The Knights of the Round Table

by Daniel Mersey

  BALIN AND THE HOLY GRAIL

  Balin’s story in Le Morte Darthur introduces the Holy Grail into the story of the Round Table. After his encounter with Launceor, Balin hears of a knight named Garlon who can make himself invisible: a power he uses dishonourably to slay other knights. Balin seeks out Garlon to avenge the murdered knights.

  Garlon is the brother of King Pellam, and when Balin arrives at Pellam’s castle he is asked to surrender his arms; being in possession of two swords he secretes the Lady of the Lake’s sword under his cloak and hands over the other one. At a feast, Balin and Garlon argue and Balin draws his sword without warning – thus preventing Garlon from becoming invisible – and kills him.

  Pellam chases Balin to avenge Garlon. Balin runs into a chapel where he finds a spear floating above a cup that sits upon an altar. In his rage, he takes the spear and pierces Pellam’s side, even though the king has lowered his weapon and dropped to his knees upon seeing the cup in the chapel. Balin falls unconscious and is awoken by Merlin three days later in the now ruined castle.

  Merlin explains to Balin that the cup is the Holy Grail and the spear is that used to wound Jesus on the cross: the Spear of Destiny. Pellam (also known as the Fisher King) is the guardian of the Grail and will live on in agony from the Dolorous Stroke delivered by Balin, until eventually healed by Galahad at the end of his Grail Quest. Galahad is also the eventual bearer of Balin’s sword.

  With this addition to Balin’s tale, his role in the fate of Arthur and the Order of the Round Table becomes far more significant.

  The Knight of the Island collapsed to the ground, bloodied, beaten, and dying. Balin was weak from his wounds and the length of the duel; he slumped beside his foe asking his name, for no knight before had ever been his match in battle.

  ‘The death of Balin and Balan.’ By HJ Ford.

  The Red Knight forced his battered helmet from his head and announced that he was Balan, brother of Balin. And Balin forced off his own helmet to show his brother who had delivered the fatal blow. As he lay dying, Balan explained that he had been held captive and forced to fight ever since he killed the knight who had previously guarded the island. Both knights wept, and in each other’s arms they died.

  The lady of the castle buried the tragic brothers together in a tomb; not knowing Balin’s name, she had inscribed only the name of Balan. But Merlin arrived at the tomb and added Balin’s name. He took the Lady of the Lake’s sword and embedded it into a magical stone, which floated down the river to Camelot where it would eventually present itself to the worthy knight Galahad.

  Balin’s good deeds earned his redemption at Camelot, yet he did not live to realize it.

  * * *

  The story of the ill-omened knight Balin (also known as Balyn; Balin Le Savage) was first told in Suite du Merlin, part of the post-Vulgate Cycle written in the 13th century. This was embellished in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur in the 15th century, and substantially revised by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his 19th century poem ‘Balin the Savage’.

  By drawing the Lady of the Lake’s sword he proves that he is a ‘passing good man’, but despite this his impetuous actions and bad luck rarely desert him, and the fate of his brother is decided when Balin keeps the sword. The story warns that a knight should not show flair only in battle: he should take measured action and seek to put right any problems he is the cause of.

  Perhaps uniquely of the famous knights who served Arthur, Balin was not a Knight of the Round Table: in most Arthurian chronologies, his story takes place before Arthur’s wedding and therefore before the Order of the Round Table had been formed.

  LANCELOT: THE KNIGHT OF THE CART

  As was often the case, Arthur’s stepbrother Kay had acted rashly. And as was often the case, his actions had put others in danger. This time Kay had rushed to accept the challenge of Meleagant, a tenacious knight who refused to serve Arthur, and a knight who would very clearly best Kay in a duel. Kay – known for his cruel wordplay more than his swordplay – had accepted before any of Arthur’s better warriors could speak.

  Meleagant had ridden fully armoured into Camelot just a moment before, his war-horse entering the Great Hall and stamping in circles as the mounted knight shouted challenges at Arthur and his knights. His sword drawn, he defied any warrior of Camelot to beat him in single combat. If this knight succeeded, he laughed, Meleagant would release the many good knights and ladies he held captive. But to fight him, Arthur’s champion must ride into the forest beyond Camelot with Guinevere beside him.

  Arthur could not dishonour Kay by replacing him so watched anxiously as Kay, Meleagant, and a subdued Guinevere rode from Camelot’s gate. Gawain whispered in Arthur’s ear that they should don their armour and follow, ready to rescue Guinevere when Kay was inevitably defeated. Arthur agreed.

  ‘The Lady Nymue beareth away Launcelot into the Lake.’ By Howard Pyle. The raising of Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake was an early addition to the story of Lancelot, sometimes rendering him Lancelot du Lac.

  As Arthur, Gawain, and a handful of his most skilled warriors entered the forest, Kay’s riderless horse flew past them. Spurring their own steeds forward, the knights realized that Kay had succumbed even faster than they had imagined, and that Meleagant had ridden away with Guinevere and the battered Kay, intending to add both to his growing dungeon of captives.

  Giving chase through the forest, the riders came to a halt in front of an unknown knight standing beside an exhausted horse. This knight was Lancelot, unrecognized by them all, and he begged Gawain for a horse so that he could continue the pursuit of Meleagant; he had seen the capitulation of Kay and the kidnap of Guinevere and insisted that he should rescue her. On his fresh horse, Lancelot quickly outpaced the others and disappeared into the trees ahead of them.

  As the chase continued Gawain also pulled ahead of Arthur’s group, and along the forest trail he came across the horse he had given to Lancelot, ridden to an urgent death. A little further along the trail, he saw a dwarf driving a cart; alongside the cart stood Lancelot, asking the little man if he had seen Guinevere pass by. As Gawain rode closer, he heard the dwarf tell Lancelot that if he rode in the cart, he would discover the queen’s whereabouts. Hesitating for a heartbeat, because only criminals were transported by cart, Lancelot hopped in. The dwarf asked Gawain if he too would ride in the cart, but Gawain was too proud to do so and remained on his horse.

  Lancelot ignores the chivalric code by riding in a cart to rescue Guinevere, from Romance of Lancelot of the Lake, 1344. Gawain rides behind the cart. (Alamy)

  Leaving the forest the cart trundled through villages and farmland, and the local folk mocked the shameful knight in the cart and threw rotting turnips and dung at him. Lancelot did not care, such was his desire to free Guinevere, but the courtly Gawain rode at a distance.

  Arriving at a crossroads the dwarf halted the cart as Lancelot busied himself brushing off animal dung and vegetable matter. The dwarf gestured for him to get out. A lady stood at the crossroads with a fresh horse, as if waiting for Lancelot, and both knights approached her. She explained that she knew of Guinevere’s fate: the queen had been taken by Meleagant to his realm, which could only be entered with great tribulation. From this land no foreigner had ever returned, and it could be entered in only one of two ways: slowly via an underwater bridge that wound across a river at waist depth, or more swiftly by the sword bridge, a razor-sharp blade that spanned a chasm. Mounting the fresh horse, Lancelot headed for the Sword Bridge and Gawain quested for the underwater bridge. Although he did not know it at the time, Gawain’s route slowed his pursuit so much that only Lancelot stood a chance of freeing Guinevere.

  Approaching a stream, Lancelot’s path was blocked by a knight who three times warned him not to cross. Ignoring this warning in his hasty pursuit, Lancelot rushed on but was knocked from his steed by the knight’s sword. Pulling the knight from his horse, Lancelot crushed his opponent’s legs between his strong arms until he agreed to a fair fight
when Lancelot was ready. Quickly agreeing, both knights jousted and Lancelot felled the Knight of the Ford with a single blow, riding on with all speed.

  Across the stream, Lancelot rode through meadowland and rolling hills. Still he followed the path of Meleagant, and on a flat rock beside a spring he noticed something glinting in the afternoon sun. It was a golden comb entwined with golden hair. This he recognized as Guinevere’s comb, and the very thought of her made him swoon. Recovering himself, Lancelot placed the comb inside his surcoat, close by his heart. He raced on.

  Lancelot’s next encounter was with a proud knight who mocked him for thinking that he might cross the sword bridge, and even more so for having ridden in a prisoners’ cart. Tempers rose and the two knights duelled, killing each other’s horses at the first impact of the joust. Lancelot rose with deft speed and battered the mocking knight into submission, stopping when his stricken foe begged for mercy. As he did so, a lady in dishevelled robes rode up on a mule and demanded that Lancelot present her with the knight’s head: despite his proud demeanour she claimed him to be a base and faithless knight and insisted that to kill him would be a good and charitable act. Unsure whether to grant the lady her request or offer the knight the mercy he begged for, Lancelot decided that they should fight on and see what happened. But, he announced, he would make it easier for his opponent by standing on the spot as they fought, not moving but relying on his swordsmanship alone. Such was Lancelot’s skill with a sword that he easily fended off the knight’s furious assault, and with one great hack the mocking knight’s head fell from his shoulders. The lady’s request granted, Lancelot rushed on once more.

  ‘How Sir Launcelot rode errant in a cart.’ By Howard Pyle.

  And so he came to the sword bridge. The chasm below was deep and at the bottom of a sheer drop swirled a foaming black, roaring river. The bridge itself was the finest and sharpest tightrope of a blade he had ever touched, and each end was wedged into a tree stump.

  GALAHAD

  Galahad was the son of Lancelot. He was the perfect knight, and in the Vulgate Cycle and Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, he completes the Quest of the Holy Grail before being spirited away to become the Grail’s new guardian.

  At the Round Table, Galahad is the only knight able to sit at the Siege Perilous, a seat magically reserved for the purest of men. The sword stolen from the Lady of the Lake by Balin, which Merlin embedded in a stone and floated to Camelot, can only be drawn by Galahad and becomes his own sword. Not only is Galahad a pure knight, but he is also a capable fighter: when he first arrives at Camelot, he bests all of the knights in a tournament except his father Lancelot, Gawain, Bors, and Perceval.

  Soon after Galahad’s entrance to the Order of the Round Table, the Grail appeared, limiting the extent of stories about his non-Grail adventures. Galahad was a relatively late addition to Arthurian legend, possibly introduced to allow a more pious knight to complete the Grail Quest than had previously been the case.

  Lancelot crosses the Sword Bridge on his hands and knees, and then proceeds to rescue the queen from a tower (guarded here by lions) in this mid-14th century manuscript. (Alamy)

  Lancelot removed the mailed armour from his feet and hands to gain better purchase and ran onto the sword. The sharp metal sliced into his feet and he momentarily swayed over the chasm, seeming as if he would fall. Dropping to crawl along, Lancelot sped along the sword, the blade cutting ever deeper into his hands and feet. If he slowed, the wounds would be less severe … but if he slowed, he would take longer to reach Guinevere.

  Reaching the far side of the chasm, Lancelot rolled off the bridge in agony and sat for just a moment to bind his wounds. As he did so, he noticed for the first time a great tower standing in the distance. This, he knew, would be where Meleagant had taken the queen.

  Journeying as swiftly as he could on his bleeding feet, Lancelot dragged himself to the castle where that great tower stood. News that a gallant knight had braved the sword bridge had travelled quickly, and a great throng of people had gathered in the castle’s courtyard to watch what would happen next. Some of the crowd wore hair shirts and went barefoot in an attempt to bring divine intervention to the aid of this new knight; others who supported Meleagant prayed for his victory.

  Passing through the castle gate into the busy courtyard, Lancelot saw Meleagant standing fully armed and armoured, taking practice swings with his sword. He was playing to the crowd, and did so even more as he gestured to his guards to bring Guinevere out. The captive queen’s hands were bound, and as she stood surrounded by Meleagant’s guardsmen, Lancelot drew his sword and advanced on her kidnapper.

  Sword clattered onto shield, and the duellists rained increasingly heavy blows onto one another. Lancelot, weakened by the wounds from the sword bridge, mustered all of his strength to fend off Meleagant’s hacking blade and sheltered behind his shield. As he did so, he realized that he could not take his eyes from Guinevere. Her beauty was such to him that even in this life or death fray, he could think only of her and had to gaze in wonder at her charm. A heavy blow on his shield refocused him on Meleagant.

  Lancelot was a tremendous fighter, but Meleagant was hardly weaker; it was no wonder that Kay had been defeated with such ease or that the castle’s dungeon was full of brave knight prisoners from the Order of the Round Table. Gradually the rebellious knight gained the advantage over his weakened and distracted opponent. Lancelot found himself forced back under a hail of blows so that Guinevere was behind him and no longer in his sight. Desperate to look at her once again, Lancelot turned his head, no longer focusing on winning the battle and doing no more than deflecting Meleagant’s sword cuts with his own sword held behind his back. The crowd loved this skilful display, but victory was slipping from him: on his knees and desperately parrying attacks, he still looked away from his enemy to gaze instead at the beautiful queen.

  KAY

  Kay (also known as Cai) features in many tales of the Round Table, often sly or arrogant at the beginning of an adventure and humbled by better knights before the adventure ends. He was Arthur’s foster brother, and both boys were raised by Kay’s father Ector at the request of Merlin; when Arthur was appointed Pendragon of Logres he bestowed upon Kay the honour of being Camelot’s steward. Kay’s behaviour, so often belligerent and cynical, can be interpreted as a warning to real-life knights about how they should not act: chivalry and humility always won through against Kay’s behaviour. Despite his discourtesy, Kay was always a loyal servant to Arthur and eventually died in the war against Mordred. In Welsh legend, Cai was a regular companion of the warlord Arthur (along with a warrior named Bedwyr, who featured in later legend as the knight Bedivere).

  From a window high in the castle, a kindly lady noticed why Lancelot was distracted. Above the noise of the crowd, he heard her voice call out to him. She told him to fight his way around Meleagant and attack from the other side, so that he could face his opponent and still gaze at the queen. Inspired by this notion, Lancelot rose from the ground and deftly danced around Meleagant’s heavy blows. Now facing Meleagant with the queen in view over her kidnapper’s shoulder, Lancelot unleashed a series of vicious sword cuts onto his enemy, ignoring his own wounds by thinking only of freeing Guinevere.

  ‘Sir Launcelot of the Lake.’ By Howard Pyle.

  Meleagant, powerful though he was, fell to the ground and offered his sword to Lancelot. Defeated but not willing to die, he yielded the fray and was carried away to have his wounds tended by his followers. Lancelot stood with Guinevere for a moment, before she walked away without meeting his eyes.

  Lancelot was distraught but carried on with his knightly duty, freeing the prisoners from the dungeon. Kay sheepishly emerged along with many other knights and ladies; he had been well beaten by Meleagant and bore the wounds to prove it. Lancelot doubted that this would subdue his quick tongue for more than a few days.

  As the procession of freed knights and ladies journeyed back to Camelot, meeting the soggy Gawain on the w
ay, Lancelot pondered why Guinevere had so snubbed him. It was – of course – the gallant knight’s hesitation at climbing into the cart so early in the chase: his fear of the shame that this would bring to him, albeit for no more than a heartbeat’s thought, had momentarily outweighed his devotion to saving his queen. Guinevere did eventually forgive Lancelot, but from that day on he never paused to place his own pride before her safety.

  * * *

  Lancelot (also known as: Launcelot; Lancelot of the Lake; Launcelot du Lac; Lanzelet; Lancilotto) is without doubt the best known of the Knights of the Round Table. He is consistently portrayed as a stunning warrior and a handsome fellow: many knights fall to his sword and many ladies seek his attention.

  Lancelot arrived at the court of Camelot led by the Lady of the Lake; orphaned from the royal family of King Ban of Benwick (Burgundy in modern day France) as a boy, the faerie queen had raised him in her underwater realm and schooled him in battle and chivalry. A skilled swordsman and jouster, he was to become Arthur’s champion and Guinevere’s lover, in part responsible for the downfall of Logres’ greatest king.

  Chrétien de Troyes introduced the character of Lancelot to Arthurian legend in Le Chevalier de la Charrette, the story told in this chapter; whether Chrétien invented him or whether Lancelot existed as an obscure character before this is not known, but many later versions of Arthurian legend use this quest to introduce Lancelot to the court of Camelot, only naming him part way through the story. Chrétien’s story takes place over a number of days and includes many further challenges for Lancelot, although I abridge the plot into a shorter chase. Lancelot’s love for Guinevere is present even in this early tale of his deeds: not only does he single-mindedly pursue her kidnapper, but at a later point in the story, she attempts to commit suicide when she believes him to be dead, and Lancelot attempts suicide when he believes she is dead.