The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur

by Howard Pyle

Then the White Knight said to Sir Bors, “Sir Bors, enter yonder boat, for so only shalt thou find the Grail.”

Sir Bors enters the boat.

So Sir Bors dismounted from his horse and he entered the boat, and with that Sir Percival awoke and sat up. And when Sir Percival perceived Sir Bors there in the boat he gave him greeting, and Sir Bors greeted Sir Percival.

Then the White Knight gave the boat a thrust from the shore, and the boat immediately sped away very swiftly into the night-time. And as Sir Bors and Sir Percival gazed back behind them they could yet see the figure of the White Knight seated upon his horse as still and motionless as though he were carved in marble stone. And though neither of them knew it, yet that knight was the spirit of Sir Balan who had returned to lead those knights champion to find the Grail.

Then anon that white figure faded into the dimness of the moonlight and was gone, and all about them lay the sea, very strange and mysterious and yet full of motion. And the bright whiteness of the moonlight lay moving upon the crests of the waves, and ever it wavered this way and that as though it were liquid silver poured upon the waves.

Such were the adventures of Sir Bors at this time.

Nor shall you think ill of him because he left that beautiful lady who was his betrothed wife to seek the Grail. For wit you that the Grail was thought by all the world to be the greatest and the most important thing in that world; and its recovery was adjudged to be the most splendid and the noblest deed that any knight could undertake. Wherefore it was that Sir Bors would surrender all his hope of love and of riches and of worldly honor to seek for that Grail.

This he did not for his own glory but for the glory of heaven, and not for his own honor, but for the honor of Paradise, where that Grail really belonged.

Wherefore he would turn aside from all that the world had to offer him and would direct his face and all his endeavor to the recovery of that sacred chalice, content, if he should recover it or aid in its recovery, to sacrifice all the world for the sake of that recovery.

For be it said at this place that the Lady Leisette did not wait the return of Sir Bors, but, finding him gone, she took for her husband a certain noble knight of that kingdom, and he ruled that land in her behalf with great benignity of judgment and with high honor of knightly wisdom.