The Knights of the Round Table: Stories of King Arthur and the Holy Grail

by William Henry Frost

When they came to the shore they took hold of the table with the Holy Grail upon it to carry it out of the ship. But it was too heavy for them and they looked about to find some one to help them. The nearest man was an old cripple who sat begging. Galahad called to him and told him to come and help them carry the table. "I cannot help you," he said; "it is many years since I could even stand, except with crutches."

"No matter for that," said Galahad, "come and do your best." And the old cripple came and helped them, and he was as strong and as well as any man. They carried the table and the Holy Grail to the cathedral and left them before the altar, and then they came back to the shore and brought Percivale's sister out of the ship and up to the cathedral too, and buried her there.

When the King of Sarras heard of the strange knights who had come and of the cripple who had been healed, he sent for the knights and asked them who they were and whence they came. Now this King was a tyrant, and when Galahad had told him all about the Holy Grail he began to be afraid of these knights, for he feared that they would have more power over the people than he had himself. So he sent all three of them to prison. But as soon as they were in prison the Holy Grail came to them of itself, and it stayed with them and fed them, as it had fed Joseph of Arimathæa, when he was in prison. And, like him, they scarcely knew how long they were there. But when they had been in prison for a year the King was sick and felt that he was going to die, and then he began to have worse fears than before.

So he sent for the three knights again and told them that he had done wrong in putting them in prison and begged them to forgive him. "We forgive you," Galahad answered; "you had no power to harm us, for the Holy Grail was always with us."

Then the King said to Galahad: "I am sure that I shall die soon and I wish that you might be King here after me, for I know that my people could have no better king than you."

So it was agreed, and soon after that the King died and Galahad was crowned in his place. When Galahad was King the Holy Grail was put before the altar in the cathedral again and Galahad had a chest made to cover it. And every day he and Percivale and Bors went to the cathedral to pray before it.

And one day, when Galahad had been King of Sarras for a year, he told Percivale and Bors that the time had come for him to leave this world, and they must come with him to the cathedral now for the last time. So they went to the cathedral together and they saw an old man kneeling at the altar. He was the same old man whom they had seen so many times before, who had been made to live so far beyond his time by the power of the Holy Grail, Joseph of Arimathæa. On the altar before him lay the spear with the drops of blood flowing from its point.

The three knights knelt before the altar, Galahad nearer to it than the others, and they were there for a long time. Then the old man rose and came to the chest where the Grail was and took it out and held it up before them, and the light that shone from the blood that was in it, through the crystal of the cup, was greater and stronger than ever. The whole cathedral was bright with it. It streamed up among the arches of the roof and lighted old pictures that were painted there. For years before they had scarcely been seen, they were so dim with time and with dust and with the smoke of incense. Now, with the light of the Holy Grail upon it, the place was again a piece of Heaven, filled with wonderful forms. There was Elijah, in his chariot of fire; there were saints and angels; and all about them and among them there were little stars of gold, that glowed and twinkled in the new brightness like the stars of the real Heaven.

The old man set the Grail upon the altar and came to Galahad and touched his hand and kissed him. Then all at once the church grew dark and Percivale and Bors could see nothing but the Grail and the spear upon the altar and the old man who stood before it. He took the Grail and the spear and then he seemed to rise and to go farther from them, though they could not see how he went. It seemed to them, too, that Galahad was with him, and they did not see that the form of Galahad still lay before them on the steps of the altar.

In this way they watched for a long time and then Percivale said to Bors: "Do you not see, far off there in the sky, as it seems, Galahad himself, with his crown and his royal robes, holding the Holy Grail in his hands?"