Week 12A Reading

This week we will take notes over King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang. 

1. The Drawing of the Sword
Sir Ector tells Arthur that he is not his father. When Arthur realized that he was King, Ector asked him to make his foster/step-brother seneschal of that lands. And Arthur did so.

2. The Questing Beast
Merlin stalks Arthur and presents himself to Arthur as a boy.

3. The Sword Excalibur
They rode into the town of Carlion, and Arthur's Knights gave them a glad welcome, and said it was a joy to serve under a King who risked his life as much as any common man.

4. The Round Table

Merlin asked the King to give him a company of Knights and esquires, that he might go to the Court of King Leodegrance and tell him that King Arthur desired to wed his daughter, which Arthur did gladly. Therefore Merlin rode forth and made all the haste he could till he came to the Castle of Cameliard, and told King Leodegrance who had sent him and why.

5. The Passing of Merlin
When Merlin was under the stone, she used the magic he had taught her, and the rock rolled over him and buried him alive, as he had told King Arthur.

6. King Arthur and Morgan le Fay

When she beheld that sight, her heart fell, for she dared not touch the sword, knowing well that if Arthur waked and saw her she was a dead woman. So she took the scabbard, and went away on horseback.

7. The Quest of the Holy Graal

The Knights, against King Arthur's wish, made a vow to find it and gave up their duties of redressing wrongs and keeping order to pursue the beautiful vision. But most of them, for their sins, were unsuccessful, like Sir Lancelot, and the Round Table was scattered and the kingdom was weakened by the neglect of ordinary duties in the search for what could never be gained by mortal men. This appears to be the moral of the story, if it has any moral. But the stories are confused almost like a dream, though it is a beautiful dream.

8. The King's Pilgrimage

In his dream it seemed that the King had ridden away to the quest and had left his squire behind him, which filled the young man with fear. And in his dream he set the saddle and bridle on his horse, and fastened his spurs, and girt on his sword, and galloped out of the castle after the King.

9. The Coming of the Holy Graal

They bade farewell, and mounted their horses, and rode through the streets of Camelot, and there was weeping of both rich and poor, and the King could not speak for weeping. And at sunrise they all parted company with each other, and every Knight took the way he best liked.

Excalibur