Now the New Year had but newly come in, and on that day a double portion
was served on the high table to all the noble guests, and thither came
the king with all his knights, when the service in the chapel had been
sung to an end. And they greeted each other for the New Year, and gave
rich gifts, the one to the other (and they that received them were not
wroth, that may ye well believe!), and the maidens laughed and made
mirth till it was time to get them to meat. Then they washed and sat
them down to the feast in fitting rank and order, and Guinevere the
queen, gaily clad, sat on the high daïs. Silken was her seat, with a
fair canopy over her head, of rich tapestries of Tars, embroidered, and
studded with costly gems; fair she was to look upon, with her shining
grey eyes, a fairer woman might no man boast himself of having seen.
But Arthur would not eat till all were served, so full of joy and
gladness was he, even as a child; he liked not either to lie long, or to
sit long at meat, so worked upon him his young blood and his wild brain.
And another custom he had also, that came of his nobility, that he would
never eat upon an high day till he had been advised of some knightly
deed, or some strange and marvellous tale, of his ancestors, or of arms,
or of other ventures. Or till some knight should seek of him leave to
joust with another, that they might set their lives in jeopardy, one
against another, as fortune might favour them. Such was the king’s
custom when he sat in hall at each high feast with his noble knights,
therefore on that New Year tide, he abode, fair of face, on the throne,
and made much mirth withal.