King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (Puffin Classics) by Green Roger Lancelyn

Author:Green, Roger Lancelyn [Green, Roger Lancelyn]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780141918709
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

5

Geraint and Enid

Although the high Feast of Pentecost was held ever by King Arthur at Camelot where the great Round Table stood in the castle hall, he would often hold court upon other feast days in other places with as many of his knights as chanced to be in the neighbourhood. Sometimes he held it at Cardiff and sometimes at Colchester or Carlisle, once even it was at Chester and once at Cardigan; but the most usual place was at Caerleon in South Wales, in the castle from which he had first come forth as the true King of the Realm of Logres.

King Arthur did not wait for an adventure to come before he began every feast, but none the less he was always happy if such a thing should happen; therefore he was particularly pleased one Easter Day as he sat feasting at Caerleon to see a tall, handsome youth dressed in green and white, with a great golden-hilted sword at his waist, come striding suddenly into the hall.

‘Greetings, noble King Arthur!’ said the youth, bowing low before the King.

‘I give you welcome, fair sir,’ answered King Arthur. ‘Come you to tell of some adventure? Methinks I have seen you before this day – and yet your name I know not.’

‘I am Geraint, the son of Erbin,’ was the answer. ‘And I dwell in the Forest of Dean not far from here. This day as I wandered down a leafy glade, I beheld a strange and wondrous stag: pure white it was, with antlers of clear gold, and it stepped delicately over the grass and leaves, not herding with any of the other deer in your forest. Then I sought out your royal huntsmen and bade them mark where the white stag went: and I came in haste to tell you.’

‘You did well, young sir!’ said Arthur. ‘To-morrow we will rise early and go forth with many of our knights to hunt this stag.’

‘Let me come after you, to watch the hunting,’ begged Queen Guinevere. ‘This young squire Geraint shall accompany me.’

‘Be it as you say,’ answered Arthur. ‘And whosoever slays the stag, Geraint shall have the head of it, on this condition: that he shall give it to the lady of his heart.’

‘Alas, I have no lady,’ sighed Geraint.

‘Then we will find you one!’ laughed Guinevere. And so the matter was arranged.

On the morrow King Arthur, with Gawain and Kay, and many another knight, rose early and went forth into the forest in search of the white stag. But Guinevere followed later in the day, accompanied by one maiden only, and by Geraint who rode still in his tunic of white and his green cloak, with only the golden-hilted sword at his side.

Presently they came to the edge of the forest, and they heard the horns blowing in the distance, but could not tell in which direction the hunt was going. And as they sat waiting there on the green verge of the forest, they saw a little cavalcade come by upon the road.

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