The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights

The Legends of KING ARTHUR and his KNIGHTS Sir James Knowles Illustrated by Lancelot Speed TO ALFRED TENNYSON, D.C.L. POET LAUREATE THIS ATTEMPT AT A POPULAR VERSION OF THE ARTHUR LEGENDS IS BY HIS PERMISSION DEDICATED AS A TRIBUTE OF THE SINCEREST AND WARMEST RESPECT 1862 PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH EDITION The Publishers have asked me to authorise a new edition, in my own name, of this little book--now long out of print--which was written by me thirty-five years ago under the initials J.T.K. In acceding to their request I wish to say that the book as now published is merely a word-for-word reprint of my early effort to help to popularise the Arthur legends. It is little else than an abridgment of Sir Thomas Malory's version of them as printed by Caxton--with a few additions from Geoffrey of Monmouth and other sources--and an endeavour to arrange the many tales into a more or less consecutive story. The chief pleasure which came to me from it was, and is, that it began for me a long and intimate acquaintance with Lord Tennyson, to whom, by his permission, I Dedicated it before I was personally known to him. JAMES KNOWLES. _Addendum by Lady Knowles_ In response to a widely expressed wish for a fresh edition of this little book--now for some years out of print--a new and ninth edition has been prepared. In his preface my husband says that the intimacy with Lord Tennyson to which it led was the chief pleasure the book brought him. I have been asked to furnish a few more particulars on this point that may be generally interesting, and feel that I cannot do better than give some extracts from a letter written by himself to a friend in July 1896. "DEAR ----, "I am so _very_ glad you approve of my little effort to popularise the Arthur Legends. Tennyson had written his first four 'Idylls of the King' before my book appeared, which was in 1861. Indeed, it was in consequence of the first four Idylls that I sought and obtained, while yet a stranger to him, leave to dedicate my venture to him. He was extremely kind about it--declared 'it ought to go through forty editions'--and when I came to know him personally talked very frequently about it and Arthur with me, and made constant use of it when he at length yielded to my perpetual urgency and took up again his forsaken project of treating the whole subject of King Arthur. "He discussed and rediscussed at any amount of length the way in which this could now be done--and the Symbolism, which had from his earliest time haunted him as the inner meaning to be given to it, brought him back to the Poem in its changed shape of separate pictures. "He used often to say that it was entirely my doing that he revived his old plan, and added, 'I know more about Arthur than any other man in England, and I think you know next most.' It would amuse you to see in what intimate detail he used to consult with me--and often with my little book in front of us--over the various tales, and when I wrote an article (in the shape of a long letter) in the _Spectator_ of January 1870 he asked to reprint it, and published it with the collected Idylls. "For years, while his boys were at school and college, I acted as his confidential friend in business and many other matters, and I suppose he told me more about himself and his life than any other man now living knows." ISABEL KNOWLES. CONTENTS CHAPTER I The Finding of Merlin--The Fight of the Dragons--The Giants' Dance--The Prophecies of Merlin and the Birth of Arthur--Uther attacks the Saxons--The Death of Uther CHAPTER II Merlin's Advice to the Archbishop--The Miracle of the Sword and Stone--The Coronation of King Arthur--The Opposition of the Six Kings--The Sword Excalibur--The Defeat of the Six Kings--The War with the Eleven Kings CHAPTER III The Adventure of the Questing Beast--The Siege of York--The Battles of Celidon Forest and Badon Hill--King Arthur drives the Saxons from the Realm--The Embassy from Rome--The King rescues Merlin--The Knight of the Fountain CHAPTER IV King Arthur conquers Ireland and Norway--Slays the Giant of St. Michael's Mount and conquers Gaul--King Ryence's Insolent Message--The Damsel and the Sword--The Lady of the Lake--The Adventures of Sir Balin CHAPTER V Sir Balin kills Sir Lancear--The Sullen Knight--The Knight Invisible is killed--Sir Balin smites the Dolorous Stroke, and fights with his brother Sir Balan CHAPTER VI The Marriage of King Arthur and Guinevere--The Coronation of the Queen--The Founding of the Round Table--The Quest of the White Hart--The Adventures of Sir Gawain--The Quest of the White Hound--Sir Tor kills Abellius--The Adventures of Sir Pellinore--The Death of Sir Hantzlake--Merlin saves King Arthur CHAPTER VII King Arthur and Sir Accolon of Gaul are entrapped by Sir Damas--They fight each other through Enchantment of Queen Morgan le Fay--Sir Damas is compelled to surrender all his Lands to Sir Outzlake his Brother their Rightful Owner--Queen Morgan essays to kill King Arthur with a Magic Garment--Her Damsel is compelled to wear it and is thereby burned to Cinders CHAPTER VIII A Second Embassy from Rome--King Arthur's Answer--The Emperor assembles his Armies--King Arthur slays the Emperor--Sir Gawain and Sir Prianius--The Lombards are defeated--King Arthur crowned at Rome CHAPTER IX The Adventures of Sir Lancelot--He and his Cousin Sir Lionel set forth--The Four Witch-Queens--King Bagdemagus--Sir Lancelot slays Sir Turquine and delivers his Captive Knights--The Foul Knight--Sir Gaunter attacks Sir Lancelot--The Four Knights--Sir Lancelot comes to the Chapel Perilous--Ellawes the Sorceress--The Lady and the Falcon--Sir Bedivere and the Dead Lady CHAPTER X Beaumains is made a Kitchen Page by Sir Key--He claims the Adventure of the Damsel Linet--He fights with Sir Lancelot and is knighted by him in his True Name of Gareth--Is flouted by the Damsel Linet--But overthrows all Knights he meets and sends them to King Arthur's Court--He delivers the Lady Lyones from the Knight of the Redlands--The Tournament before Castle Perilous--Marriage of Sir Gareth and the Lady Lyones CHAPTER XI The Adventures of Sir Tristram--His Stepmother--He is knighted--Fights with Sir Marhaus--Sir Palomedes and La Belle Isault--Sir Bleoberis and Sir Segwarides--Sir Tristram's Quest--His Return--The Castle Pluere--Sir Brewnor is slain--Sir Kay Hedius--La Belle Isault's 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 Of 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