The Knights of the Round Table

CHAPTER I

It was when we were making a journey in the South of England one summer that we found ourselves in the midst of the old tales of King Arthur and of the Holy Grail. "We" means Helen, Helen's mother, and me. We wandered about the country, here and there and wherever our fancy led us, and everywhere the stories of King Arthur fell in our way. In this place he was born, in that place he was crowned; here he fought a battle, there he held a tournament. Everything could remind us, when we knew how to be reminded, of the stories of the King and the Queen and the knights of the Round Table.

It was I who told the stories and it was Helen who listened to them. Sometimes Helen's mother listened to them too, and sometimes she had other things to do that she cared about more.

One day we had been riding for many hours on the crooked railways of the Southwest, where you change cars so often that after a little while you cannot remember at all how many trains you have taken. And late in the afternoon, or perhaps early in the evening, we saw from the window of the carriage a big hill, lifting itself high up against the sky, with a lonely tower on the top of it. And that was Glastonbury Tor.

There was no time to try to see anything of Glastonbury that night after dinner, and we were too tired. But that big hill looked so inviting that we decided that we would see it the next day and climb up to the top of it, before we did anything else. I was a little disappointed with Glastonbury, as we walked through the streets on our way to the Tor. The place looked much too prosperous to please me, and not at all too neat.

I cheered up a little when we came to the Abbot's Kitchen. It stands in the middle of a big field, with a fence around it, and we had to borrow a key from a woman who kept it to lend so that we could go in and see it. We even spared a little time from the Tor to see it in. The Abbot's Kitchen belonged to the old abbey of Glastonbury. It is a small, square building, with a fireplace in each corner. It is still in such good repair that it is hardly fair to call it a ruin, but it is a part of old Glastonbury, and we carried back the key feeling glad that we had borrowed it.

It was a good, stiff climb up the side of the Tor, and we stopped more than once to look back at the town behind us and below us. It looked prettier from here. Down there in the streets there was the noise of a busy modern town. The ways were muddy and there were rather frowsy women and children about some of the doors. But up here we were out of sight and hearing of all that. From here the town looked quiet and peaceful and beautiful – just its roofs and chimneys and towers showing through the wide, green masses of the trees, and the sound of a church chime, that rang every quarter of an hour, came to us softened and mellow.

"Down there," I said, "we saw nothing but Glastonbury – to-day's Glastonbury – but here we can see Avalon. That is Avalon down there below us, the Island of Apples, the happy country, the place where there was no sorrow, the place where fairies lived, the place where Joseph brought the Holy Grail and where he built his church. A wonderful old place it was, and it was a wonderful abbey that grew up where Joseph first made his little chapel. Our old friend St. Dunstan, who pinched the devil's nose, was the abbot there once. So was St. Patrick. When he came to Glastonbury he climbed up to the top of this hill where we are now and found, where this old tower is, the ruins of a church of St. Michael. They used to have a way of building churches to St. Michael on the tops of high hills. St. Patrick rebuilt this one and afterwards it was thrown down by an earthquake. I don't know whether St. Patrick built this tower that is here now or not.

"Did I say that fairies used to live here? Another abbot of Glastonbury found that out. He was St. Collen, and he must have lived when there was no church of St. Michael here on the top of the Tor. St. Collen was one of those men who think that they cannot serve God and live in comfort at the same time. When he had been abbot of Glastonbury for a time he thought that he was leading too easy a life, so he gave up his post and went about preaching. But even that did not please him, so he came back here and made a cell in the rock on the side of Glastonbury Tor, and lived in it as a hermit.

"One day he heard two men outside his cell talking about Gwyn, the son of Nudd. And one of them said: 'Gwyn, the son of Nudd, is the King of the Fairies.'

"Then Collen put his head out of the door of his cell and said to the two men: 'Do not talk of such wicked things. There are no fairies, or if there are they are devils. And there is no Gwyn, the son of Nudd. Hold your tongues about him.'

"'Hold your own tongue about him,' one of the men answered, 'or you will hear from him in some unpleasant way.'

"The men went away, and by and by Collen heard a knock at his door, and a voice asked if he were in his cell. 'I am here,' he answered; 'who is it that asks?'

"'I am a messenger from Gwyn, the son of Nudd, the King of the Fairies,' the voice said, 'and he has sent me to command you to come and speak with him on the top of the hill at noon.'

"Collen did not think that he ought to mind what the King of the Fairies said to him, if there really were any King of the Fairies, so he stayed in his cell all day. The next day the messenger came again and said just what he had said before, and again St. Collen stayed in his cell all day. But the third day the messenger came again and said to Collen that he must come and speak with Gwyn, the son of Nudd, the King of the Fairies, on the top of the hill, at noon, or it would be the worse for him.

"Then Collen took a flask and filled it with holy water and fastened it at his waist, and at noon he went up the hill. For a long time Collen had been abbot of Glastonbury and for a long time he had been a hermit and lived in his cell on the side of this very hill, but never before had he seen the great castle that stood that day on the top of Glastonbury Tor. It did not look heavy, as if it were built for war, but it was wonderfully high and graceful and beautiful. It had tall towers, with banners of every color hung from the tops of them and lower down, and there were battlements where ladies and squires in rich dresses stood and looked down at other ladies and squires below. And those below were dancing and jousting and playing games, and all around there were soldiers, handsomely dressed too, guarding the place.

"When Collen came near, a dozen of the people met him and said to him: 'You must come with us to our King, Gwyn, the son of Nudd – he is waiting for you.'

"And they led him into the castle and into the great hall. In the middle of the hall was a table, spread with more delicious things to eat than poor St. Collen, who thought that it was wicked to eat good things, had ever dreamed of. And at the head of the table, on a gold chair, sat a man who wore a crown. 'Collen,' he said, 'I am the King of the Fairies, Gwyn, the son of Nudd. Do you believe in me now? Sit down and eat with me, and let us talk together. You are a learned man, but you did not believe in me. Perhaps I can tell you of other things that so wise a man as you ought to know.'

"But St. Collen only took the flask of holy water from his side and threw some of it upon Gwyn, the son of Nudd, and sprinkled some of it around, and in an instant there was no king there and there was no table. The hall was gone, and the castle. The dances and the games were done, and the squires and the ladies and the soldiers all had vanished. The whole of the fairy palace was gone, and Collen was left standing alone on the top of Glastonbury Tor.

"But Glastonbury has forgotten St. Collen, I suppose. The old town is prouder now of Joseph of Arimathæa than of anybody else – prouder than it is of King Arthur, I think, though King Arthur – but I won't tell you about that now. You know how Joseph of Arimathæa buried the Christ in his tomb after He was taken down from the cross. After He had risen again the Jews put Joseph in prison, because they said that he had stolen the body. But Joseph had with him the Holy Grail, the cup in which he had caught the blood of the Saviour, when He was on the cross. It was the same cup, too, from which the Saviour had drunk at the Last Supper. It was a wonderful thing, that cup, and there are whole volumes of stories about it. The blood that Joseph had caught in it always stayed in it afterwards, and the cup and the blood seemed to have a strange sort of life and knowledge and the power of choosing. One of the wonderful things about the Holy Grail was that it could always give food to any one whom it chose, and those who were fed by the Holy Grail wanted no other food than what it gave them. And so Joseph wanted nothing while he was in prison.

"At last the Emperor had Joseph let out of his prison. And some one asked him how long it had been since he was put there, and he answered: 'I have been here in this prison for nearly three days.'

"Then they all stared at one another and whispered and looked at Joseph, and then they whispered together again. 'Why do you look at one another and at me so,' said Joseph, 'is it not three days, almost, since they put me here?'

"'It is wonderful,' said one of them; 'Joseph, you have been in this prison for forty-two years.'

"'Can it be?' said Joseph; 'it seems to me like only three days, and barely that, and I have never been so happy in my life as I have been for these three days – or these – can it be – forty-two years?'

"And this was because he had had the Holy Grail in the prison with him. Afterwards he came to England. He brought the Holy Grail here to Avalon, and the King of that time gave him some ground to build his church on. They say it was really the island of Avalon then, for it was all surrounded by marsh and water, and there was an opening, a waterway, out to the Bristol Channel. And since it ceased to be an island the sea has twice at least broken through and made it one again for a little while. But the last time was almost two hundred years ago.

"Well, when Joseph and those who were with him first came here, they rested on the hillside and Joseph stuck the staff that he carried into the ground. It was not this hill where we are, but another, Wearyall Hill. And Joseph's staff, where he had set it in the ground, began to bud, and then leaves and branches grew on it. It struck roots into the ground and became a tree. It was a thorn-tree, the Holy Thorn they called it, and always after that it blossomed twice a year, once in the time of other thorn-trees and again at Christmas. The tree was gone, of course, long ago, but other trees had grown from slips of it, and they say that descendants of it are still growing in Glastonbury gardens and that they still bloom at Christmas. I am sorry that we cannot stay here till Christmas to see if it is true.

"So, in the place that the King gave him, Joseph built his chapel of wood and woven twigs, and it was the first Christian church in England. Some of the stories say that the Holy Grail, that Joseph brought here with him, was buried at last under one of these Glastonbury hills, but that is not the story that I like the best. One story says that it was not a cup at all that Joseph brought to Avalon, but two cruets. It says besides that these two cruets were buried with Joseph when he died, and that when his grave is found, and the two cruets in it, there will never again be any drought in England. But according to the story that I like best, Joseph did not die at all, as other men die, but was long kept alive by the Holy Grail, waiting for the best knight of the world, for it was foretold that he should never die till the best knight of the world should come.

"Since it was here that the Grail was brought, I think it must have been not far from here that King Pelles lived, before Balin gave him the wound that was never to heal till the best of all knights should come. And I fancy it was somewhere near here, too, that he lived after that. He was the keeper of the Grail, and he had a castle called Carbonek. When we talk of the Grail it seems to me that everything becomes mysterious and uncertain, so that it is hard to tell where this Castle of Carbonek was. At one time it seems to have been on the seashore and at another time it seems to have been inland. But for that very reason I think that Avalon is as likely a place for it as any, for this place was inland, just as it is now, but then the waters of the sea came in around it. Yet the land around King Pelles's old castle was all laid waste, and I have never heard that the land around Avalon was so. But you see that it is all uncertain and strange, and we cannot be sure of anything about it.

"I think I have told you the story about King Pelles and Balin before, but I will tell you a little of it again, because it fits in so well just here. King Pelles was descended from Joseph of Arimathæa, and, as I said, he was the keeper of the Holy Grail. Once Balin came to his castle, seeking for Garlon, a knight who had the power of riding invisible and who killed other knights, when they could not see him. Balin found him there and killed him, and King Pelles tried to avenge his death, because he was his brother.

"Balin had broken his sword and he fled from King Pelles and ran through the castle till he came to a chamber where Joseph of Arimathæa, who was kept alive by the power of the Holy Grail, was lying in a bed. And beside him was a spear, with drops of blood flowing from the point. It was the spear with which the Roman soldier wounded the side of the Christ when He was on the cross. Balin seized it and turned upon King Pelles and wounded him with it in the side.

"Then the whole castle fell down around them and all the country about it became waste and dry and desolate. Balin lay under the ruins for three days, and then Merlin, the great magician of King Arthur's court, came and woke him and gave him a horse and a sword and sent him on his way. Afterwards Balin met his brother Balan, and they fought, neither of them knowing who the other was, till they killed each other. Then Merlin took the sword with which Balin had killed his brother and drove it into a great stone, up to the hilt, and set the stone floating on the river. And he wrote on the stone that no knight should ever draw this sword out of the stone except the one to whom it should belong, the best knight of the world.

"I cannot tell you how King Pelles got out of the ruins of his castle, but afterwards he had another castle, the one that was called Carbonek. He was still the keeper of the Grail. And it was foretold that the wound in the side that Balin had given to him with the spear would never be healed till the best knight of all the world should come. So for many years King Pelles lived in his castle and bore the pain of a wound that always seemed new and fresh, and waited for the coming of the best knight of the world.

"This is getting to be a rather rambling sort of story, and while we are rambling perhaps I may as well tell you about the adventure that Sir Bors had at the Castle of Carbonek. Bors was a knight of the Round Table. He was one of the best of all of them. He sat at the table in the next seat but one to the Siege Perilous. The Siege Perilous was the seat on the right of the King's. Merlin had made it when he made the Round Table, and he said that no one should ever sit in it without coming to harm, except the best knight of all the world. So for many years no one had sat in that seat. And no one sat in the one next to it either, but Bors sat in the one next to that. Next to him sat his cousin Lancelot. They were the sons of two kings who were brothers, Ban and Bors, who had helped King Arthur, when he first came to his throne.

"Lancelot was counted as the best of all King Arthur's knights. He was the strongest and the bravest of them all, people said, and the best fighter, and the King and the Queen loved him more than any of the others. Nobody could see why he should not sit in the Siege Perilous, but whenever a knight came to the Round Table his name appeared of itself, in gold letters, in the seat that he was to have; and nobody could sit in the Siege Perilous till his name came in it.

"But I set out to tell you about Sir Bors. Once Bors came to the Castle of Carbonek. A wandering knight, in those days, was always welcome in every castle, and so King Pelles welcomed Bors. The King was brought into the hall and Bors was placed at the table between him and his daughter. And there in the hall, too, Bors saw a beautiful child, a boy, with deep eyes and a bright, sweet face and golden hair. He was the son of King Pelles's daughter, and I will tell you more about him another time.

"It was a strange way of entertaining guests that they had here, Bors thought, for, though they were sitting at the table, there was nothing to eat on it. Just as Bors noticed this he saw a white dove fly into the room. It carried a little golden censer, by a chain which it held in its beak. The thin smoke from the censer spread through the hall and filled it with a strange, sweet odor. And while the dove flew about the hall a girl came in, carrying something covered with white silk, which she held high up in her hands. Bors could not see what it was that she carried, but all who were in the hall knelt down and looked up toward it, and Bors did the same. But though the covering of silk hid the thing itself which was under it, there was something about it that it could not hide. For the white silk was all glowing with a rosy light that came from within it, and it shone through it and shed a rosy brightness all through the hall. The dove flew out of the room again and the girl went away too. And this was the Holy Grail that had passed, and Bors had not seen it.

"But when it was gone and Bors looked at the table again it was covered with food, finer and more delicious than Bors had ever tasted or seen before. 'There are strange things to see in your castle, King Pelles,' said Bors.

"'There are stranger things than you have seen yet,' King Pelles answered. 'It is a place of wonders and of danger for knights, and few of them leave here without coming to harm. Only for the best of them is it safe to stay all night in my castle. You, Sir Knight, may stay if you will, but it will be better for you to go, and so I warn you.'

"'It is not for me to say,' Bors answered, 'that I am better than other knights, and indeed I know some who are better than I. But I am not afraid to be in your castle for a night, and here I will stay.'

"'Do as you please,' said the King, 'but I have warned you.'

"So, when it was time to go to bed, Bors was led to a chamber and left alone in it. Nothing that the King had said had made him afraid, but he thought that it would be better not to take off his armor. And as soon as he had lain down in his armor a great beam of light shone upon him. He could not tell where it came from, but suddenly, along in the beam of light, came a spear, with no hand to hold it, and a little stream of blood flowed from the point of the spear. And before Bors could move the spear came upon him and went through his armor as if it had been a cobweb and made a deep wound in his side. The spear was drawn away again, but with the pain Bors fell back upon his pillow and did not see where it went.

"Then there came a knight, all armed, with his sword drawn, and the knight said: 'Sir Bors, arise and fight with me.'

"Bors was almost fainting, because of the wound in his side, but he arose and tried to fight. And when he tried he found that he could fight better than he thought. He fought the other knight till he gave ground before him, little by little, and at last Bors forced him out of the chamber. Then Bors lay down again to rest, and all at once the room was full of falling arrows. He could not see where they came from, any more than he could see where anything else came from, but they fell all around him and upon him. They pierced his armor, just as the spear had done, as if there had been no armor, and they wounded him in many places. And these wounds and the wound that the spear had made burned and smarted more than before, and Bors felt weaker and fainter.

"Then a lion came into the chamber and sprang upon Bors and tore off his shield. But again Bors found that he could fight if he tried, and he struck the lion's head with his sword and killed it.

"And next there came an old man, who had a harp. He sat down and began to play on the harp and to sing, and as he played a storm began to rise outside the castle. At first it was only a rising of the wind that Bors heard, but it grew and grew, till it swept through the halls and the corridors of the castle and through the room where Bors lay. It caught at the curtains and the tapestries of the chamber and almost tore them from their places, and it shook the arms that hung on the walls, till they rattled together with a dull, ghostly clatter. Bors could hear the wind, too, rushing and roaring and screaming up over the towers. And then the rain came, and the thunder, with noises of splitting and crashing as if the hills around were breaking and rolling down into the valleys, and the very walls shuddered and trembled, and the lightning was so fierce that it seemed to shine through the walls, as if they had been made of glass.

"But all through the dreadful noise of the storm Bors could hear the soft voice of the old man who sang, as if there had been no other sound. He sang a song of how Joseph of Arimathæa had come to England and had brought the Holy Grail. When he had finished it he spoke to Bors, and, as he talked and as Bors answered him, the storm grew louder and more terrible. 'Bors,' said the old man, 'leave this place. You have done nobly here. There are few knights in the world who could bear all that you have borne to-night. Tell your cousin Lancelot all that you have seen, and tell him that it is he who should be here and should see these things and more, but that he is not so good a knight as to be allowed to see what you have seen. These things are only for the best of knights.'

"'It is well for you,' said Bors, 'that you are old. I am weary with fighting and I am faint and dizzy with many wounds, but in spite of all, if you were not old and weak, I would not hear you say such things of my cousin Sir Lancelot. Sir Lancelot is the best knight that lives, and what any good knight can do or see Lancelot can do or see.'