The Book of Merlyn Read online

  Was thus pleasing to the whole fraternity,

  Because it was neither stuffy nor squeamish.

  Here, as often as he rambled across the cloister,

  He bowed from side to side to the monks,

  And he saluted with a bob of his head, thus,

  The ones whom he loved most intimately.

  Hie per claustrum quotiens transiens meavit,

  Hinc et hinc ad monachos caput inclinavit,

  Et sic nutu capitis eos salutavit,

  Quos affectu intimo plurimum amavit.

  When his own death-hour came, it was accompanied by visions in the monastery. The old abbot dreamed of bells sounding most beautifully, and of angels, with happy laughter, hauling Lancelot to Heaven. They found him dead in his cell, in the act of accomplishing the third and last of his miracles. For he had died in what was called the Odour of Sanctity. When saints die, their bodies fill the room with lovely scent: perhaps of new hay, or of blossom in the spring, or of the clean sea-shore.

  Ector pronounced his brother’s keen, one of the most touching pieces of prose in the language. He said: “Ah, Lancelot, thou wert head of all Christian knights. And now I dare say, thou Sir Lancelot there thou liest, that thou were never matched of earthly knight’s hand. And thou were the courtliest knight that ever bare shield. And thou were the truest friend of thy lover that ever bestrode horse. And thou were the truest lover, of a sinful man, that ever loved woman. And thou were the kindest man that ever strake with sword. And thou were the godliest person that ever came among press of knights. And thou were the meekest man and gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies. And thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in rest.”

  The Round Table had been smashed at Salisbury, its few survivors thinning out as the years went by. At last there were only four of them left: Bors the misogynist, Bleoberis, Ector, and Demaris. These old men made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, for the repose of the souls of all their comrades, and there they died upon a Good Friday for God’s sake, the last of the Round Table. Now there are none of them left: only knights of the Bath and of other orders degraded by comparison.

  About King Arthur of England, that gentle heart and centre of it all, there remains a mystery to this day. Some think that he and Mordred perished on each other’s swords. Robert of Thornton mentions that he was attended by a surgeon of Salerno who found by examination of his wounds that he could never be whole again, so “he said In manus *boldly on the place where he lay … and spake no more.” Those who adhere to this account claim that he was buried at Glastonbury, under a stone which said: HIC JACET ARTURUS REX QUONDAM REX QUE FUTURUS, † and that his body was exhumed by Henry II as a counter-blast to Welsh nationalism—for the Cymry were claiming even then that the great king had never perished. They believed that he would come again to lead them, and they also mendaciously asserted, as usual, his British nationality. Adam of Domerham tells us, on the other hand, that the exhumation took place in April 1278, under Edward I, and that he himself was a witness of the proceedings; while it is known that a third search took place in vain under Edward III—who, by the way, revived the Round Table in 1344 as a serious order of knighthood like the Garter. Whatever the real date may have been, tradition has it that the bones when exhumed were of gigantic stature, and Guenever’s had golden hair.

  Then there is another tale, widely supported, that our hero was carried away to the Vale of Affalach by a collection of queens in a magic boat. These are believed to have ferried him across the Severn to their own country, there to heal him of his wounds.

  The Italians have got hold of an idea about a certain Arturo Magno who was translated to Mount Etna, where he can still be seen occasionally, they say. Don Quixote the Spaniard, a very learned gentleman, indeed he went mad on account of it, maintains that he became a raven—an assertion which may not seem so wholly ridiculous to those who have read our little story. Then there are the Irish, who have muddled him up with pne of the FitzGeralds and declare that he rides round a rath, with sword upraised, to the Londonderry Air. The Scots, who have a legend about

  Arthur Knyght

  Wha raid on nycht Wi’

  gilten spur

  And candel lycht,

  still swear to him in Edinburgh, where they believe that he presides from Arthur’s Seat. The Bretons claim to have heard his horn and to have seen his armour, and they also believe he will return. A book called The High History of the Holy Grail, which was translated by an irascible scholar called Dr. Sebastian Evans, says, on the contrary, that he was safely buried in a house of religion “that standeth at the head of the Moors Adventurous.” A Miss Jessie L. Weston mentions a manuscript which she pleases to call 1533, supported by Le Morte d’Arthur, in which it is stated that the queen who came to carry him away was none other than the aged enchantress Morgan, his half-sister, and that she took him to a magic island. Dr. Sommer regards the entire account as absurd. A lot of people called Wolfram von Eschenbach, Ulrich von Zat-zikhoven, Dr. Wechssler, Professor Zimmer, Mr. Nutt and so forth, either scout the question wholly, or remain in learned confusion. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson and a number of other reliable witnesses agree that he is still on earth: Milton inclining to the view that he is underneath it (Arturumque etiam sub terris bella moventem) * while Tennyson is of the opinion that he will come again to visit us “like a modern Gentleman of stateliest port,” possibly like the Prince Consort. Shakespeare’s contribution is to place the beloved Falstaff, at his death, not in Abraham’s, but in Arthur’s bosom.

  The legends of the common people are beautiful, strange and positive. Gervase of Tilbury, writing in 1212, says that, in the woods of Britain, “the foresters tell that on alternate days, about noon, or at midnight when the moon is full and shiny, they often see an array of huntsmen who, in answer to enquirers, say they are of the household and fellowship of Arthur.” These, however, were probably real bands of Saxon poachers, like the followers of Robin Wood, who had named their gang in honour of the ancient king. The men of Devon are accustomed to point out “the chair and oven” of Arthur among the rocks of their coast. In Somersetshire there are some villages called East and West Camel (ot), mentioned by Leland, which are beset with legends of a king still sitting in a golden crown. It is to be noted that the river Ivel, whence, according to Drayton, our “knightly deeds and brave achievements sprong,” is in the same county. So is South Cadbury, whose rector reports his parishioners as relating how “folks do say that in the night of the full moon King Arthur and his men ride round the hill, and their horses are shod with silver, and a silver shoe has been found in the track where they do ride, and when they have ridden round the hill they do stop to water their horses at the wishing well.” Finally there is the little village of Bodmin in Cornwall, whose inhabitants are certain that the king inhabits a local tumulus. In 1113 they even assaulted, within the sanctuary, a party of monks from Brittany—an unheard-of thing to do—because they had thrown doubts upon the legend. It has to be admitted that some of these dates scarcely fit in with the thorny subject of Arthurian chronology, and Malory, that great man who is the noblest source of all this history, maintains a discreet reserve.

  As for myself, I cannot forget the hedgehog’s last farewell, coupled with Quixote’s hint about the animals and Milton’s subterranean dream. It is little more than a theory, but perhaps the inhabitants of Bodmin will look at their tumulus, and, if it is like an enormous mole-hill with a dark opening in its side, particularly if there are some badger tracks in the vicinity, we can draw our own conclusions. For I am inclined to believe that my beloved Arthur of the future is sitting at this very moment among his learned friends, in the Combination Room of the College of Life, and that they are thinking away in there for all they are worth, about the best means to help our curious species: and I for one hope that some day, when not only England but the World has need of them, and when it is ready to listen to reason, if it ever is, they wi
ll issue from their rath in joy and power: and then, perhaps, they will give us happiness in the world once more and chivalry, and the old mediaeval blessing of certain simple people—who tried, at any rate, in their own small way, to still the ancient brutal dream of Attila the Hun.

  Explicit liber Regis Quondam, graviter et laboriose scriptus inter annos MDCCCCXXXVI et MDCCCCXLII, nationibus in diro bello certantibus. Hie etiam incipit, si forte in futuro homo superstes pestilenciam possit evadere et opus continuare inceptum, spes Regis Futuri. Ora pro Thoma Malory Equite, discipuloque humili ejus, qui nunc sua sponte libros deponit ut pro specie pugnet.

  Here ends the book of the Onetime King, written with much toil and effort between the years 1936 and 1942, when the nations were striving in fearful warfare. Here also begins—if perchance a man may in future time survive the pestilence and continue the task he has begun—the hope of the Future King. Pray for Thomas Malory, Knight, and his humble disciple, who now voluntarily lays aside his books to fight for his kind.

  * Abbreviation for suspendatur, “let him be hanged.”

  † “Something comes of nothing.” This is a parody or adaptation of ex nihilo nihil fit, that is, “nothing comes of nothing,” familiar (though not in that exact form) from both Lucretius and Persius.

  * Literally, “now you send away” or “now you let depart,” from the Canticle of Simeon, Luke 2:29. This has come to be used in a general sense, signifying “I’ve seen it all now; I can die happy.”

  * “The ant is an example of great industry.”

  *“Into Thy hands.” The entire phrase, from the death of Jesus (Luke 23:46), is “into Thy hands, I commend my spirit.”

  †“Here lies Arthur, the Once and Future King.”

  * “And Arthur too, stirring up wars beneath the earth.”