ere pity that the father should bear the
default of the son. This excuse was not sufficient to the king nor to
his uncles: for the intent of the king and his council was, without
the duke of Juliers would come and make other manner of excuse, and to
yield himself to the king's pleasure, his country should be the first
that should bear the burden. Then the bishop of Liege and the lords of
Hesbaing and the councils of the good towns offered to the king and
his council wholly the bishopric of Liege for his army to pass and
repass paying for their expenses, and to rest and refresh them there
as long as it pleased them. The king thanked them, and so did his
uncles, and would not refuse their offer, for he knew not what need he
should have after.

THE HOLY GRAIL FROM THE BOOK OF KING ARTHUR

BY

SIR THOMAS MALORY

_INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The earliest extant form of the story of the Holy Grail is the French
metrical romance of "Perceval" or "Le Conte du Graal" of Chretien de
Troies, written about 1175. Chretien died leaving the poem unfinished,
and it was continued by three other authors till it reached the vast
size of 63,000 lines. The religious signification of the Grail is
supposed to have been attached to it early in the thirteenth century
by Robert de Boron; and, perhaps a little later, in the French prose
"Quest of the Holy Grail," Galahad takes the place of Perceval as the
hero of the story. The later history of the various versions of the
legend is highly intricate, and in many points uncertain. It was from
a form of it embodied in the French prose "Lancelot" that Sir Thomas
Malory drew the chapters of his "Morte d'Arthur" which are here
reprinted, and which, more than the earlier versions, are the source
from which the legend has passed into modern English poetry.

Until a few years ago Malory himself was little more than a name, our
information about him being limited to the statement in Caxton's
edition of the "Morte d'Arthur" that he was the author. It now appears
probable, however, that Sir Thomas Malory was an English knight born
about 1400, of an old Warwickshire family. He served in the French
wars under Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, "whom all Europe
recognized as embodying the knightly ideal of the age" and may well
have owed his enthusiasm for chivalry to his association with this
distinguished nobleman. He died in 1471.

Malory's book is a compilation from French and English sources. Thes