The Knights of the Round Table: Stories of King Arthur and the Holy Grail
1897
Here are the tales that built a kingdom in the popular imagination. This late-Victorian collection gathers the legendary stories of Camelot: the boy who pulled Excalibur from the stone, the knights who swore loyalty at the Round Table, the doomed love between Lancelot and Guinevere, and the gravest quest of all the search for the Holy Grail. The book opens at Glastonbury Tor, where a narrator wanders with Helen and her mother through the very ground where legend says Arthur sleeps, awaiting his return. These are adventure stories wrapped in medieval code honor, where knights fight not just for glory but for something like the soul of England itself. The writing carries the romantic sweep of an age rediscovering its medieval past, giving us both the high drama of battlefield betrayal and the quiet mystery of a chalice hidden in shadow. For readers who grew up dreaming of armored figures and enchanted swords, this is where those dreams were first given shape in the modern age.
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“Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross.””
— Unknown
“In the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. ””
— Unknown
“For I have promised to do the battle to the uttermost, by faith of my body, while me lasteth the life, and therefore I had liefer to die with honour than to live with shame ; and if it were possible for me to die an hundred times, I had liefer to die oft than yield me to thee; for though I lack weapon, I shall lack no worship, and if thou slay me weaponless that shall be thy shame.””
— Unknown
“Better is peace than ever war.””
— Unknown
“O Merlin", said Arthur, "Here hadst thou been slain for all thy crafts had I not been." "Nay," said Merlin, "Not so, for I could save myself an I would; and thou art more near thy death than I am, for thou goest to the deathward, an God be not thy friend.””
— Unknown
“What... is the wind in that door?””
— Unknown
“Sir Tor dressed his shield, and took his spear in his hands, and the other came fiercely upon him, and smote both horse and man to the earth.””
— Unknown
“And when matins and the first mass was done, there was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone four square, like unto a marble stone; and in midst thereof was like an anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about the sword that said thus:”
— Unknown
“...and then the threw the sword as far into the water as he might; and there came an arm and a hand above the water and met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.””
— Unknown
