The Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions

by Howard Pyle

The madman chases the boar.

Thus it befell that upon a time Sir Launcelot, where he lived in his madness alone in the forest, was aware of the baying of hounds and the shouting of voices sounding ever nearer and nearer to where he was. Anon the baying of the hounds approached him very near indeed, and presently there came a great cracking and rending of the bushes and the small trees. Thereupon as he gazed, there burst out of the forest that great savage wild boar of Lystenesse. And lo! the jowl of that boar was all white with the foam that was churned by his tusks, and the huge tusks of the boar gleamed white in the midst of the foam. And the bristles of that great beast were like sharp wires of steel, and they too were all flecked with the foam that had fallen from the jowl of the beast. And the eyes of the wild boar gleamed like to two coals of fire, and it roared like to a devil as it fled, rending, through the forest. And ever the hounds pursued the boar, hanging upon its flanks but not daring to grapple with it in its flight, because of the terror that surrounded it.

Then when Sir Launcelot beheld that sight the love of the chase flamed up within his heart and thereupon he shouted aloud and fell to running beside the dogs after the boar, tearing his way through the briars and thorns and thickets, even as the boar and the hounds burst through them. And so Sir Launcelot and the dogs chased the boar for a great while, until at last the beast came to bay, with his back set against a great crag of stone, and there the dogs surrounded it, yelling and baying. And ever Sir Launcelot shouted them on to the assault, yet not one of the hounds dared to grapple with the wild beast because of the terror of its appearance.

So as Sir Launcelot and the dogs joined in assault about the boar, there came the sound of a horseman riding with speed and winding his horn. Then in a moment there came King Arthur himself, bursting out of the forest alone; for he had outridden all his court and was the first of all upon the field.

Then King Arthur, beholding the boar where he stood at bay, set his lance in rest with intent to charge the beast and to pierce him through the body. But the boar, all fierce and mad with the chase it had suffered, did not wait that charge of the King but himself charged the horseman. And at that charge King Arthur's horse was affrighted, with the terror of the beast and flung suddenly aside so that the lance of King Arthur failed of its aim.

The boar overthroweth King Arthur.

Therewith the boar ran up under the point of the lance and he catched the horse of the King with his tusks and ripped the horse so that both horse and rider fell to the ground; King Arthur beneath the wounded animal, so that he could not free his leg to rise from his fall.

Then it would have been ill indeed with King Arthur but for that forest madman. For beholding the fall of the King, Sir Launcelot ran straightway to him. And he seized the sword of the King and plucked it forth from its sheath. Therewith he leaped at the boar and lashed at it a mighty buffet, and as he did so his foot slipped in the blood of the horse which there lay upon the ground, and he fell flat with the force of that blow which he purposed should destroy the boar.

Thereupon the boar, finding himself thus attacked by another, turned upon that other and ere Sir Launcelot could arise from his fall it was upon him. And the boar ripped Sir Launcelot with its tusks through the flesh of the thigh, even to the hip bone.

The madman slayeth the boar.