King Arthur Part Four

This is the fourth part of the story of King Arthur.

Let's see. We had left him having acquired Guinevere and Excalibur, the former from King Leodegrance, and the latter from the Lady of the Lake.

He spent some time whacking knights who set up camp at bridges and fords and insisted that knights who wanted to cross same fight for the right. According to Malory, it was about now that he found out the story of his birth. He was a bit ticked at Merlin for not telling him before. Especially before he got to messing around with Morgan le Fay (remember her?), her being his half-sister and all. Merlin told him he should have kept his trout in his trousers, because she was knocked up, and nothing but trouble could come from that! Not only was a child coming who had a good dose of Morgan's "fay-ish-ness," but Arthur had become a sinner, in a pretty big way. This put him out of the running in any contest demanding purity of spirit or body. Forever. There has been a lot of speculation over they years as to whether Morgan knew Arthur was her brother. Some folks want her to be a very knowledgeable witch. She may have had an agenda of her own. She may have been old enough to be upset at the quick change-over from father to step-father, even if he was the king.

Anyway, she was preggers, and married off to one of the northern kings--Uriens of Gore, I think. Word came to Arthur that the baby was born on May Day, and that it was a boy. Merlin was so totally freaked by this news that he came up with the scathingly brilliant idea that they should round up all the noble baby boys born around that time, and float them out to sea on a barge. I guess Arthur thought, "Oh, well, in for a penny, in for a pound," and agreed to this preposterous scheme. The barge foundered, and all the babies were lost at sea except for one that washed ashore to be rescued and raised. Any guesses as to which baby survived? Yup, got it in one! Morgan's. Hereinafter referred to as Mordred.

Arthur had a few more fights on his hands after that, as certain of his allies had babies involved in the sweep.

Then, for years, there was a lot of slaying going on, with spears all to-shivered on each other's shields, and helms cleft asunder, and all that.

When Arthur married Guinevere, she brought the Round Table and a hundred knights as her dowry. That started the whole Round Table thing, as it would seat a hundred and fifty. All the knights had to compete for the seats, and there were many more knights than seats. Still, one seat had to be kept vacant, and Merlin again did his trick with the flashing gold letters, putting up the names of the winners of all the seats. The empty one was called the Siege Perilous, and if the wrong knight sat in it, he would die. But it was all good, because they didn't much sit there at all, what with jousting, questing, chasing giants, rescuing damsels and hunting deer--and this is all before the Sangreal and Lancelot.

They actually loaded up and went to the continent. Whoever had charge of Rome by that time sent an embassy to Arthur, saying, "You're part of the Roman Empire--pay up!" and Arthur said, "No, you pay me." and the messengers said, "If you want Rome to pay you, you'd better come and get it!" So they did. They had all kinds of fun, and got penpals in Germany, Italy, and Africa. I kid you not. It's right there in Malory. Look it up.

It's break time again. Don't worry--Lancelot is coming into the story soon.