The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (67 page)

Bors is also undergoing his trials, beset by visions, in which he sees his brother Lionel being abducted and goes to his rescue but encounters a maiden being raped. Torn between the two, he
saves the maiden but is too late to save Lionel. Bors carries Lionel’s body to a castle for burial, but there a lady asks Bors to be her lover. Bors refuses even when the lady threatens to
kill herself. Eventually his visions cease and a priest tells Bors that demons have been testing him but that he made the right choices. When he tracks down Lionel, his brother is furious that Bors
had chosen to save the maiden and not him. Lionel attacks Bors and another knight, Calogrenant, intercedes and is killed. Lionel is struck by a firebolt. He survives but is no longer part of the
Quest.

Bors and Perceval have survived their trials and meet Galahad at the sea’s edge. Galahad is accompanied by Perceval’s sister Dindrane. A crewless ship arrives. An inscription warns
them that only those who are true to God can board. They board and discover a large bed on which is a sword, partly drawn from its scabbard. The sword has several inscriptions forewarning any
potential user. Dindrane says that only one can draw the sword and she tells its history. Two generations earlier, the ship had arrived in Logres during a war between the Christian king Lambar,
father of the Maimed King, and the pagan king Varlan. Varlan was near defeat when he saw the ship, leapt on board and found the sword. He rushed back into battle and killed Lambar, but when he
returned to the ship for the scabbard he dropped down dead. From that day the land had lain barren, and the blow Varlan struck Lambar became known as the Dolorous Stroke. After studying the sword
and its portents, Dindrane fastens the sword and belt to Galahad, revealing that this is the Sword of the Strange Straps. They explore the ship and learn that it was built by Solomon from the Tree
of Life.

They leave the ship and come to a castle where they are attacked. The lady of the castle suffers from leprosy and a prophecy had told that the blood from a royal maiden would cure her. The
townsfolk capture all maidens who pass by for their blood. Dindrane volunteers her blood, knowing that she will die. She asks of Perceval that her body be set adrift in a boat that will
take her body to Sarras, where she wants to be buried in a tomb that would later house the bodies of Perceval and Galahad.

This they do. This same boat later passes Lancelot who still waits in grief by the river. He hears a voice telling him to board the boat and he discovers Dindrane with a note left by Perceval.
He rejoices to learn that Bors, Perceval and Galahad are together, and hopes that some day he will meet his son. The boat carries him to a chapel where a knight awaits him and boards the boat. He
discovers this is Galahad; at last the two meet and share thoughts and memories. They stay aboard for half a year, visiting strange lands, though the story tells nothing of their adventures.

At length Galahad departs, leaving Lancelot to continue his voyage to the Grail Castle. There Lancelot has a vision of the Grail but is so overcome that he passes into a coma that lasts for
twenty-four days. He is eventually restored by King Pelles and returns to Camelot, having failed in his Grail Quest.

Galahad’s travels bring him to the abbey where Perceval had seen King Mordrain (Evalach), and it is in his arms that Mordrain is at last able to die. He continues to travel throughout
Logres for five years, now accompanied by Perceval, and at the end of that period they meet Bors.

The Grail company, again united, travel to Corbenic where Galahad restores the Broken Sword. Nine further knights arrive, three each from Gaul, Ireland and Denmark, so that twelve knights sit at
the Grail Table. Josephus appears before them and conducts the ceremony of the Eucharist. Then he vanishes and from the Grail itself rises the Spirit of Christ. With blood from the Bleeding Lance,
Galahad heals the Maimed King. Christ instructs Galahad that he is to take the Grail to Sarras. They feed from the holy Platter and are blessed by Christ before He vanishes.

Galahad, Perceval and Bors sail in the Ship of Solomon to Sarras, where Galahad cures a cripple. The boat carrying the body of Perceval’s sister has also found its way to Sarras. However,
the king of Sarras, Escorant, is suspicious and has them imprisoned. It is not until Escorant falls ill, after a whole year, that he releases them and pleads forgiveness. Galahad becomes the new
king of Sarras. He rules for a year but prays to Christ to be released. He has one last vision from the Grail and then his
soul departs. Bors and Perceval witness a hand reach
down from Heaven to retrieve the Grail and the Bleeding Lance and from that day forth they are never seen again.

Perceval retires to a nunnery and dies a year later. He is buried beside his sister and Galahad. Bors, the last of the Grail knights, returns to Camelot and tells his story.

ESTOIRE DEL SAINT GRAAL
(The History of the Holy Grail) (Vulgate Cycle), anon. (French,
c
l230).

This is essentially Robert de Boron’s
Joseph
, updated by incorporating the historical elements of the Grail from the
Quest of the Holy Grail
, already told in
the Vulgate cycle. The story now forms a symbolical Christian history from the time of Jesus to the start of the Arthurian period. In the prologue, the author purports to be writing 717 years after
Christ’s Passion (that is, 750).

The story follows the basic outline of de Boron’s work. Joseph of Arimathea is held in prison for 42 years until released during the reign of Vespasian. Recognizing that everyone is that
much older (which de Boron fails to do), it is Joseph’s son Josephus who becomes Keeper of the Grail and leads the mission out of Palestine. They take with them the Grail, which is now hidden
within a box like the Ark of the Covenant. They go first to Sarras (the capital of the Saracens) where Joseph is able to convert the heathen king Evalach, who takes the Christian name Mordrain,
whilst Evalach’s brother-in-law becomes Nascien. Some of Mordrain’s people refuse baptism and Josephus tries to rescue them from a demon, but he is attacked by an angel who wounds him
in the thigh, though he is later healed, an early parallel of the later Maimed King. Nascien wishes to see the Grail but looks too closely inside the ark and is blinded. An angel later heals his
blindness with the Bleeding Lance.

The company then divides and each has a series of adventures in various lands, before making their way eventually to Britain. The company are beset by temptations but prevail. The story
tells of the Christianisation of the West, with Josephus in the role of St. Paul. We learn more about the magical Ship of Solomon and about the individual elements of the Grail, Sword
and Lance. The Grail Table is created, which includes the seat reserved for only the most virtuous of heroes. When Moises sits there he is consumed by fire. After Josephus’s death Alain, his
cousin and the first of the Fisher Kings, becomes Guardian of the Grail and founds the Grail castle at Corbenic.

Finally we learn of the later Guardians of the Grail, as already recorded in the
Quest for the Grail
, including the story of the Dolorous Blow which created the Waste Land. The story ends
with the death of Lancelot’s grandfather, also called Lancelot.

→ An English verse adaptation was made by Henry Lovelich as
The History of the Holy Grail
(
c
l430s). It is fairly faithful to its original, but states that
Joseph of Arimathea was buried at Glastonbury.

DER JÜNGERE TITUREL
, Albrecht (
possibly, but not conclusively
, Albrecht von Scharfenberg) (German, early 1270s)

An intriguing variant version of the Grail drawing upon the work of Wolfram and essentially a completion of his unfinished
Titurel.
Although it uses as its core theme the
love story of Parzival’s cousin Sigune (whose death is one of the most poignant passages in
Parzival
) and the ill-fated Schionatulandaer, that is only a minor part of a work originally
conceived on a grandiose scale. Titurel is the Grail King, his role announced by angels, who receives the Grail from Joseph of Arimathea. As in
Parzival
, the Grail is not a chalice but a
stone, but a dish has been fashioned from it. Titurel takes the Grail to safety in a lost valley beyond impenetrable mountains and forests at Munt Salvasch, where he has built a magnificent temple
which is described in loving detail. He guards the Grail for over four hundred years until the outer world becomes too hostile, when he sets forth with Parzival and takes the Grail to India, to the
kingdom of Prester John.

PERCEFOREST
, anon. (Dutch,
c
l330s)

An audacious and brave attempt to completely recast the Matter of Britain into a new historical context set against a vast all-absorbing tapestry of legend, myth and folk tale
that, in its first printed edition in Paris in 1528, ran to six thick folio volumes. In this version, the original line of British royalty descended from Brutus has died out and Alexander the Great
conquers Britain and establishes his own royal house under his governor Perceforest. The main arc of the story extends from the betrayal of Britain to the Romans by Perceforest’s son Betides,
to its salvation through the Grail and the Christian faith being established in Britain. No complete English translation exists, but a projected twelve-volume French critical edition is currently
being compiled.

SIR PERCYVELL OF GALES
, anon. (English,
c
l330s), 2,288 lines.

An early English reworking of the Perceval story as told by Chrétien, but omitting the Grail element in order to develop the relationship between Perceval and his mother.
Otherwise, the story follows the basic plot. Perceval becomes fascinated by knights, leaves his mother to go to Arthur’s court, kills the Red Knight who had killed his father, and rescues and
then marries Lufamour [Blancheflor]. He is then reunited with his mother who returns with him to his home with Lufamour, before Perceval eventually goes to the Holy Land. It thereby removes all
mystical elements to convert it into a straightforward morality story.

17

LANCELOT AND GUENEVERE – THE ROMANCE ENDS

Ask anyone to name one knight of the Round Table and they will almost certainly say “Lancelot”. He became the greatest of all of Arthur’s knights and eclipsed
the stature of Arthur himself. The love affair between Lancelot and Guenevere is a major element in the story because it is this that leads to the sundering of the Round Table and the death of
Arthur. Yet, through all this, Lancelot shines through. He is seen not as the offender but as the victim. He is a victim through his love for Guenevere, through his devotion to Arthur and through
his desire to do good. Even though he may be super-human as a warrior and knight, Lancelot is intensely human in his failings.

Yet who was he? Arthur’s other major knights – Bedivere, Kay, Gawain – had their origins in the Celtic tales and are instantly recognisable, but not so Lancelot. Was there an
original on whom he was based?

1. The origins of Lancelot

The name Lancelot appears for the first time anywhere in line 1692 of Chrétien de Troyes’s poem
Erec et Enide
, first composed towards the end of the 1160s.
He is mentioned in passing and ranked as the third most renowned knight after Gawain and Erec. Yet when he next appears, anonymously, in
Le Chevalier de la charrete
, we discover he is a
knight of exceptional valour. Within a few years
Lancelot do Lac
features him as the finest of all knights. It is also clear from Chrétien’s story that he is only
telling half the tale. There appears to be no reason why Lancelot keeps his identity a secret, and it was not until
Lanzelet
, a German version by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven,
appeared a few years after
Erec et Enide
that there was any mention of his origins: he was stolen as a baby by a fey and brought up ignorant of his parentage. Yet this version has none of
the love affair between Lancelot and Guenevere. That was Chrétien’s invention, under instruction from Marie de Champagne, yet it is evident that he incorporated it into an existing
legend, which may or may not have been about Lancelot as we came to know him, about a baby raised by a water sprite.

Such legends are common but we do not need to look far to find one directly within the Celtic Arthurian world. We have encountered Mabon ap Modron before. He was the mighty hunter who, in
Culhwch and Olwen
, helps hunt the Great Boar. He is also noted as a servant of Uther Pendragon in the poem
Pa Gur.
But who was he really? The name means “Son of the
Mother”, thus some have interpreted Mabon as the son of Mother Earth, the spirit of fertility. However, the land can be blighted and that is what happens to Mabon. Three days after his birth
he is abducted, and no one knows where he is. Arthur and his men search for him and discover, from the oldest creature in the world, that Mabon is in a fortress in Caer Loyw (Gloucester) which can
only be approached by water. Mabon is rescued by Arthur’s forces and takes part in the hunt.