The boy cried out and asked Merlin how he dared to strike him, when he
was the son of a great man and when Merlin never had any father. When
the messengers heard that, of course they were interested at once. They
asked about Merlin and they found that the story was indeed that this
boy never had any father, so they told him that the King wanted him and
that he must come with them. 'I am ready to go with you,' Merlin said,
'and I am not afraid, though I know that the King means to kill me. You
could never have found me if I had not been willing that you should. I
knew that you were looking for me and I struck the other boy so that he
would say just what he did, to tell you that I was the child that the
King wanted. I shall not let the King kill me and I shall tell him what
makes his tower fall down.'
"Then the messengers went back to the King and took Merlin with them.
When he came before the King Merlin said: 'My lord, you mean to kill me
because your wise men have told you that my blood will make your tower
stand. But they know nothing about it. Call them and let me question
them and prove to you that they know nothing about it.'
"So the King called his wise men and Merlin said to them: 'What is under
the place where the King wants to build his tower?'
"The wise men studied and whispered together and tried to look wiser
than ever, but at last they had to say that they did not know what was
under the place. 'Then I will tell you,' said Merlin; 'there is water
under it; my lord, have your workmen dig down and see.
"So the workmen were set to digging and after awhile they came to the
water. 'Now what is under that?' said Merlin to the wise men.
"And again they could not tell. 'There are two great stones under it,'
said Merlin; 'draw the water off and see.'
"So they drew off the water and there were the stones, just as Merlin
said. 'Now,' said Merlin to the wise men, 'tell the King what is under
these stones.'
"And the wise men, who were getting pretty well scared by this time,
could not tell. 'There are two dragons under the stones,' said Merlin;
'one of them is red and the other is white; when the stones are lifted
they will fight and the red dragon will kill the white one.'
"The wise men had not another word to say and the King told the workmen
to take up the stones. They took them up and, surely enough, there were
the dragons. And, just as Merlin had said, they began to fight. People
were fond of fights in those days and there surely never was a better
one of its kind than this. But everybody who saw it felt that it could
be seen better a little way off. They were a good deal relieved when
Merlin told them that the dragons would not hurt any of them and would
only kill each other. And no doubt it was a fine fight to look at. The
dragons were horrible creatures, with snaky bodies and wings like bats
and long, sharp teeth and claws. And they flew above the heads of the
people and struck at each other with their claws and twisted about each
other and tore with their teeth and breathed fire out of their mouths,
and roared and shrieked till the air shook. And at last the red dragon
killed the white one, and then he fell down to the ground, and in a
little while he died too.
"'Now,' said Merlin, 'you can build your tower and it will stand. But
what is to be done,' he went on, 'with these men who tried to make you
kill me? Is it not fair, my lord, that you should give them to me and
let me do whatever I like with them?'
"'That is fair,' said the King; 'take them and do with them what you
like.'
"Of course the wise men were all begging Merlin for mercy now, and
telling him that all they did was only because the stars had told them
that he was to cause their death. 'That is true,' said Merlin; 'I know
that you really thought that you saw that in the stars, but I know too
that it was only because an evil spirit was deceiving you. He is a
spirit who hates me and he made you see what you saw in the stars in the
hope of destroying me. So it was not so much your fault, and I forgive
you.'
"After that Vortigern built his tower and it stood. But he was not
happy or safe in it long. The sons of the old King Constantine,
Pendragon and Uther, who had been taken to France, were grown up by this
time and they came over to England with an army, to get back from
Vortigern the kingdom which belonged to them. To make a short story of
it, they captured Vortigern's strong tower and killed him, and then
Pendragon was King of England. But the country was not peaceful yet.
The Saxons, who had come many times before, came still and tried to
conquer the Britons. Then Merlin foretold that there would be a great
battle on Salisbury Plain. There, he said, Pendragon and Uther and
their army would fight with the Saxons and would beat them, but one of
the brothers would be killed. He would not say which one, but he said
that the one who lived must take his brother's name, besides his own,
and be King of England, and he must build a monument to his brother on
Salisbury Plain that should last forever.
"So the great battle was fought on Salisbury Plain, all around where we
are now, and the Saxons were beaten. But when it was over, they found
that many of the Britons had been killed, and that the King, Pendragon,
was among them. So his brother Uther was made King and took his name
and was called Uther Pendragon. Then the new King sent for Merlin and
said to him: 'How shall I build the monument to my brother on Salisbury
Plain, so that it shall last forever?'
"And Merlin answered: 'Send to Ireland and get the Giants' Dance, and
set it up for a monument to your brother.'
"'What is the Giants' Dance?' the King asked.
"'It is a circle of great stones,' Merlin answered. 'The giants brought
them long ago from Africa and set them up in Ireland.'
"'And how shall I bring them here?' the King asked.
"'Send ships and men to get them,' Merlin answered, 'and I will go to
show them how.'
"So the ships were got ready and Merlin crossed over with the men into
Ireland. He knew the place to go, and there stood the Giants' Dance, a
great circle of upright stones, with other great stones lying across the
tops of them. 'Now see if you can take them down,' said Merlin. And
they tried. They brought timbers and ropes and made levers and pulled
and pushed and did everything that they could think of. And they could
no more move even one of the stones than they could move the mountain
that they stood on. 'Now rest a little while,' said Merlin.
"Then Merlin, all alone, walked about the stones and in and out among
them, and he seemed to be saying something or singing something, but
nobody could understand what it was. 'Try again to move them,' he said.
"They tried again and this time it was as easy as if the stones had been
bags filled with air. They put them on board the ships and they sailed
back to England, and Merlin set them up, just as they had been in
Ireland, here on Salisbury Plain, where Pendragon had been killed. And
afterward, when Uther Pendragon died, he was buried here at Stonehenge,
too.
"That is all of the story and here is Stonehenge to prove that it is
true. If anybody cares to say that this story is not true, let him tell
me how else these stones came here. Let him try to tell me how else
they could come here. Merlin told King Uther Pendragon that he would
build a monument that should stand forever. Forever is a long time.
Many of the stones have fallen now, you see, but still many of them
stand, and it is not for us to say that Merlin was wrong and that this
monument will not be here always. All that we can know is that the
stones, fallen or standing, are here where Merlin put them, that they
still show us the place where the battle was and where Pendragon fell,
and that the sun, on the longest day of the summer, still rises over the
one stone away down there and looks through the gate that Merlin built,
into the wonderful, old, mysterious, magic circle, where the two kings,
Pendragon and Uther, are buried. And after all, I think that I would
rather not know any more about Stonehenge than that."
[Illustration: St. Michael's Mount]
*CHAPTER VIII*
*ON THE EDGE OF LYONNESSE*
We had meant, when Helen's mother should come from Paris, to go back to
Glastonbury and begin our journey again where we had left off. But when
she came we thought better of it. We decided that, since we were going
to the Southwest of England again, we might as well go all the way and
see the Land's End. Then, we thought, we could go to Glastonbury just as
well on the way back.
So it happened that when Helen's mother was with us again, we took the
longest railway ride that we had taken yet, and at the end of it we
found ourselves in Penzance. Penzance is the place where the pirates
were, you know. We had always supposed that that was a made-up story and
that there never were really any pirates of Penzance. But we found that
the pirates were there still. Only now they do not scuttle ships any
more, if they ever did; they keep hotels. But that is an unpleasant
subject.
We set off the next morning for a long drive--which was to be partly a
walk--to the Land's End. There were many things that were worth seeing
before we got to the Land's End, or anywhere near it. First there was
the harbor of Penzance, one of the prettiest that I ever looked out
upon. And over on the other side of it, stately and beautiful against
the summer morning sky, stood St. Michael's Mount. St. Michael's Mount
is a cone-shaped hill, rising high out of the water, with a castle on
the top of it. It is one of those things that are so picturesque that
they surprise you when you see them in a real scene, because they look
too perfect to belong outside a painted picture.
"And who do you suppose used to live on the top of that hill?" I said.
"Why, the old giant Cormoran, the one whom Jack the Giant-Killer knocked
on the head with his pickaxe, the very first giant whom he killed. Of
course I should not think of telling you that story, at your time of
life; I only tell you that there is the place. But I might tell you
about another giant, and let you try to straighten out his story, if you
like, better than I can. Over across the channel from here, in France,
there is another St. Michael's Mount. I have never seen it, but the
picture of it looks as much like this one as if it were its own brother.
I think that I have told you before that the people of old days used to
think that high hills belonged somehow to St. Michael. Well, over there
on the other St. Michael's Mount lived another giant with whom King
Arthur himself once had a little tussle. The giant's name was Ryence,
and he had a mantle trimmed with kings' beards. You remember something,
perhaps, that I told you once about a King named Ryence, who had a
mantle trimmed with kings' beards. It is rather curious that there
should be two of them.
"It was when King Arthur went over to France on his way to fight the
Emperor of Rome that he heard of this giant. He was a terror to the
whole country, for he killed hundreds of people and spoiled crops, and
his favorite food was little boys. I don't know why he liked little
boys so much better than little girls, but I suppose he knew more about
which were the better to eat than I do.
"When Arthur heard about the giant he took Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere with
him and went to the foot of the hill. There he told them to wait for
him, and went up the hill alone. He found the giant sitting before a
fire cooking a man for his supper. Arthur got close to him and wounded
him with his sword before the giant knew that he was there. Then he
sprang up and caught hold of Arthur, and they both fell and rolled over
and over each other clear to the bottom of the hill, and Arthur managed
to give the giant two or three more wounds on the way. Kay and Bedivere
ran to see if the King was killed, and they found that he was scarcely
hurt at all and that the giant was dead.
"I don't say that there is anything so very remarkable about that. It
is just a plain sort of every-day giant story. But here are the strange
points, I think. Here were two hills looking wonderfully alike and with
the same name, and a giant lived and was killed on each of them. And
here were two giants, both named Ryence, for King Ryence was a giant,
too, and they both had mantles trimmed with kings' beards, and Arthur
killed one and beat the other. It looks to me as if two stories, at
least, had got a little mixed, or else one story twisted in two. How
does it look to you?"
There is no reason, that I can see, why I should try to tell you all
about the way from Penzance to the Land's End. It will not do you much
good to know that it was grand and beautiful, as long as you were not
there to see its grandeur and its beauty. We stopped at St. Buryan, and
a very old woman showed us the church. It is a curious old place, and
it has some fine carvings. But the old woman, who showed us everything
and explained it to us, could not understand what there was about it
that we found interesting. She had been showing this church to people,
she said, for more than fifty years, and she had never been able to make
out yet why they wanted to see it.
Then we went on to see the Logan Rock, and got a guide to find it for
us. We could never have found it for ourselves, because it is so mixed
up with so many other rocks. It is a huge rocking stone. It weighs I
don't know how many tons, but a strong man can move it a little, if he
knows just how and where to take hold of it and push. The guide rocked
it for us, and he said that we did it ourselves when we tried, but I
think he flattered us. He helped us to climb on the top of it--not an
easy thing to do at all--and then he rocked it with us sitting on it.
As he led the way back he took us through a narrow passage between two
great rocks and told us that we must each of us make a wish as we passed
through and never tell what it was, and then it would come true. "But we
don't need to ask what the young ladies wish," he said, "they all wish
the same thing." We wondered how many years he had been making that
same joke over and over again. No doubt he must have got some pretty
tips by it, when there were young women and young men both in the party.
We were going to walk from here to the Land's End, five miles, for it
was one of the places where we had been told that we must walk, so as to
see the scenery. We had already told the driver to go on to the Land's
End and wait there for us. The guide showed us how to go and offered to
go with us, but we thought that we did not need him. "You won't be able
to see the Scillys to-day," he said. "Sometimes you can see them from
the Land's End, but it isn't clear enough to-day. But you can be sure
of a fine day to-morrow. When it is clear enough to see the Scillys it
almost always rains the next day."
So we felt cheered at missing a sight that we had hoped to see, and went
on our way. All the way the walk was up headlands and down ravines,
with many grand and beautiful pictures--great crags and domes and
pinnacles of rock and deep valleys and gorges and caves, and the sea
always crashing and roaring down below us.
And when we came to the Land's End, of course that was the best of all.
For there the sea seemed rougher than anywhere else, though it was not a
rough day. It was no new thing for us to stand on a point of rock, with
all the land behind us and nothing but boundless ocean before us. We
did not need to come to the Land's End or to England for that. But
there was something awful and solemn about these towers of stone that
stood here to keep the sea from washing England away, and about the sea
that was working at them while we looked, dashing up against them and
slipping back and dashing up again, as it had been doing for thousands
of years before we had come to look, and as it would do for thousands of
years after we were gone. And after all these ages of work and struggle
the waves seemed to be still angry, still fierce and full of wrath that
the land should resist them so long. "Old rocks," they seemed to say,
"you think that you are firm and steady and strong. But wait--and
wait--there is much time before both of us still. Stand against us as
you will; we shall still clash and beat upon you, and at last, in spite
of all your firmness, we shall wear and wash you away, and we shall
cover you sometime as we covered old Lyonnesse."
Lyonnesse! That, after all, I believe, is the wonderful thing to think
of at the Land's End. "Yes, now," I said, "we are looking straight out
over Lyonnesse--Tristram's country, the country that is lost. This is
where it began, and it stretched away out there where there is nothing
now but ocean, away out to the Scilly Islands, which we are not to see
to-day. For thirty miles old Lyonnesse reached out from here, and even
now, they say, for all that way, the bottom of the ocean lies at an even
depth, and not like the bottom in other places. And they say, too, that
when the water had covered Lyonnesse for so long that people had almost
forgotten that there ever was any land there, the fishermen used to
think of it again, because they sometimes drew up their hooks with
pieces of doors and windows caught upon them. And nothing more than
these ever came back of a country that had its towns and its fields and
its forests and its people, which were all lost under the water
together.
"And I remember an old book which says that more than Lyonnesse was
taken away from Cornwall by the sea. For the old book says that St.
Michael's Mount, which we saw this morning, used to have another name,
that meant 'the rock in the wood.' And from this it was thought that
St. Michael's Mount stood in a forest once, and not in the sea, as it
does now. And the book, which was written about three hundred years ago,
says that even then, when the tides were low around St. Michael's Mount,
the stumps and roots of great trees were sometimes seen half buried in
the sand."
Perhaps this is all nothing but old fable, but the land of Cornwall and
the sea of Cornwall look as if it were true. How could these terrible
waves and tempests tear and beat and surge upon this country, even with
its walls of rock, without taking something away? You can laugh at the
old wives' tales--if it is your way to laugh at such things--it is not
ours--while you are at home, but when you stand at the Land's End and
look out to sea, if you have a bit of the love of a story in you, you
must and you will believe in Lyonnesse.
[Illustration: The Land's End]
*CHAPTER IX*
*THE SIEGE PERILOUS*
It does not matter just where we were when we told and heard these next
few stories. Neither do I need to use quotation marks all through them.
You will understand that we did tell them and hear them somewhere. They
belong to no place. When King Arthur's knights set out from Camelot to
seek the Holy Grail everything seemed at once to grow mysterious and
marvellous and magical. Place and time were unknown and almost
unthought of. Knights rode about without knowing or caring where they
went. Sometimes they found more wonderful adventures than had ever been
thought of before, and sometimes they rode for days and saw no house and
no living thing. Friends met friends and did not know them; fathers
fought with sons, and brothers with brothers. New knights won glory and
knights who were old and tried were put to shame. Common men became
prophets, and so prophets became common. The worst of men gave counsel
to the best of knights, and the knights could scarcely tell whether the
things that they were told to do were the best and the wisest or the
most foolish and the worst. There were signs and omens and visions, and
there were hard trials of courage and of faithfulness.
There are a hundred stories of what was seen and said and done. They
are all different, and among them all much seems confused and dim and
uncertain. But everywhere and through everything is seen, like a clear
flash of fleeting flame, one perfect knight, the strongest, noblest,
greatest knight who ever came to Arthur's court, the one best knight of
all the world. Others wander and stray and are tempted and overcome and
disheartened, and then there is a gleam of a fire-colored armor, and
there is a swift stroke of a spear that never missed its aim, the wicked
are overthrown, the helpless are rescued, and the knight has passed on
toward his goal of the Holy Grail.
It all began on the night before the feast of Pentecost, when so many
strange things happened. The King and the Queen and the knights were in
the great hall at Camelot, and a woman, whom no one knew, rode into the
hall on horseback. She dismounted and came before the King and said:
"My lord, tell me which is Sir Lancelot."
"That is Sir Lancelot," said the King, pointing to where he sat.
"Sir Lancelot," she said, "I am sent to you by King Pelles. He asks you
to come with me to an abbey in a forest not far from here."
"And what am I to do there?" Lancelot asked.
"I am not to tell you that," she said; "I am only to bring you to the
abbey."
"I will go with you, then," said Lancelot, "if it is to please King
Pelles."
"Lancelot," said the Queen, "to-morrow is the feast of Pentecost; shall
you not be with us then?"
"Madame," said the woman, "he shall be back here by dinner-time
to-morrow."
So Lancelot put on his armor and rode with the woman till they came to
the abbey in the forest. There, when he was unarmed, some nuns came to
him, leading a young man. "Sir Lancelot," one of them said, "this young
squire is the grandson of King Pelles. He is strong and brave and
noble. He has learned much and it is time now for him to be made a
knight. He asks you, and so does King Pelles and so do we, that you will
make him a knight."
Then Lancelot looked at the young man. He was scarcely more than a boy
in his years but he was tall and strong. Lancelot thought that he had
never seen so beautiful a face besides its beauty there was courage in
it, and freedom and hope and all the rich flush and glow of a bright,
new manhood. And a strange feeling came to Lancelot as he looked, and a
voice seemed to be saying in his ears: "He has come! He has come!"
Lancelot could not have told what it meant. He only felt that there was
something in this young man that made him different from any other he
had ever seen, something without a name, by which he knew that he was
greater and finer and truer than the rest. "To-night, then," said
Lancelot, "let him watch his arms in your chapel, and to-morrow I will
make him a knight."
And so it was done. The young man watched his arms in the chapel while
the others slept, and in the morning Lancelot made him a knight. Then
Lancelot begged the new knight to come to the court with him, but he
answered: "No, it is not time for me to go to the court, but I shall be
there with you soon."
"So Lancelot rode back to Camelot alone. And then began the most
wonderful day of all King Arthur's reign. When Lancelot had come and
all the knights were sitting in the hall a squire ran in and went to the
King and said: 'My lord, I have just come up from the river, and down
there a great stone is floating on the water and there is a sword
sticking in it.'
"That is a wonderful thing, truly," said the King; "we will go and see
it."
So the King and the Queen and all the knights left the hall and went
down to the river. And there, truly enough, was the stone, floating on
the river, and there was the sword sticking in it, as the squire had
said. And the King saw letters on the stone and he came near and read
them: "No one shall ever draw this sword out of this stone except the
one to whom it belongs, the best knight of the world."
"Surely," said the King, "I think that the best knights of the world are
in my court; who will try to draw this sword?" and he looked toward
Lancelot.
"I do not think," said Lancelot, "that the sword is mine, and I will not
try to draw it."
But many of the other knights tried to draw the sword and could not, and
the King looked at Lancelot again and said: "Will you not try to take
this sword? Surely there is no better knight in the world than you."
"No," said Lancelot, "it is not for me. Remember, my lord, all the
wonderful things that Merlin told long ago. The best knight of the
world is not among us yet, but I believe that he is coming soon. Let us
all go back to the hall, my lord, and keep our feast and wait for him."