"Yes, that is why you are Arthur's sister," the king returned still questioningly.
"These are secret things," the Queen of Orkney replied, and she motioned with her hand for her two sons to leave her alone in the room with the king.
Gawain immediately skipped away singing, his hair flying after and frolicked outside like a frisky pony, but cunning Modred laid his ear close beside the door to listen, so that he half heard all the strange story his mother told the king. This is what the queen said in the beginning to the king.
CUNNING MODRED BESIDE THE DOOR TO LISTEN
"What should I know about it? For my mother's hair and eyes were dark, and so were the eyes and hair of Gerlois, and Uther was dark too, almost black, but the King Arthur is fairer than anyone else in Britain. However, I remember how my mother used often to weep and say, 'O that you had some brother, pretty little one, to guard you from the rough ways of the world."
"Yes? She said that?" Leodogran rejoined, "but when did you see Arthur first?"
"O king, I will tell you all about it," cried the Queen of Orkney. "Once when I was a little bit of a girl and had been beaten for some childish fault that I had not committed, I ran outside and flung myself on a grassy bank and hated all the world and everything in it, and wished I were dead. But all of a sudden little Arthur stood by my side. I don't know how he came or anything about it. Perhaps Merlin brought him, for Merlin, they say, can walk about and nobody see him, if he will, but any rate, Arthur was there by my side, comforting me and drying my tears. After that Arthur came very often without anybody knowing it and we were children together, and in those golden days I felt sure he would be king.
"But now I must tell you about Bleys, the old wizard who taught the magician Merlin. You know they both served King Uther, and just a little while ago when Bleys died he sent for me. He said he had something to tell me that I must know before he left the world. He said that they two, Merlin and he, sat beside the bed of King Uther on the night when the king passed away, moaning and wailing because he left no heir to his throne. After the king's death as Merlin and Bleys walked out from the castle walls into the dismal misty night, they saw a wonderful fairy-ship shaped like a winged dragon sailing the heavens, with shining people collected on its decks; but in the twinkling of an eye the ship was gone.
"Then Merlin and Bleys passed down into the cove by the seashore to watch the billows, one after the other, as they lapped up against the beach. And as they looked at last a great wave gathered up one-half of the ocean and came full of voices, slowly rising and plunging, roaring all the while. Then all the wave was in a flame; and down in the wave and in the flame they saw lying a naked babe that was carried by the water to Merlin's very feet.