_King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table_
WHEN the Story People were assembled on the third day, the Story Lady began:
In the early days of Britain there lived a noble king, Arthur, and his brave knights of the Round Table. The king and his knights were famous for their feats of arms, their deeds of valor, and their many adventures. Among them none was nobler and braver than King Arthur, until Galahad came; but Galahad surpassed them all, because he accomplished the feat in which so many failed--he conquered himself, as you shall hear.
Now King Arthur held his court three times a year, at Christmas, at Easter, and at Pentecost, in the lovely town of Camelot. Here stood Camelot Castle, with its high towers and great jousting field in the meadow by the river, where the knights held their tournaments and performed their feats of arms.
At these times all the brave knights of Christendom flocked to Camelot, and the bravest were chosen to sit at the Round Table, where they feasted, told their adventures, and planned new deeds of valor. Here King Arthur would charge them to commit no murder, outrage, or treason; also to be courteous and never to refuse mercy; always to defend women and children on pain of death; and never to fight in a wrong quarrel for law or worldly goods; and to this he pledged both old and young every year at the high feast of Pentecost.
In the center of the great hall of the castle, with its lofty arches and high windows, stood the Round Table. “Merlin, the magician,” so the tale goes, “made the Round Table in token of the roundness of the world; for all the bravest of the world, Christian and heathen, resort to the Round Table; and when they are chosen to be of that company, they think themselves more happy and more in honor, than if they had gotten half the world.”
When Merlin had made this wonderful table he said that, by the knights who sat about it, the truth of the Holy Grail should be well known.
Now, the Holy Grail was the cup which was supposed to have been used by our Saviour at the Last Supper, and was said to have been brought into Britain by Joseph of Arimathea. After a time, through the sin of those who had charge of it, this holy vessel became lost, and the knights of the Round Table sought to recover it; but only a knight who was perfectly blameless in thought, word, and act could hope to succeed.