain.
"The next morning the lord and his men were away early at the hunt.
Gawain breakfasted with the lady of the castle and her daughter, and
afterward they left him and he sat alone in the hall. Then the lord's
daughter came back, without her mother, and sat on the seat beside him.
'Sir Knight,' she said, 'will you tell me about King Arthur's court?'
"'What shall I tell you?' he asked.
"'We are so far away from all the world here!' she said. 'We never see
a town or a court or any people, except those who live here with us.
But sometimes we hear strange things and beautiful things about Camelot
and Caerleon and London and the court of King Arthur. They say that we
cannot believe how grand it is, and they say that there are such feasts
and tournaments, and that all the knights and the ladies are so happy
there in King Arthur's court! And oh! will you tell me one thing! Is
it true that every knight of King Arthur's has some lady whom he loves
more than anybody else, and is it true that every lady has some knight
whom she loves, who fights for her and wears something that she gave
him, a sleeve or a chain or a jewel, and tells everybody that she is the
most beautiful lady in the world?'
"'There are many knights,' Gawain answered, 'who have ladies whom they
love and who love them, and they do all the things that you have said.'
"The girl looked at Gawain and was silent for a little while, and then
she said: 'Sir Knight, is it too much that I am going to ask? I would
not ask you to be my knight, for there must be many ladies in King
Arthur's court more beautiful and more noble than I am. You would have
to love some one of them, I suppose. Only do not tell me so, and I will
not ask you. But after you have gone let me remember you and love you,
and I will try not to think whether you love me or not.'
"'My child,' said Gawain, 'I am here in your father's castle and he
trusts me, and it is not right that I should talk to you of such things
without his leave. And besides that, it is not right for me to think of
such things now. You know that I am going to find the Knight of the
Green Chapel. Your father has promised that on New Year's Day he will
send me to him. Then the Knight of the Green Chapel will kill me. I
have only three days more to live, and it is no time for me to think of
love.'