Legends of King Arthur and His Knights, The. Sir James Knowles

Hound — Sir Dinedan refuses to fight — Sir Pellinore follows Sir Tristram — Sir Brewse-without-pity — The Tournament at the Maiden’s Castle — Sir Palomedes and Sir Tristram

      Chapter XII Merlin is bewitched by a Damsel of the Lady of the Lake — Galahad knighted by Sir Lancelot — The Perilous Seat — The Marvellous Sword — Sir Galahad in the Perilous Seat — The Sangreal — The Knights vow themselves to its Quest — The Shield of the White Knight — The Fiend of the Tomb — Sir Galahad at the Maiden’s Castle — The Sick Knight and the Sangreal — Sir Lancelot declared unworthy to find the Holy Vessel — Sir Percival seeks Sir Galahad — The Black Steed — Sir Bors and the Hermit — Sir Pridan le Noir — Sir Lionel’s Anger — He meets Sir Percival — The ship “Faith” — Sir Galahad and Earl Hernox — The Leprous Lady — Sir Galahad discloses himself to Sir Lancelot — They part — The Blind King Evelake — Sir Galahad finds the Sangreal — His Death

      Chapter XIII The Queen quarrels with Sir Lancelot — She is accused of Murder — Her Champion proves her innocence — The Tourney at Camelot — Sir Lancelot in the Tourney — Sir Baldwin the Knight-Hermit — Elaine, the Maid of Astolat, seeks for Sir Lancelot — She tends his Wounds — Her Death — The Queen and Sir Lancelot are reconciled

      Chapter XIV Sir Lancelot attacked by Sir Agravaine, Sir Modred, and thirteen other Knights — He slays them all but Sir Modred — He leaves the Court — Sir Modred accuses him to the King — The Queen condemned to be burnt — Her rescue by Sir Lancelot and flight with him — The War between Sir Lancelot and the King — The Enmity of Sir Gawain — The Usurpation of Sir Modred — The Queen retires to a Nunnery — Sir Lancelot goes on Pilgrimage — The Battle of Barham Downs — Sir Bedivere and the Sword Excalibur — The Death of King Arthur

      ILLUSTRATOR’S NOTE

       f scenes from the Legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table many lovely pictures have been painted, showing much diversity of figures and surroundings, some being definitely sixth-century British or Saxon, as in Blair Leighton’s fine painting of the dead Elaine; others—for example, Watts’ Sir Galahad—show knight and charger in fifteenth-century armour; while the warriors of Burne Jones wear strangely impracticable armour of some mystic period. Each of these painters was free to follow his own conception, putting the figures into whatever period most appealed to his imagination; for he was not illustrating the actual tales written by Sir Thomas Malory, otherwise he would have found himself face to face with a difficulty.

      King Arthur and his knights fought, endured, and toiled in the sixth century, when the Saxons were overrunning Britain; but their achievements were not chronicled by Sir Thomas Malory until late in the fifteenth century.

      Sir Thomas, as Froissart has done before him, described the habits of life, the dresses, weapons, and armour that his own eyes looked upon in the every-day scenes about him, regardless of the fact that almost every detail mentioned was something like a thousand years too late.

      Had Malory undertaken an account of the landing of Julius Caesar he would, as a matter of course, have protected the Roman legions with bascinet or salade, breastplate, pauldron and palette, coudiére, taces and the rest, and have armed them with lance and shield, jewel-hilted sword and slim misericorde; while the Emperor himself might have been given the very suit of armour stripped from the Duke of Clarence before his fateful encounter with the butt of malmsey.

      Did not even Shakespeare calmly give cannon to the Romans and suppose every continental city to lie majestically beside the sea? By the old writers, accuracy in these matters was disregarded, and anachronisms were not so much tolerated as unperceived.

      In illustrating this edition of “The Legends of King Arthur and his Knights,” it has seemed best, and indeed unavoidable if the text and the pictures are to tally, to draw what Malory describes, to place the fashion of the costumes and armour somewhere about A.D. 1460, and to arm the knights in accordance with the Tabard Period.

      LANCELOT SPEED.

      LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

       The Marriage of King Arthur

       Then fell Sir Ector down upon his knees upon the ground before young Arthur, and Sir Key also with him.

       The Lady of the Lake

       The giant sat at supper, gnawing on a limb of a man, and baking his huge frame by the fire

       The castle rocked and rove throughout, and all the walls fell crashed and breaking to the earth

       Came forth twelve fair damsels, and saluted King Arthur by his name

       Prianius was christened, and made a duke and knight of the Round Table

       Sir Lancelot smote down with one spear five knights, and brake the backs of four, and cast down the King of Northgales

       Beyond the chapel, he met a fair damsel, who said, “Sir Lancelot, leave that sword behind thee, or thou diest”

       “Lady,” replied Sir Beaumains, “a knight is little worth who may not bear with a damsel”

       So he rode into the hall and alighted

       Then they began the battle, and tilted at their hardest against each other

       And running to her chamber, she sought in her casket for the piece of iron ... and fitted it in Tristram’s sword

       By the time they had finished drinking they loved each other so well that their love never more might leave them

       Waving her hands and muttering the charm, and presently enclosed him fast within the tree

       Galahad ... quickly lifted up the stone, and forthwith came out a foul smoke

       “This girdle, lords,” said she, “is made for the most part of mine own hair, which, while I was yet in the world, I loved full well”

       At last the strange knight smote him to the earth, and gave him such a buffet on the helm as wellnigh killed him

       Then was Sir Lancelot sent for, and the letter read aloud by a clerk

       But still the knights cried mightily without the door, “Traitor, come forth!”

      CHAPTER I

       The Prophecies of Merlin, and the Birth of Arthur

       ing Vortigern the usurper sat upon his throne in London, when, suddenly, upon a certain day, ran in a breathless messenger, and cried aloud—

      “Arise, Lord King, for the enemy is come; even Ambrosius and Uther, upon whose throne thou sittest—and full twenty thousand with them—and they have sworn by a great oath, Lord, to slay thee, ere this year be done; and even now they march towards thee as the north wind of winter for bitterness and haste.”

      At those words Vortigern’s face grew white as ashes, and, rising in confusion and disorder, he sent for all the best artificers and craftsmen and mechanics, and commanded them vehemently to go and build him straightway in the furthest west of his lands a great and strong castle, where he might fly for refuge and escape the vengeance of his master’s sons—“and,