King Arthur's Knights
senseless to the ground; and the troll-wife he kicked, so that she was
dashed among the dogs, who bit her.
'Tall man,' said Perceval, and men marvelled to see the high look on
his face and the cold scorn in his eyes, 'I will have vengeance on thee
for the insult and ill-treatment thou hast done these two poor dwarfs.
But tell me now which of these knights is Arthur?'
'Away with thee,' shouted Kay, enraged. 'If thou wouldst see Arthur, go
to the knight with the goblet who waits for thee at the ford, and take
the goblet from him, and slay him. Then when thou comest back clad in
his armour, we will speak further with thee.'
'I will do so, angry man,' said Perceval, and amid the shouts of
laughter and the sneers of the crowd he turned his horse's head and
rode out of the hall.
Going to the meadow beside the ford, he saw a knight riding up and
down, proud of his strength and valour.
'Tell me, fellow,' said the knight, who bore on his shield the device
of a black tower on a red field, 'didst thou see any one coming after
me from the court yonder?'
'The tall man that was there,' said Perceval, 'bade me to come to thee,
and I am to overthrow thee and to take from thee the goblet, and as for
thy horse and thy arms I am to have them myself.'
'Silence, prating fool!' shouted the knight, 'go back to the court and
tell Arthur to come himself, or to send a champion to fight me, or I
will not wait, and great will be his shame.'
'By my faith,' said Perceval, 'whether thou art willing or unwilling,
it is I that will have thy horse and arms and the goblet.'
And he prepared to throw his javelin-sticks.
In a proud rage the knight ran at him with uplifted lance, and struck
him a violent blow with the shaft between the neck and the shoulder.
'Haha! lad,' said Perceval, and laughed, 'that was as shrewd a blow as
any the trolls gave me when they taught me their staff play; but now I
will play with thee in my own way.'
Thereupon he threw one of the pointed sticks at the knight, with such
force and with such sureness of aim that it went in between the bars of
his vizor and pierced the eye, and entered into the brain of the
knight. Whereupon he fell from his horse lifeless.
And it befell that a little while after Perceval had left the court,
Sir Owen came in, and was told of the shameful wrong put upon the queen
by the unknown knight, and how Sir Kay had sent a mad boy after the
knight to slay him.
'Now, by my troth,' said Owen to Kay, 'thou wert a fool to send that
foolish lad after the strong knight. For either he will be overthrown,
and the knight will think he is truly the champion sent on behalf of
the queen, whom the knight so evilly treated, and so an eternal
disgrace will light on Arthur and all of us; or, if he is slain, the
disgrace will be the same, and the mad young man's life will be thrown
away.'
Thereupon Sir Owen made all haste, and rode swiftly to the meadow,
armed; but when he reached the place, he found a youth in a mouldy old
jerkin pulling a knight in rich armour up and down the grass.
'By'r Lady's name!' cried Sir Owen, 'what do you there, tall youth?'
'This iron coat,' said Perceval, stopping as he spoke, 'will never come
off him.'
Owen alighted marvelling, and went to the knight and found that he was
dead, and saw the manner of his death, and marvelled the more. He
unloosed the knight's armour and gave it to Perceval.
'Here, good soul,' he said, 'are horse and armour for thee. And well
hast thou merited them, since thou unarmed hast slain so powerful a
knight as this.'
He helped Perceval put on his armour, and when he was fully dressed
Owen marvelled to see how nobly he bore himself.
'Now come you with me,' he said, 'and we will go to King Arthur, and
you shall have the honour of knighthood from the good king himself.'
'Nay, that will I not,' said Perceval, and mounted the dead knight's
horse. 'But take thou this goblet to the queen, and tell the king that
wherever I be, I will be his man, to slay all oppressors, to succour
the weak and the wronged, and to aid him in whatever knightly
enterprise he may desire my aid. But I will not enter his court until I
have encountered the tall man there who sent me hither, to revenge upon
him the wrong he did to my friends, Tod the dwarf and his wife.'
And with this Perceval said farewell and rode off. Sir Owen went back
to the court, and told Arthur and the queen all these things. Men
marvelled who the strange young man could be, and many sought Tod and
his wife to question them, but nowhere could they be found.
Greater still was their marvelling when, as the weeks passed, knights
came and yielded themselves to King Arthur, saying that Perceval had
overcome them in knightly combat, and had given them their lives on
condition that they went to King Arthur's court and yielded themselves
up to him and his mercy. The king and all his court reproved Kay for
his churlish manner, and for his having driven so splendid a youth from
the court.
And Perceval rode ever forward. He came one day towards the gloaming to
a lonely wood in the fenlands, where the wind shivered like the breath
of ghosts among the leaves, and there was not a track or trace of man
or beast, and no birds piped. And soon, as the wind shrilled, and the
rain began to beat down like thin grey spears, he saw a vast castle
rise before him, and when he made his way towards the gate, he found
the way so overgrown with weeds that hardly could he push his horse
between them. And on the very threshold the grass grew thick and high,
as if the door had not been opened for a hundred winters.
He battered on the door with the butt of his lance; and long he waited,
while the cold rain drove and the wind snarled.
After a little while a voice came from above the gateway, and glancing
up he saw a damsel looking through an opening in the battlements.
'Choose thou, chieftain,' said she, 'whether I shall open unto thee
without announcing thee, or whether I shall tell her that rules here
that thou wishest to enter.'
'Say that I am here,' said Perceval. 'And if she will not house me for
the night, then will I go forward.'
Soon the maiden came back and opened the door for him, and his horse
she led into the stable, where she fed it; and Perceval she brought
into the hall. When he came into the light and looked at the girl, he
thought he had never seen another of so fair an aspect.
She had an old garment of satin upon her, which had once been rich, but
was now frayed and tattered; and fairer was her skin than the bloom of
the rose, and her hair and eyebrows were like the sloe for blackness,
and on her cheeks was the redness of poppies. Her eyes were like deep
pools in a dark wood. And he thought that, though she was very
beautiful, there was great arrogance in her look and cruelty in her
lips.
When Perceval went towards the dais of the hall he saw a tall and
stately lady in the high seat, old of years and reverend of aspect,
though sorrowful. Several handmaids sat beside her, sad of face and
tattered of dress. All welcomed him right kindly. Then they sat at
meat, and gave the young man the best cheer that they had.
When it was time to go to rest, the lady said:
'It were well for you, chieftain, that you sleep not in this castle.'
'Wherefore,' said Perceval, 'seeing that the storm beats wildly without
and there is room here for many?'
'For this reason,' said the lady, 'that I would not that so handsome
and kindly a youth as you seem should suffer the doom which must light
upon this my castle at dawn.'
'Tell me,' said Perceval, 'what is this castle, and what is the doom
you speak of?'
'This castle is named the Castle of Weeds,' replied the lady, 'and the
lands about it for many miles belonged to my husband, the Earl Mador.
And he was a bold and very valiant man; and he slew Maelond, the eldest
son of Domna, the great witch of Glaive, and ever thereafter things
were not well with him. For she and her eight evil sisters laid a curse
upon him. And that in spite of this, that he slew Maelond in fair
fight, for all that he was a false and powerful wizard. And Domna came
to my husband, when he was worn with a strange sickness, and as he lay
on his deathbed. And she said she should revenge herself upon his
daughter and mine, this maiden here, when she shall be full twice nine
years of age. And she will be of that age ere dawn to-morrow morn, and
at the hour will the fierce Domna and her fearful sisters come, and
with tortures slay all that are herein, and take my dear daughter
Angharad, and use her cruelly.'
The maiden who had opened to Perceval was that daughter, and she
laughed harshly as her mother spoke.
'Fear not for me, mother,' she cried. 'They will deck me in rich robes,
and I shall not pine for fair raiment, as I have pined these ten years
with thee.'
The lady looked sadly upon her as she heard her words.
'I fear not, my daughter, that they will take thy life,' she said, 'but
I dread this--that they will destroy thy soul!'
And Angharad laughed and said:
'What matter, so it be that I live richly while I live!'
'Nay, nay,' said Perceval, and in his voice was a great scorn, 'it is
evil to speak thus, and it belies your beauty, fair maiden. Rather a
life of poverty than one of shamefulness and dishonour. Thus is it with
all good knights and noble dames, and thus was it with our dear Lord.'
Then turning to the lady, he said:
'Lady, I think these evil witches will not hurt thee. For the little
help that I may give to thee, I will stay this night with thee.'
After he had prayed at the altar in the ruined chapel of the castle,
they led him to a bed in the hall, where he slept.
And just before the break of day there came a dreadful outcry, with
groans and shrieks and terrible screams and moanings, as if all the
evil that could be done was being done upon poor wretches out in the
dark.
Perceval leapt from his couch, and with naught upon him but his vest
and doublet, he went with his sword in hand to the gate, and there he
saw two poor serving-men struggling with a hag dressed all in armour.
Behind her came eight others. And their eyes, from between the bars of
their helms, shone with a horrible red fire, and from each point of
their armour sparks flashed, and the swords in their grisly hands
gleamed with a blue flame, so fierce and so terrible that it scorched
the eyes to look upon them.
But Perceval dashed upon the foremost witch, and with his sword beat
her with so great a stroke that she fell to the ground, and the helm on
her head was flattened to the likeness of a dish.
When she fell, the light of her eyes and her sword went out, and the
armour all seemed to wither away, and she was nothing but an old ugly
woman in rags. And she cried out:
'Thy mercy, good Perceval, son of Evroc, and the mercy of Heaven!'
'How knowest thou, hag,' said he, 'that I am Perceval?'
'By the destiny spun by the powers of the Underworld,' she said, 'and
the foreknowledge that I should suffer harm from thee. And I knew not
that thou wert here, or I and my sisters would have avoided thee. But
it is fated,' she went on, 'that thou come with us to learn all that
may be learned of the use of arms. For there are none in Britain to
compare with us for the knowledge of warfare.'
Then Perceval remembered what he had heard the trolls--the people of
the Underworld--say, though he had not understood their meaning. 'The
stainless knight,' they said, 'shall gain from evil greater strength,
and with it he may confound all evil.'
'If it be thus fated,' he said, 'I will go with thee. But first thou
shalt swear that no evil shall happen to the lady of this castle nor to
her daughter, nor to any that belong to them.'