{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/mart/mart002.htm","path":"neu/mart/mart002.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/mart/mart002.htm","text":"CHAPTER III\nOf the birth of King Arthur and of his nurture.\nTHEN Queen Igraine waxed daily greater and greater, so\nit befell after within half a year, as King Uther lay by his\nqueen, he asked her, by the faith she owed to him, whose was\n<5 CH. III OF THE BIRTH OF KING ARTHUR>the child within her\nbody; then she sore abashed to give answer. Dismay you not, said\nthe king, but tell me the truth, and I shall love you the better,\nby the faith of my body. Sir, said she, I shall tell you the\ntruth. The same night that my lord was dead, the hour of his\ndeath, as his knights record, there came into my castle of\nTintagil a man like my lord in speech and in countenance, and two\nknights with him in likeness of his two knights Brastias and\nJordanus, and so I went unto bed with him as I ought to do with\nmy lord, and the same night, as I shall answer unto God, this\nchild was begotten upon me. That is truth, said the king, as ye\nsay; for it was I myself that came in the likeness, and therefore\ndismay you not, for I am father of the child; and there he told\nher all the cause, how it was by Merlin's counsel. Then the\nqueen made great joy when she knew who was the father of her\nchild.\nSoon came Merlin unto the king, and said, Sir, ye must purvey you\nfor the nourishing of your child. As thou wilt, said the king,\nbe it. Well, said Merlin, I know a lord of yours in this land,\nthat is a passing true man and a faithful, and he shall have the\nnourishing of your child, and his name is Sir Ector, and he is a\nlord of fair livelihood in many parts in England and Wales; and\nthis lord, Sir Ector, let him be sent for, for to come and speak\nwith you, and desire him yourself, as he loveth you, that he will\nput his own child to nourishing to another woman, and that his\nwife nourish yours. And when the child is born let it be\ndelivered to me at yonder privy postern unchristened. So like as\nMerlin devised it was done. And when Sir Ector was come he made\nfiaunce to the king for to nourish the child like as the king\ndesired; and there the king granted Sir Ector great rewards.\nThen when the lady was delivered, the king commanded two knights\nand two ladies to take the child, bound in a cloth of gold, and\nthat ye deliver him to what poor man ye meet at the postern gate\nof the castle. So the child was delivered unto Merlin, and so he\nbare it forth unto Sir Ector, and made an holy man to christen\nhim, and named him Arthur; and so Sir Ector's wife nourished him\nwith her own pap.\n<6>","title":"Le Morte d'Arthur BOOK I CHAPTER III","type":"page"}