The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights
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!"
THE LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR
CHAPTER I
_The Prophecies of Merlin, and the Birth of Arthur_
King 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, moreover," cried he, "let the work be done within a hundred
days from now, or I will surely spare no life amongst you all."
Then all the host of craftsmen, fearing for their lives, found out a
proper site whereon to build the tower, and eagerly began to lay in the
foundations. But no sooner were the walls raised up above the ground than
all their work was overwhelmed and broken down by night invisibly, no man
perceiving how, or by whom, or what. And the same thing happening again,
and yet again, all the workmen, full of terror, sought out the king, and
threw themselves upon their faces before him, beseeching him to interfere
and help them or to deliver them from their dreadful work.
Filled with mixed rage and fear, the king called for the astrologers and
wizards, and took counsel with them what these things might be, and how to
overcome them. The wizards worked their spells and incantations, and in
the end declared that nothing but the blood of a youth born without mortal
father, smeared on the foundations of the castle, could avail to make it
stand. Messengers were therefore sent forthwith through all the land to
find, if it were possible, such a child. And, as some of them went down a
certain village street, they saw a band of lads fighting and quarrelling,
and heard them shout at one--"Avaunt, thou imp!--avaunt! Son of no mortal
man! go, find thy father, and leave us in peace."
At that the messengers looked steadfastly on the lad, and asked who he
was. One said his name was Merlin; another, that his birth and parentage
were known by no man; a third, that the foul fiend alone was his father.
Hearing the things, the officers seized Merlin, and carried him before the
king by force.
But no sooner was he brought to him than he asked in a loud voice, for
what cause he was thus dragged there?
"My magicians," answered Vortigern, "told me to seek out a man that had no
human father, and to sprinkle my castle with his blood, that it may
stand."
"Order those magicians," said Merlin, "to come before me, and I will
convict them of a lie."
The king was astonished at his words, but commanded the magicians to come
and sit down before Merlin, who cried to them--
"Because ye know not what it is that hinders the foundation of the castle,
ye have advised my blood for a cement to it, as if that would avail; but
tell me now rather what there is below that ground, for something there is
surely underneath that will not suffer the tower to stand?"
The wizards at these words began to fear, and made no answer. Then said
Merlin to the king--
"I pray, Lord, that workmen may be ordered to dig deep down into the
ground till they shall come to a great pool of water."
This then was done, and the pool discovered far beneath the surface of the
ground.
Then, turning again to the magicians, Merlin said, "Tell me now, false
sycophants, what there is underneath that pool?"--but they were silent.
Then said he to the king, "Command this pool to be drained, and at the
bottom shall be found two dragons, great and huge, which now are sleeping,
but which at night awake and fight and tear each other. At their great
struggle all the ground shakes and trembles, and so casts down thy towers,
which, therefore, never yet could find secure foundations."
The king was amazed at these words, but commanded the pool to be forthwith
drained; and surely at the bottom of it did they presently discover the
two dragons, fast asleep, as Merlin had declared.
But Vortigern sat upon the brink of the pool till night to see what else
would happen.
Then those two dragons, one of which was white, the other red, rose up and
came near one another, and began a sore fight, and cast forth fire with
their breath. But the white dragon had the advantage, and chased the other
to the end of the lake. And he, for grief at his flight, turned back upon
his foe, and renewed the combat, and forced him to retire in turn. But in
the end the red dragon was worsted, and the white dragon disappeared no
man knew where.
When their battle was done, the king desired Merlin to tell him what it
meant. Whereat he, bursting into tears, cried out this prophecy, which
first foretold the coming of King Arthur.
"Woe to the red dragon, which figureth the British nation, for his
banishment cometh quickly; his lurkingholes shall be seized by the white
dragon--the Saxon whom thou, O king, hast called to the land. The
mountains shall be levelled as the valleys, and the rivers of the valleys
shall run blood; cities shall be burned, and churches laid in ruins; till
at length the oppressed shall turn for a season and prevail against the
strangers. For a Boar of Cornwall shall arise and rend them, and trample
their necks beneath his feet. The island shall be subject to his power,
and he shall take the forests of Gaul. The house of Romulus shall dread
him--all the world shall fear him--and his end shall no man know; he shall
be immortal in the mouths of the people, and his works shall be food to
those that tell them.
"But as for thee, O Vortigern, flee thou the sons of Constantine, for they
shall burn thee in thy tower. For thine own ruin wast thou traitor to
their father, and didst bring the Saxon heathens to the land. Aurelius and
Uther are even now upon thee to revenge their father's murder; and the
brood of the white dragon shall waste thy country, and shall lick thy
blood. Find out some refuge, if thou wilt! but who may escape the doom of
God?"
The king heard all this, trembling greatly; and, convicted of his sins,
said nothing in reply. Only he hasted the builders of his tower by day and
night, and rested not till he had fled thereto.
In the meantime, Aurelius, the rightful king, was hailed with joy by the
Britons, who flocked to his standard, and prayed to be led against the
Saxons. But he, till he had first killed Vortigern, would begin no other
war. He marched therefore to Cambria, and came before the tower which the
usurper had built. Then, crying out to all his knights, "Avenge ye on him
who hath ruined Britain and slain my father and your king!" he rushed with
many thousands at the castle walls. But, being driven back again and yet
again, at length he thought of fire, and ordered blazing brands to be cast
into the building from all sides. These finding soon a proper fuel, ceased
not to rage, till spreading to a mighty conflagration, they burned down
the tower and Vortigern within it.
Then did Aurelius turn his strength against Hengist and the Saxons, and,
defeating them in many places, weakened their power for a long season, so
that the land had peace.
Anon the king, making many journeys to and fro, restoring ruined churches
and, creating order, came to the monastery near Salisbury, where all those
British knights lay buried who had been slain there by the treachery of
Hengist. For when in former times Hengist had made a solemn truce with
Vortigern, to meet in peace and settle terms, whereby himself and all his
Saxons should depart from Britain, the Saxon soldiers carried every one of
them beneath his garment a long dagger, and, at a given signal, fell upon
the Britons, and slew them, to the number of nearly five hundred.
The sight of the place where the dead lay moved Aurelius to great sorrow,
and he cast about in his mind how to make a worthy tomb over so many noble
martyrs, who had died there for their country.
When he had in vain consulted many craftsmen and builders, he sent, by the
advice of the archbishop, for Merlin, and asked him what to do. "If you
would honour the burying-place of these men," said Merlin, "with an
everlasting monument, send for the Giants' Dance which is in Killaraus, a
mountain in Ireland; for there is a structure of stone there which none of
this age could raise without a perfect knowledge of the arts. They are
stones of a vast size and wondrous nature, and if they can be placed here
as they are there, round this spot of ground, they will stand for ever."
At these words of Merlin, Aurelius burst into laughter, and said, "How is
it possible to remove such vast stones from so great a distance, as if
Britain, also, had no stones fit for the work?"
"I pray the king," said Merlin, "to forbear vain laughter; what I have
said is true, for those stones are mystical and have healing virtues. The
giants of old brought them from the furthest coast of Africa, and placed
them in Ireland while they lived in that country: and their design was to
make baths in them, for use in time of grievous illness. For if they
washed the stones and put the sick into the water, it certainly healed
them, as also it did them that were wounded in battle; and there is no
stone among them but hath the same virtue still."
When the Britons heard this, they resolved to send for the stones, and to
make war upon the people of Ireland if they offered to withhold them. So,
when they had chosen Uther the king's brother for their chief, they set
sail, to the number of 15,000 men, and came to Ireland. There Gillomanius,
the king, withstood them fiercely, and not till after a great battle could
they approach the Giants' Dance, the sight of which filled them with joy
and admiration. But when they sought to move the stones, the strength of
all the army was in vain, until Merlin, laughing at their failures,
contrived machines of wondrous cunning, which took them down with ease,
and placed them in the ships.
When they had brought the whole to Salisbury, Aurelius, with the crown
upon his head, kept for four days the feast of Pentecost with royal pomp;
and in the midst of all the clergy and the people, Merlin raised up the
stones, and set them round the sepulchre of the knights and barons, as
they stood in the mountains of Ireland.
Then was the monument called "Stonehenge," which stands, as all men know,
upon the plain of Salisbury to this very day.
Soon thereafter it befell that Aurelius was slain by poison at Winchester,
and was himself buried within the Giants' Dance.
At the same time came forth a comet of amazing size and brightness,
darting out a beam, at the end whereof was a cloud of fire shaped like a
dragon, from whose mouth went out two rays, one stretching over Gaul, the
other ending in seven lesser rays over the Irish sea.