KING ARTHUR AND THE GIANT OF MONT-SAINT-MICHEL
On reaching the summit a gruesome spectacle awaited them. The great fire that they had seen in the distance was blazing fiercely, and bending over it was the giant, his cruel and contorted features besmeared with the 277 blood of swine, portions of which he was toasting on spits. Startled at the sight of the knights, the monster rushed to where his club lay. This purpose Arthur deemed he might prevent, and, covering himself with his shield, he ran at him while yet he fumbled for the weapon. But with all his agility he was too late, for the giant seized the mighty sapling and, whirling it in the air, brought it down on the King’s shield with such force that the sound of the stroke echoed afar. Nothing daunted, Arthur dealt a trenchant stroke with Excalibur, and gave the giant a cut on the forehead which made the blood gush forth over his eyes so as nearly to blind him. But shrewd as was the blow, the giant had warded his forehead with his club in such wise that he had not received a deadly wound, and, watching his chance with great cunning, he rushed in within the sweep of Arthur’s sword, gripped him round the middle, and forced him to the ground.
Iron indeed would have been the grasp which could have held a knight so doughty as Arthur. Slipping from the monster’s clutches, the King hacked at his adversary now in one place, now in another, till at length he smote the giant so mightily that Excalibur was buried deep in his brain-pan. The giant fell like an oak torn up by the roots in the fury of the winds. Rushing up as he crashed to the earth, Sir Bedivere struck off the hideous head, grinning in death, to be a show to those in the tents below.
“But let them behold it in silence and without laughter,” the King charged Sir Bedivere, “for never since I slew the giant Ritho upon Mount Eryri have I encountered so mighty an adversary.”
And so they returned to their tents with daybreak.
A Doubting Thomas
It is strange to think that Brittany, one of the cradles of Arthurian legend, could have produced a disbeliever in that legend so early as the year of grace 1113. It is on record that some monks from Brittany journeyed to England in that year, and were shown by the men of Devon “the chair and the oven of that King Arthur renowned in the stories of the Britons.” They passed on to Cornwall, and when, in the church at Bodmin, one of their servants dared to question the statement of a certain Cornishman that Arthur still lived, he received such a buffet for his temerity that a small riot ensued.[60] Does not this seem to be evidence that the legend was more whole-heartedly believed in in the Celtic parts of England, and was therefore more exclusively native to those parts than to Continental Brittany? The Cornish allegiance to the memory of Arthur seems to have left little to be desired.