[451]. The “big knife” was, we are told in the story, “a short broad dagger. When Arthur and his hosts came before a torrent, they would seek for a narrow place where they might pass the water, and would lay the sheathed dagger across the torrent, and it would form a bridge sufficient for the armies of the three islands of Britain, and of the three islands adjacent, with their spoil.”
[452]. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King; Guinevere.
[453]. Ibid. To the Queen.
[454]. Morte Darthur, Book I, chap. X.
[455]. Gresholm Island, the scene of “The Entertaining of the Noble Head”.
[456]. Morte Darthur, Book XX, chap. VIII.
[457]. Ibid., Book I, chap. III.
[458]. Morte Darthur, Book I, chap. VIII.
[459]. Ibid., Book I, chap. XVI.
[460]. Ibid., Book I, chap. II.