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STORIES OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS
Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur"
by
U. WALDO CUTLER
[Frontispiece: King Arthur]
_The goodliest fellowship of famous knights_
_Whereof this world holds record._
TENNYSON
George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd.
London ---- Bombay ---- Sydney
First published January 1905
by GEORGE G. HARRAP & COMPANY
39-41 Parker Street, Kingsway, London, W.C.,
Reprinted: December 1905; July 1906; May 1907;
January 1909; September 1909; July 1910; July 1911;
October 1912; October 1913; March 1915; February
1917; August 1917; May 1918; October 1919;
June 1920; October 1921; October 1922;
June 1923; January 1925; April 1936;
September 1927; October 1928;
January 1930; January 1931;
April 1932
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER
I. OF THE BIRTH OF KING ARTHUR
II. UTHER'S SON, RIGHTWISE KING OF ALL ENGLAND
III. HOW ARTHUR GAT HIS SWORD EXCALIBUR
IV. BALIN AND BALAN
V. THE NOBLE ORDER OF THE ROUND TABLE
VI. THE LADIES' KNIGHT
VII. WISE MERLIN'S FOOLISHNESS
VIII. A STAG-HUNT AND WHAT CAME OF IT
IX. THE TREACHERY OF MORGAN LE FAY
X. SIR LAUNCELOT OF THE LAKE
XI. A NIGHT-TIME ADVENTURE OF SIR LAUNCELOT
XII. HOW SIR LAUNCELOT CAME INTO THE CHAPEL PERILOUS
XIII. THE KNIGHT, THE LADY, AND THE FALCON
XIV. HOW A KITCHEN-PAGE CAME TO HONOUR
XV. HOW SIR GARETH FOUGHT FOR THE LADY OF CASTLE PERILOUS
XVI. HOW SIR GARETH RETURNED TO THE COURT OF KING ARTHUR
XVII. HOW YOUNG TRISTRAM SAVED THE LIFE OF THE QUEEN
OF LYONESSE
XVIII. SIR TRISTRAM'S FIRST BATTLE
XIX. SIR TRISTRAM AND THE FAIR ISOUD
XX. HOW SIR TRISTRAM DEMANDED THE FAIR ISOUD FOR KING MARK,
AND HOW SIR TRISTRAM AND ISOUD DRANK THE LOVE POTION
XXI. HOW SIR TRISTRAM DEPARTED FROM TINTAGIL, AND WAS LONG
IN THE FOREST
XXII. HOW KING MARK WAS SORRY FOR THE GOOD RENOWN
OF SIR TRISTRAM
XXIII. HOW SIR PERCIVALE OF GALIS SOUGHT AND FOUND
SIR LAUNCELOT
XXIV. OF THE COMING OF SIR GALAHAD
XXV. HOW THE QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL WAS BEGUN
XXVI. HOW GALAHAD GAT HIM A SHIELD
XXVII. SIR GALAHAD AT THE CASTLE OF MAIDENS
XXVIII. SIR LAUNCELOT'S REPENTANCE
XXIX. SIR PERCIVALE'S TEMPTATION
XXX. THE VICTORY OF SIR BORS OVER HIMSELF
XXXI. HOW SIR LAUNCELOT FOUND THE HOLY GRAIL
XXXII. THE END OF THE QUEST
XXXIII. SIR LAUNCELOT AND THE FAIR MAID OF ASTOLAT
XXXIV. OF THE GREAT TOURNAMENT ON CANDLEMAS DAY
XXXV. QUEEN GUENEVER'S MAY-DAY RIDE AND WHAT CAME OF IT
XXXVI. OF THE PLOT AGAINST SIR LAUNCELOT
XXXVII. HOW SIR LAUNCELOT DEPARTED FROM THE KING AND
FROM JOYOUS GARD
XXXVIII. HOW KING ARTHUR AND SIR GAWAINE INVADED
SIR LAUNCELOT'S REALM
XXXIX. OF SIR MORDRED'S TREASON
XL. OF ARTHUR'S LAST GREAT BATTLE IN THE WEST
XLI. OF THE PASSING OF KING ARTHUR
XLII. OF THE END OF THIS BOOK
ILLUSTRATIONS
KING ARTHUR . . . . . . . . . . . . (W. B. Margetson) _Frontispiece_
THE DEDICATION . . . . . . . . . . . (J. Pettie, R.A.)
MERLIN AND NIMUE . . . . . . . . . . (Burne-Jones)
SIR TRISTRAM AND THE FAIR ISOUD . . (D. G. Rosetti)
SIR GALAHAD . . . . . . . . . . . . (G. F. Watts)
SIR LAUNCELOT AT THE CROSS . . . . . (Stella Langdale)
ELAINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (J. M. Strudwick)
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR . . . . . . . (Stella Langdale)
"We have from the kind Creator a variety of mental powers, to which we
must not neglect giving their proper culture in our earliest years, and
which cannot be cultivated either by logic or metaphysics, Latin or
Greek. We have an imagination, before which, since it should not seize
upon the very first conceptions that chance to present themselves, we
ought to place the fittest and most beautiful images, and thus accustom
and practise the mind to recognise and love the beautiful everywhere."
Quoted from Wieland by Goethe in his Autobiography
Introduction
Among the best liked stories of five or six hundred years ago were
those which told of chivalrous deeds--of joust and tourney and knightly
adventure. To be sure, these stories were not set forth in printed
books, for there were no printed books as early as the times of the
first three King Edwards, and few people could have read them if there
had been any. But children and grown people alike were eager to hear
these old-time tales read or recited by the minstrels, and the interest
in them has continued in some measure through all the changing years
and tastes. We now, in the times of the seventh King Edward, still
find them far more worth our while than many modern stories. For us
they have a special interest, because of home setting and Christian
basis, and they may well share in our attention with the legends of
Greece and Rome.
In these early romances of chivalry, Arthur and his knights of the
Round Table are by far the most popular heroes, and the finding of the
Holy Grail is the highest achievement of knightly valour. The material
for the Arthur stories came from many countries and from many different
periods of history. Much of it is wholly fanciful, but the writers
connected all the incidents directly or indirectly with the old Briton
king of the fifth century, who was the model of knighthood, "without
fear and without reproach."
Perhaps there was a real King Arthur, who led the Britons against the
Saxon invaders of their land, who was killed by his traitor nephew, and
who was buried at Glastonbury,--the valley of Avilion of the legends;
perhaps there was a slight historical nucleus around which all the
romantic material was crystallising through the centuries, but the
Arthur of romance came largely from the imagination of the early
writers.
And yet, though our "own ideal knight" may never have trod the soil of
Britain or Roman or Saxon England, his chivalrous character and the
knightly deeds of his followers are real to us, if we read them
rightly, for "the poet's ideal was the truest truth." Though the
sacred vessel--the Holy Grail--of the Christ's last supper with His
disciples has not been borne about the earth in material form, to be
seen only by those of stainless life and character, it is eternally
true that the "pure in heart" are "blessed," "for they shall see God."
This is what the Quest of the Holy Grail means, and there is still many
a true Sir Galahad, who can say, as he did,
"My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure,"
and who attains the highest glory of knighthood, as before his clear
vision
"down dark tides the glory glides,
And starlike mingles with the stars."
We call these beautiful stories of long ago Stories of Chivalry, for,
in the Middle Ages, chivalry influenced all that people did and said
and thought. It began in the times of Charlemagne, a hundred years
before our own King Alfred, and only very gradually it made its way
through all the social order. Charlemagne was really a very great man,
and because he was so, he left Western Europe a far better place to
live in than he found it. Into the social life of his time he brought
something like order and justice and peace, and so he greatly helped
the Christian Church to do its work of teaching the rough and warlike
Franks and Saxons and Normans the gentle ways of thrift and helpfulness.
Charlemagne's "heerban," or call to arms, required that certain of his
men should attend him on horseback, and this mounted service was the
beginning of what is known as chivalry. The lesser nobles of each
feudal chief served their overlords on horseback, _à cheval_, in times
of war; they were called _knights_, which originally meant
servants,--German _knechte_; and the system of knighthood, its rules,
customs, and duties, was called chivalry,--French _chevalerie_.
Chivalry belongs chiefly to the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries,--to about the time between King Richard of the Lion Heart
and Prince Hal. There is no trace of ideas peculiar to it in the
writings of the old Anglo-Saxons or in the _Nibelungen Lied_ of
Germany. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who died, it is said, in the year 1154,
is about the earliest writer who mentions customs that belong
especially to chivalry. The Crusades, of Geoffrey's century and of the
one following, gave much opportunity for its growth and practice; but
in the fifteenth century chivalrous fashions and fancies began to seem
absurd, and later, perhaps partly through the ridicule of that old-time
book "Don Quixote," chivalry was finally laughed quite out of existence.
The order of knighthood was given only after years of training and
discipline. From his seventh year to his fourteenth the nobleman's son
was a _page_ at the court or in the castle of his patron, learning the
principles of religion, obedience, and gallantry. At fourteen, as a
_squire_, the boy began a severer course of training, in order to
become skilled in horsemanship, and to gain strength and courage, as
well as the refinements and graces necessary in the company of knights
and ladies.
Finally, at twenty-one, his training was complete, and with elaborate
and solemn formality the _squire_ was made a _knight_. Then, after a
strict oath to be loyal, courteous, and brave, the armour was buckled
on, and the proud young chevalier rode out into the world, strong for
good or ill in limb, strong in impenetrable armour, strong in a social
custom that lifted him above the common people about him.
When rightly exercised chivalry was a great blessing to the people of
its time. It offered high ideals of pure-minded, warm-hearted,
courtly, courageous Christian manhood. It did much to arouse thought,
to quicken sympathy, to purify morals, to make men truly brave and
loyal. Of course this ideal of character was not in the days of
chivalry--ideals are not often now--very fully realised. The
Mediaeval, like the Modern, abused his power of muscle, of sword, of
rank. His liberty as a knight-errant sometimes descended into the
licence of a highwayman; his pride in the opportunity for helpfulness
grew to be the braggadocio of a bully; his freedom of personal choice
became the insolence of lawlessness; his pretended purity and justice
proved wanton selfishness.
Because of these abuses that crept into the system, it is well for the
world that gunpowder at last came, to break through the knight's coat
of mail, to teach the nobility respect for common men, roughly to end
this age of so much superficial politeness and savage bravery, and to
bring in a more democratic social order.
The books of any age are for us a record of how the people of that age
thought, how they lived, and what kind of men and women they tried to
be. The old romances of chivalry give us clear pictures of the knights
and ladies of the Middle Ages, and we shall lose the delight and the
profit they may give us, if we think only of the defects of chivalry,
and close our eyes to the really worthy motives of those far-off times,
and so miss seeing what chivalry was able to do, while it lasted, to
make men and women better and happier.
Before reading the Arthur stories themselves it is well to know
something about the way they have been built up, as one writer after
another has taken the material left by predecessors, and has worked
into it fresh conceptions of things brave and true. First there was
the old Latin chronicle of Nennius, the earliest trace of Arthurian
fact or fancy, with a single paragraph given to Arthur and his twelve
great battles. This chronicle itself may have been based on yet
earlier Welsh stories, which had been passed on, perhaps for centuries,
by oral tradition from father to son, and gradually woven together into
some legendary history of Oldest England in the local language of
Brittany, across the English Channel. This original book is referred
to by later writers, but was long ago lost. Geoffrey of Monmouth says
it was the source of his material for his "Historia Britonum."
Geoffrey's history, in Latin prose, written some time about the middle
of the twelfth century, remains as the earliest definite record of the
legends connected with King Arthur.
Only a little later Geoffrey's Latin history was translated by Wace and
others into Norman French, and here the Arthur material first appeared
in verse form. Then, still later in the twelfth century, Walter Map
worked the same stories over into French prose, and at the same time
put so much of his own knowledge and imagination with them, that we may
almost say that he was the maker of the Arthur romances.
Soon after the year twelve hundred,--a half century after Geoffrey of
Monmouth first set our English ancestors to thinking about the
legendary old hero of the times of the Anglo-Saxon conquest--Layamon,
parish priest of Ernly, in Worcestershire, gave to the English language
(as distinct from the earlier Anglo-Saxon) his poem "Brut." This was a
translation and enlargement of Wace's old French poem having Arthur as
hero. So these stories of King Arthur, of Welsh or Celtic origin, came
through the Latin, and then through French verse and prose, into our
own speech, and so began their career down the centuries of our more
modern history.
After giving ideas to generation after generation of romance writers of
many countries and in many languages, these same romantic stories were,
in the fifteenth century, skilfully brought together into one connected
prose narrative,--one of the choicest of the older English classics,
"Le Morte Darthur," by Sir Thomas Malory. Those were troublous times
when Sir Thomas, perhaps after having himself fought and suffered in
the Wars of the Roses then in progress, found some quiet spot in
Warwickshire in which to put together in lasting form the fine old
stories that already in his day were classics.
Malory finished his book in 1470, and its permanence for all time was
assured fifteen years later, when Caxton, after the "symple connynge"
that God had sent him (to use the quaint forms of expression then
common), "under the favour and correctyon of al noble lordes and
gentylmen emprysed to emprynte a book of the noble hystoryes of the
sayd Kynge Arthur and of certeyn of his knyghtes after a copye unto him
delyuerd whyche copye Syr Thomas Malorye dyd take oute of certeyn
bookes of Frensche and reduced it in to Englysche." This hard-headed
business man,--this fifteenth-century publisher,--was rather doubtful
about the Briton king of a thousand years before his day, and to those
urging upon him the venture of printing Malory's book he answered:
"Dyuers men holde oppynyon that there was no suche Arthur and that alle
suche bookes as been maad of hym ben fayned and fables by cause that
somme cronycles make of him no mencyon ne remember him noo thynge ne of
his knyghtes."
But the arguments of those in favour of the undertaking prevailed,
greatly to the advantage of the four centuries that have followed,
during which "Le Morte Darthur" has been a constant source of poetic
inspiration. Generation after generation of readers and of writers
have drawn life from its chapters, and the new delight in Tennyson's
"Idylls of the King," almost of our own time, shows that the fountain
has not yet been drained dry.
Malory's "Morte Darthur" is a long book, and its really great interest
is partly hidden from us by forms of expression that belong only to the
time when it was first written. Besides this, the ideas of what was
right and proper in conduct and speech--moral standards--were far lower
in Malory's day than they are now.
The purpose of this new little volume is to bring the old tales freshly
to the attention of young people of the present time. It keeps, as far
as may be, the exact language and the spirit of the original, chooses
such stories as best represent the whole, and modifies these only in
order to remove what could possibly hide the thought, or be so crude in
taste and morals as to seem unworthy of the really high-minded author
of five hundred years ago. It aims also so to condense the book that,
in this age of hurry, readers may not be repelled from the tales merely
because of their length.
Chivalry of just King Arthur's kind was given up long ago, but that for
which it stood--human fellowship in noble purpose--is far older than
the institution of knighthood or than even the traditions of the
energetic, brave, true, helpful King Arthur himself. It links us with
all the past and all the future. The knights of the twentieth century
do not set out in chain-armour to right the wrongs of the oppressed by
force of arms, but the best influences of chivalry have been preserved
for the quickening of a broader and a nobler world than was ever in the
dreams of knight-errant of old. Modern heroes of the genuine type owe
more than they know to those of Arthur's court who swore:
"To reverence the King, as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King,
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
To honour his own word as if his God's,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they won her."
"Antiquity produced heroes, but not gentlemen," someone has said. In
the days of Charlemagne and Alfred began the training which, continued
in the days of Chaucer and Sir Thomas Malory and many, many more, has
given to this our age that highest type of manhood, the Christian
gentleman.
U. W. C.
Stories of King Arthur
CHAPTER I
OF THE BIRTH OF KING ARTHUR
It befell in the days of Uther Pendragon, when he was king of all
England, that there was a mighty duke in Cornwall that held war against
him a long time. And the duke was named the Duke of Tintagil. Ten
miles away from his castle, called Terrabil, there was, in the castle
Tintagil, Igraine of Cornwall, that King Uther liked and loved well,
for she was a good and fair lady, and passing wise. He made her great
cheer out of measure, and desired to have her love in return; but she
would not assent unto him, and for pure anger and for great love of
fair Igraine King Uther fell sick.
At that time there lived a powerful magician named Merlin, who could
appear in any place he chose, could change his looks as he liked, and
at will could do wonderful things to help or to harm knights and
ladies. So to King Uther came Sir Ulfius, a noble knight, and said, "I
will seek Merlin, and he shall do you remedy so that your heart shall
be pleased." So Ulfius departed, and by adventure met Merlin in
beggar's array, and made him promise to be not long behind in riding to
Uther's pavilion.
Soon Merlin stood by the king's side and said: "I know all your heart,
and promise ye shall have your desire, if ye will be sworn to fulfil my
wish." This the king solemnly agreed to do, and then Merlin said:
"After ye shall win Igraine as wife, a child shall be born to you that
is to be given unto me to be brought up as I will; this shall be for
your honour and the child's avail."
That night King Uther met in battle the Duke of Tintagil, who had
protected Igraine in her castle, and overcame him. Then Igraine
welcomed Uther as her true lover, for Merlin had given him the
appearance of one dear to her, and, the barons being all well accorded,
the two were married on a morning with great mirth and joy.
When the time came that Igraine should bear a son, Merlin came again
unto the King to claim his promise, and he said: "I know a lord of
yours in this land, a passing true man and a faithful, named Sir Ector,
and he shall have the nourishing of your child. Let the young Prince
be delivered to me at yonder privy postern, when I come for him."
So the babe, Arthur Pendragon, bound in a cloth of gold, was taken by
two knights and two ladies to the postern gate of the castle and
delivered unto Merlin, disguised as a poor man, and by him was carried
forth to Sir Ector, whose wife nourished him as her own child.
Then within two years King Uther fell sick of a great malady.
Wherefore all the barons made great sorrow, and asked Merlin what
counsel were best, for few of them had ever seen or heard of the young
child, Arthur. On the morn all by Merlin's counsel came before the
King, and Merlin said: "Sir, shall your son Arthur be king, after your
days, of this realm with all the appurtenance?"
Then Uther Pendragon turned him and said in hearing of them all, "I
give him God's blessing and mine, and bid him righteously and
honourably to claim the crown upon forfeiture of my blessing."
Therewith he died, and he was buried as befitted a king, and the Queen,
fair Igraine, and all the barons made great sorrow.