“Comrades in God,” it said, “the time is come when that which is great shall become small.”
And when the voice was ended, the mighty figure faded into the blue darkness, and only a great star shone where the uplifted dragon-helm had brushed the roof of heaven. One by one the white lords of the sky followed in his mysterious way, till once more were to be seen only the stars of the Bear.
The boy-king dreamed that he fell as a falling meteor, and then that he floated over land and sea as a cloud, and then that he sank as mist upon the hills of his own land.
A noise of wind stirred in his ears, and he felt the chill dew creep over his hands like the stealthy cold lip of the tide. He rose stumblingly, and stood, staring around him. He was on the same spot, under the brow of the hill that looked over the dim shoreless seas, now obscure with the dusk. He glanced upward and saw the stars of the Great Bear in their slow majestic march round the Pole. Then he remembered.
He went slowly down the hillside, his mind heavy with thought. When he was come to the place of the King his father, lo, Pendragon and all his fierce chivalry came out to meet him, for the archdruid had foretold that the great King to be had received his mystic initiation among the holy silence of the hills.
“I am no more Snowbird the child,” the boy said, looking at them fearlessly, and as though already King. “Henceforth I am Arth-Uthyr,[2] for my place is in the Great Bear which we see yonder in the north.”
[2] Pronounced Arth-Uir, or Arth-Ur. In ancient British Arth means Bear, and Uthyr great, wondrous.
So all there acclaimed him as Arthur, the wondrous one of the stars, the Great Bear.
“I am old,” said Pendragon, “and soon you shall be King, Arthur my son. So ask now a great boon of me and it shall be granted to you.”
Then Arthur remembered his dream.