w, and with great
weeping and lamentation went to the King and prayed him to be pleased to
appease the combat and take it into his own hands; which suit the King
granted, and then the leopard and the loss, being marshals, entered the
lists and told the fox and the wolf that the King would speak with them,
and that the battle should there end, for he would take it into his own
hands and determine thereof; as for themselves they had done
sufficiently, neither would the King lose either of them. And to the fox
they said the whole field gave him the victory.

The greatest and most inspiring cycle of
medieval romances is that concerned with the
adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of
the Round Table. Developing largely as separate
stories, these romances were brought together
into an organic collection by Sir Thomas Malory
in the third quarter of the fifteenth century.
This work, called _Le Morte D'Arthur_, has
remained the standard Arthuriad and is the
source of most modern versions. It is one of
the great monuments of English prose, and,
while at first the strangeness of its style may
repel, the wonderful dignity of the story and
the sonorous quality of the language make a
strong appeal to children as well as to older
readers. Teachers should at least be acquainted
with a portion of Malory, and the three
selections following are taken from his text.
No. 404 is added as a suggestion as to how this
material may be worked up to tell to children.

401

According to a tradition in _Le Morte
D'Arthur_, Uther Pendragon, the father of
Arthur, was a powerful king in England. To
fulfill a promise made to Merlin, Uther
Pendragon allowed Merlin to take Arthur on the
day of his birth, that the child might not be
known as the son of the king. Merlin took the
child to Sir Ector, and the wife of Sir Ector
reared Arthur as one of her own children. The
following story is an account of how Arthur
learned of his parentage.

HOW ARTHUR BECAME KING

SIR THOMAS MALORY

After the death of Uther Pendragon, stood the realm in great jeopardy
long while, for every lord that was mighty of men made him strong, and
many weened to have been king. Then Merlin went to the Archbishop of
C