Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles

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Patricia Terry. Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE

BOOK ONE: THE BOY

BOOK TWO: THE WHITE KNIGHT

BOOK THREE: THE RED KNIGHT

BOOK FOUR: THE BLACK KNIGHT

BOOK FIVE: LANCELOT

BOOK SIX: LANCELOT AND GALEHAUT

BOOK SEVEN: LANCELOT AND GUENEVERE

PART TWO

BOOK EIGHT: THE FATE OF GALEHAUT

BOOK NINE: GUENEVERE IN DANGER

BOOK TEN: THE DEATH OF GALEHAUT

BOOK ELEVEN: THE DEATH OF LANCELOT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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One of the greatest distinctions of the Arthurian legend is the widespread longing that it be real. If Arthur did, in fact, exist, he was probably the leader of the native people of Britain, at a time when their lands were being invaded and settled by Saxons and other Germanic groups. (These newcomers would later be called “the English.”) Sometime toward the end of the fifth century, the Britons began to fight back. There was a decisive battle, and then, for perhaps half a century, the Saxons were held at bay. The memory of the chieftain responsible for that victory would have lingered long after the Saxons’ ultimate success. There must have been nostalgia for a time when extraordinary valor, combined with a sense of being in the right, had prevailed over formidable, and foreign, opponents. Such was the stuff of legends carried through Wales and across the Channel into Brittany by descendants of the Celtic Britons. Even today, there are autonomy-minded Bretons in France who evoke their lost leader, “the once and future king.” Chroniclers did not give him a name until the ninth century, but long before that he had come to be known as Arthur.

In the early twelfth century, when King Arthur was well established in chronicles, stories, and local traditions, Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote, in Latin, a largely imaginary History of Britain. From this source the most familiar aspects of Arthur’s story were to be gradually elaborated, mainly in French: his birth, contrived by Merlin’s sorcery; the sword Excalibur, forged in Avalon; the Round Table and the knights who had their places at it; Gawain the loyal nephew and Mordred the rebellious son; Kay the seneschal; Guenevere, Arthur’s queen. To Arthur came knights from many countries, forming a company of the elite. Women, Geoffrey wrote, in a suggestion of enormous consequence, would give their hearts only to the brave.

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The next morning, the White Knight heard mass and prepared for battle. He was annoyed to discover that the five knights he had defeated the day before would count for nothing: he would have to fight ten more at the first wall, then ten at the second. The Lady’s emissary, however, promised not only that he would defeat them all, but that he would never be killed while he was wearing armor. “In that case,” he said, “I need not fear dying in shame.”

At the castle a knight confided to him, “The truth is I wish you had taken the castle already, and put an end to my lord’s cruel ways. But still I have to honor the fealty I swore.”

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