his parents were obliged to flee from their besieged
castle in Brittany. Before they had gone far, the aged Ban, seeing his home
in flames, sank dying to the ground. Helen, eager to minister to her
husband, laid her baby boy down on the grass near a lake, and when she
again turned around, she saw him in the arms of Vivian, the Lady of the
Lake, who plunged with him into the waters.

"In the wife's woe, the mother was forgot.
At last (for I was all earth held of him
Who had been all to her, and now was not)
She rose, and looked with tearless eyes, but dim,
In the babe's face the father still to see;
And lo! the babe was on another's knee!

"Another's lips had kissed it into sleep,
And o'er the sleep another watchful smiled;
The Fairy sate beside the lake's still deep,
And hush'd with chaunted charms the orphan child!
Scared at the mother's cry, as fleets a dream,
Both Child and Fairy melt into the stream."
BULWER LYTTON, _King Arthur_.

The bereaved wife and mother now sorrowfully withdrew into a convent, while
Lancelot was brought up in the palace of the Lady of the Lake, with his two
cousins, Lyonel and Bohort. Here he remained until he was eighteen, when
the fairy herself brought him to court and presented him to the king.
Arthur then and there made him his friend and confidant, and gave him an
honored place at the Round Table. He was warmly welcomed by all the other
knights also, whom he far excelled in beauty and courage.

"But one Sir Lancelot du Lake,
Who was approved well,
He for his deeds and feats of armes
All others did excell."
_Sir Lancelot du Lake_ (Old Ballad).

[Sidenote: Lancelot and Guinevere.] Lancelot, however, was doomed to much
sorrow, for he had no sooner beheld Queen Guinevere than he fell deeply in
love with her. The queen fully returned his affection, granted him many
marks of her favor, and encouraged him to betray his friend and king on
sundry occasions, which form the themes of various episodes in the romances
of the time. Lancelot, urged in one direction by passion, in another by
loyalty, led a very unhappy life, which made him relapse into occasional
fits of insanity, during which he roamed aimlessly about for many years.
When restored to his senses, he always returned to court, where he
accomplished unheard-of deeds of valor, delivered many maidens in distres