“Perchance ’tis the Devil cometh; well, I care not if it be he!
Methinks I can still withstand him, be he never so fierce and grim,
Of a truth my lady mother she is o’er much afraid of him!”
As he stood there for combat ready, behold! in the morning light
Three knights rode into the clearing in glittering armour bright.
From head to foot were they armèd, each one on his gallant steed,
And the lad, as he saw their glory, thought each one a god indeed!
No longer he stood defiant, but knelt low upon his knee,
And cried, “God who helpest all men, I pray Thee have thought for me!”
From that hour the boy’s heart, like that of his father, was fired by the spirit of adventure. How he followed after them in their wanderings, and how, after much happening, he arrived at King Arthur’s Court, were too long to tell. When she saw that his mind was made up his mother put no obstacle in his path, but robed him in the garb of a fool, thinking, in the cunning of her mother heart, and “the cruelty of a mother’s love,” as the poet phrases it, that when the world mocked him he would return to the forest again.