Popular romances of the Middle Ages / by Sir George W. Cox and Eustace Hinton Jones.

  • George William Cox
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Popular romances of the Middle Ages / by Sir George W. Cox and Eustace Hinton Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and on the couch he beheld the maiden, whose heart the fire had entered for many a long year. So was the damsel rescued from her enchantment, and the people said to Lancelot, ‘ Now must thou do yet another thing, thou must free us from a serpent that is here in a tomb.’ Then as Lancelot came to the tomb, he saw written on it in golden letters, ‘ A leopard shall come of kingly blood, and shall slay this serpent, and from the leopard shall spring a lion which shall pass all other knights.’ Even so it came to pass, for Lancelot slew the grisly snake, and the fair maiden Elaine became the mother of his child Galahad. And. in the house of her father King Pelles, the cousin of Joseph of Arimathie, as they sat at meat, there came in at a window a dove, in whose mouth there seemed to be a censer of gold. With it there came a savour as of all the spicery in the world ; and forth u ith upon the table were seen all manner of meats and drinks. Presently . there came a maiden bearing in her hands a vessel of pure gold, and before it the king and his knights kneeled and prayed I devoutly. ‘ What may this mean 1 ’ said Lancelot . and the king answered, ‘ This is the richest thing that any child of man may have ; and when it goes about, the Pound Table, shall be broken, for that which thou hast seen is the Holy Grail.’ But when Sir Lancelot saw Elaine in her father’s house, he weened it had been Queen Guenevere, for he was brought under inchantment, and when he knew how he had been deceived, he would have slain the maiden, who with tears prayed him foi hex life, because she had given him her maiden love and faith. Then was Lancelot appeased, and the time went, and the child was born and named Galahad: and after this came another knight who had loved her long and sought to make her his wife. ‘ Nay, she said, ‘ ask me never again. My love is set on the best knight in the world, and none other will I wed and when that knight knew to whom her love was given, he sware with an oath that he would slay Sir Lancelot. , Q. But Lancelot was long since gone away, and Elaine asked bir Bors who had come thither where the knight might be, and he told her how he was shut up in prison by Morgan le Fay, King Arthur’s sister. But even as he looked on the babe 111 Elame s arms he marvelled how like it seemed to Sir Lancelot, and she said ’‘Truly it is his child;’ and even as she spake, once more the white dove hovered in with the golden censer. Once more the savour of all delightsome spicery. Once more the came mTAn bare inlhe Holy Grail, and said, ‘Know that this child shall sit in the Perilous Seat, and shall win the Sangreal, and he
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