Logres and Alban, and two tall sons with him.

As the years passed, and her little son began to run, three black days
came within a little of each other, for on these days messengers came
with the sad news of the death of her other boys. One of them had been
done to death by an evil troll on the lonely wastes by the Roman wall,
two others were slain by the shores of Humber, repelling a horde of
fair-haired Saxon raiders, and the other was killed at a ford, where he
had kept at bay six bandit knights that would have pursued and slain
his wounded lord.

Then, in her grief, the widow dame resolved that she would fly with her
little son, and make a home for him in some wilderness, where never
sounds or sights of war or death would come, where knights would be
unknown, and no one would speak to him of arms and battles. And thus
did she do, and she left the hall where she had lived, and removed to
the deserts and wastes of the wilderness, and took with her only her
women, and a few boys and spiritless men, too old or feeble to fight,
or to think of fighting.

Thus she reared the only son left to her, teaching him all manner of
nobleness in thought and action and in learning, but never suffering
him to see a weapon, nor to hear a tale of war or knightly prowess.

He grew up loving all noble things, gentle of speech and bearing, but
quick to anger at evil or mean actions, merciful of weak things, and
full of pity and tenderness.

Yet was he also very strong of body, fleet of foot, quick of eye and
hand. Daily he went to divert himself in the great dark forest that
climbed the high mountains beside his home, or he roamed the wide
rolling moors. And he practised much with the throwing of stones and
sticks, so that with a stick he could hit a small mark at a great
distance, and with a sharp stone he could cut down a sapling at one
blow.

One day he saw a flock of his mother's goats in the forest, and near
them stood two hinds. The boy wondered greatly to see the two deer
which had no horns, while the goats had two each; and he thought they
had long run wild, and had lost their horns in that way. He thought he
would please his mother if he caught them, so that they should not
escape again. And by his great activity and swiftness he ran the two
deer down till they were spent, and then he took them and shut them up
in the goat-house in the forest.

Going home, he told his mother and her servants what he had done, and
they w