King Arthur and His Knights

Arthur and His Knights, by Maude L. Radford

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Title: King Arthur and His Knights
Author: Maude L. Radford
Illustrator: Walter J. Enright
Release Date: June 19, 2007 [EBook #21865]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: King Arthur and His Knights]
[Illustration: King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table]

KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS
By Maude L. Radford
Illustrated by Walter J. Enright
[Illustration: The Holy Grail]
Rand, M^cNally & Company CHICAGO �� NEW YORK �� LONDON
Copyright, 1903, By MAUDE L. RADFORD

[Illustration] TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE A List of Illustrations 8
How Arthur Became King 11
The Good Sword Excalibur 29
The Great Feast and What Followed 35
Arthur's Court and the Order of the Round Table 49
King Arthur and the Princess Guinevere 64
The Coming of Gareth 73
The Story of Sir Gareth and Lynette 85
Sir Ivaine 99
Sir Balin 120
Sir Geraint and Enid 131
Arthur and Sir Accalon 142
How Arthur Fought with a Giant 153
How Arthur Fought with Rome 160
The Knight with the Badly Made Coat 171
Sir Lancelot and Sir Brune 177
The Adventure of King Pellenore 193
Sir Lancelot and His Friends 199
How Sir Lancelot Saved the Queen 213
Sir Lancelot and Elaine 226
The Search for the Holy Grail 243
The Death of Arthur 260

[Illustration] A LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table Frontispiece
"All about him old oaks stood like giant guardians" 10
"He hardly more than touched the sword" 25
Arthur and the Lady of the Lake 31
King Bors and King Ban 41
"Arthur saw Guinevere bending over the wall" 65
"Gareth rode at him fiercely" 93
"He dismounted and poured water into the fountain" 105
"They fought till their breath failed" 129
"King Arthur raising his hand for silence" 167
"The king touched him lightly with his sword" 175
"He pushed him until he was but a step from the edge" 191
"He struck so fiercely the bottom fell out" 209
"She staid near it all day long in the turret" 231
"And across it slowly moved the Holy Grail" 253

TO DWIGHT AND ROGER
[Illustration: The Holy Grail]

King Arthur and His Knights
[Illustration: "All about him old oaks stood like giant guardians"]

[Illustration] HOW ARTHUR BECAME KING
Once upon a time, a thousand years before Columbus discovered America, and when Rome was still the greatest city in the world, there lived a brave and beautiful youth whose name was Arthur. His home was in England, near London; and he lived with the good knight Sir Hector, whom he always called father.
They dwelt in a great square castle of gray stone, with a round tower at each corner. It was built about a courtyard, and was surrounded by a moat, across which was a drawbridge that could be raised or lowered. When it was raised the castle was practically a little island and very hard for enemies to attack.
On one side of the moat was a large wood, and here Arthur spent a great deal of his time. He liked to lie under the trees and gaze up at the blue of the sky. All about him old oaks stood like giant guardians watching sturdily over the soil where they had grown for centuries. Arthur could look between the trunks and see rabbits and squirrels whisking about. Sometimes a herd of brown deer with shy dark eyes would pass, holding their graceful heads high in the air; sometimes a flock of pheasants with brilliant plumage rose from the bushes. Again there was no sound except the tapping of a bright-crested woodpecker, and no motion but the fluttering of leaves and the trembling of violets half buried in green moss.
At times, when it was dim and silent in the wood, Arthur would hear bursts of merry laughter, the tinkling of bells, and the jingling of spurs. Then he would know that knights and ladies were riding down the road which ran beside the trees. Soon the knights would appear on horses, brown, black, and white, with gaily ornamented saddles, and bridles from which hung silver bells. Often the saddles were made of ivory or ebony, set with rubies or emeralds. The knights wore helmets laced with slender gold chains, and coats of mail made of tiny links of steel, so fine and light that all together hardly weighed more than a coat of cloth. Usually the legs of the knights were sheathed in steel armor; and their spurs were steel, or even gold. The ladies sat on horses with long trappings of silk, purple, white, or scarlet, with ornamented saddles and swinging bells. The