to a devil as it fled, rending, through the forest. And ever
the hounds pursued the boar, hanging upon its flanks but not daring to
grapple with it in its flight, because of the terror that surrounded it.

Then when Sir Launcelot beheld that sight the love of the chase flamed
up within his heart and thereupon he shouted aloud and fell to running
beside the dogs after the boar, tearing his way through the briars and
thorns and thickets, even as the boar and the hounds burst through
them. And so Sir Launcelot and the dogs chased the boar for a great
while, until at last the beast came to bay, with his back set against a
great crag of stone, and there the dogs surrounded it, yelling and
baying. And ever Sir Launcelot shouted them on to the assault, yet not
one of the hounds dared to grapple with the wild beast because of the
terror of its appearance.

So as Sir Launcelot and the dogs joined in assault about the boar, there
came the sound of a horseman riding with speed and winding his horn.
Then in a moment there came King Arthur himself, bursting out of the
forest alone; for he had outridden all his court and was the first of
all upon the field.

Then King Arthur, beholding the boar where he stood at bay, set his
lance in rest with intent to charge the beast and to pierce him through
the body. But the boar, all fierce and mad with the chase it had
suffered, did not wait that charge of the King but himself charged the
horseman. And at that charge King Arthur's horse was affrighted, with
the terror of the beast and flung suddenly aside so that the lance of
King Arthur failed of its aim.

[Sidenote: _The boar overthroweth King Arthur._]

Therewith the boar ran up under the point of the lance and he catched
the horse of the King with his tusks and ripped the horse so that both
horse and rider fell to the ground; King Arthur beneath the wounded
animal, so that he could not free his leg to rise from his fall.

Then it would have been ill indeed with King Arthur but for that forest
madman. For beholding the fall of the King, Sir Launcelot ran
straightway to him. And he seized the sword of the King and plucked it
forth from its sheath. Therewith he leaped at the boar and lashed at it
a mighty buffet, and as he did so his foot slipped in the blood of the
horse which there lay upon the ground, and he fell flat with the force
of that blow which he purposed should destroy the boar.

Thereupon the boar, finding himself thus at