Here he asked shelter for the night, and was received with a warm welcome, for those within deemed he was one of the knights that sought the Sangreal. When morning came he heard mass, and then the abbot came and bade him good-morning. A conversation followed, in which he told the abbot all that had happened to him, and begged his interpretation thereof.
"Truly you are strong in the service of the Lord," said the abbot, "and are held for great deeds. Thus I interpret your adventures and visions. The great fowl that fed its young with its own blood is an emblem of Christ, who shed his blood for the good of mankind. And the bare tree on which it sat signifies the world, which of itself is barren and without fruit. Also King Aniause betokens Jesus Christ, and the lady for whom you took the battle the new law of Holy Church; while the older lady is the emblem of the old law and the fiend, which forever war against the Church.
"By the black bird also was emblemed the Holy Church, which saith, 'I am black but he is fair.' The white bird represented the fiend, which, like hypocrisy, is white without and foul within. As for the rotten chair and the white lilies, the first was thy brother Lionel, who is a murderer and an untrue knight; while the lilies were the knight and the lady. The one drew near to the other to dishonor her, but you forced them to part. And you would have been in great peril had you, for the rescue of a rotten tree, suffered those two flowers to perish; for if they had sinned together they had both been damned.
"The seeming man of religion, who blamed you for leaving your brother to rescue a lady, was the foul fiend himself. Your brother was not slain, as he made it appear, but is still alive. For the corpse, and the chapel, and the tower were all devices of the evil one, and the lady who offered her love was the fiend himself in that showing. He knew you were tender-hearted, and he did all. Much you may thank God that you withstood his temptation, and that until now you have come through all your adventures pure and unblemished."
This gladdened the heart of the virtuous knight, and a warm hope of winning the Sangreal arose in his soul. Much more passed between them, and when Bors rode forth it was with the fervent blessing of the holy abbot.
On the morning of the second day Bors saw before him a castle that rose in a green valley, and met with a yeoman, whom he stopped and asked what was going on in that country.
"Sir knight," he answered, "there is to be held a great tournament before that castle."
"By what people?" asked Bors.
"The Earl of Plains," was the answer, "leads one party, and the nephew of the Lady of Hervin the other."
With this the yeoman rode on, and Bors kept on his course, thinking he might meet Lionel or some other of his old comrades at the tournament. At length he turned aside to a hermitage that stood at the entrance to the forest. And to his surprise and joy he saw his brother Lionel sitting armed at the chapel door, waiting there to take part in the tournament the next morning.