The Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions

by Howard Pyle

Then the Lady of the Fountain pressed her handkerchief to her lips as though to check an outcry, and after a little while she said, "Good Sir, tell me what you know." Sir Ewaine said, "I will do so." And he said: "You are to know that when Sir Ewaine left this court to return to the court of King Arthur, he fell in with the Enchantress Vivien, who gave him a ring of forgetfulness so that he disremembered all that had happened to him at your court. Afterward there came a young damsel from this place who put him to shame before all those who were his companions at the court of King Arthur. This that damsel did because she thought that Sir Ewaine was unfaithful to you. But he was not unfaithful and so he was shamed for no good reason. Now after being thus shamed before all the court of King Arthur in that wise, this woeful knight departed from his friends because he could not bear to dwell in his humiliation before them. So he left all those his friends and journeyed afar, and in his journeyings he fell among thieves, and these finding him unarmed, bound him whilst he slept, and robbed him and wounded him to death. So it was that I beheld him lying by the wayside, pierced through with a javelin and dying of that wound, and so have I come thither to tell you of this story."

Now when the Lady of the Fountain heard what that pilgrim had to say, she shrieked with great violence and immediately swooned away and fell upon the ground.

Then several of her maidens ran to her and these served her until by and by she revived from her swoon. Yet when she was thus recovered she straightway fell to smiting her hands together and crying aloud in a very bitter agony of spirit: "Woe is me that I should have disbelieved in the honor of that noble and worthy knight, for now because of my disbelief in him I perceive that I have lost him forever. For so hath died the best and truest knight that ever lived in all of the world." Saying this, she fell to weeping in great measure, and Elose strove to comfort her, also weeping, but the lady would not be comforted. Then Sir Ewaine said, "Lady, hast thou yet such a kind regard for the knight as this?" And the Lady Lesolie said with great passion: "Yea, truly, and so I always shall have, for methinks that never such another knight as he lived in this world."

Sir Ewaine declareth himself to the Lady of the Fountain.

Then Sir Ewaine said: "Lady, you understood not my words. Sir Ewaine is not dead, and if you will you may easily have him here again." She said, "How know you that?" Then Sir Ewaine cast off his hood and laid aside his hat and said: "Lady, I am that man; and if I have deceived thee in this, it is that I may again behold thy face that is so dear to me—yea, that is dearer than all the world besides." So saying, Sir Ewaine kneeled before the lady and embraced her about the knees, and she stooped and embraced his head and both of them wept with a great passion of love and joy. And so they were reconciled to one another.

And in that reconciliation there was much rejoicing, for all the town was bedraped with silken scarves and banners by day and illuminated by night because of joy for the return of the champion-defender of the Fountain. And there was feasting and drinking at the castle of the Fountain, and there was jousting from day to day for seven days, and in those joustings the knights of the court of the Fountain under the lead of Sir Ewaine defended their chivalry with such skill and valor that none of those that came against them were able to withstand them, but all those companies of knights-contestant were defeated, to the great glory of the Lady Lesolie of the Fountain.

Then after seven days of this rejoicing, Sir Ewaine was wedded with great pomp of circumstance to the Lady of the Fountain. And of that wedding it is to be recorded in the history of these things that Sir Ewaine and the Lady Lesolie rode to the minster upon milk-white horses, and that they were all clad in white samite embroidered with silver and inset with so many precious stones of all sorts and kinds that they glistened in the sunlight as though they were two figures of living fire. And it is recorded that tenscore damsels of wonderful beauty, clad all in white, preceded them upon the way, and spread the way with flowers, chaunting the while in voices of great rejoicing.

Thus Sir Ewaine was wedded at the castle of the Fountain, and after that he dwelt in the land of the Fountain with great peace and good content.

And Sir Ewaine ever defended the Fountain as he had aforetime, so that the fame of the Knight of the Fountain was known throughout the length and breadth of the land and in every court of chivalry. And many knights undertook the Adventure of the Fountain but in every case such errant knights were overthrown by the valor and the skill of the Knight of the Fountain. And in every case where that knight adventurer was thus overthrown, the Knight of the Fountain would take from him his horse and his shield and would send him away upon foot, disarmed and ashamed.

So, because of the valor of the Knight of the Fountain, it came about in course of time that a very noble and worthy court of chivalry became established at the castle of the city of the Fountain, insomuch that the renown of that court of the Fountain hath been handed down in the histories of chivalry even to this day, when knighthood no longer dwelleth upon the earth.