When all the knights had gone from the king's palace in London, Sir Lancelot pined in the great hall. The chatter of the ladies and the tricks of the pages became irksome to him, and he began to think how gay must be the company of the knights of the Round Table, as they rode through the leafy country ways towards Camelot, with the great Arthur at their head.
'I will see the king's leech,' he said to himself, 'and bid him give me some medicament that shall strengthen my wound. For I cannot abide that I stay here like some toothless old hound, while his fellows are gone to the hunting.'
So Sir Lancelot betook him to the lodging of Morgan Todd, the king's physician, but found that he too had gone with the king.
When Sir Lancelot was turning away, sore aggrieved and angry, the man that had opened the door to him cried:
'Be not vexed, Sir Lancelot, for I wot well you would rather go with the king than nurse that wound of thine. Come down, then, and let me advise thee.'
Sir Lancelot, thinking this would be the chief disciple or pupil of Morgan Todd, dismounted, and followed the man that had spoken, who was old and thin and gnarled, with beady black eyes. When he had examined Sir Lancelot's wound, the old man smiled strangely, and said:
'If ye take but common care of thy wound, 'twill not break out again, but your heart was ever bigger than thy wit, sir knight. Thou wilt do more than any other knight, and in thy strength ye may well maim yourself.'
'Then I may go to Camelot, to the jousting?' asked Sir Lancelot.
'Ay, ye may go,' said the leech. 'But hearken. Stay not on thy way at Astolat. If ye do so, ye shall leave so great a wound there on one that will not harm thee, that the ill shall cause thee woe out of all measure.'
'Keep thy counsel, good leech,' said Sir Lancelot with a laugh. 'I hurt none that desire not my hurt. And, for the rest, I will take the adventure that God will send me.'