{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/mart/mart495.htm","path":"neu/mart/mart495.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/mart/mart495.htm","text":"Le Morte d'Arthur BOOK XXI CHAPTER VI\n \n Sacred Texts\u00a0\n Legends and Sagas\u00a0\n Index\u00a0\n BOOK XXI\u00a0\n Previous\u00a0\n Next\u00a0\n \n \n CHAPTER VI\n \n How Sir Bedivere found him on the morrow dead in an\n hermitage, and how he abode there with the hermit\n \n \n THEN was Sir Bedivere glad, and thither he went; and\n when he came into the chapel, he saw where lay an hermit\n grovelling on all four, there fast by a tomb was new graven.\n When the hermit saw Sir Bedivere he knew him well, for\n he was but little to-fore Bishop of Canterbury, that Sir\n Mordred flemed. Sir, said Bedivere, what man is there\n interred that ye pray so fast for? Fair son, said the\n hermit, I wot not verily, but by deeming. But this night,\n at midnight, here came a number of ladies, and brought\n hither a dead corpse, and prayed me to bury him; and\n here they offered an hundred tapers, and they gave me an\n hundred besants. Alas, said Sir Bedivere, that was my\n lord King Arthur, that here lieth buried in this chapel.\n Then Sir Bedivere swooned; and when he awoke he\n prayed the hermit he might abide with him still there, to\n live with fasting and prayers. For from hence will I\n never go, said Sir Bedivere, by my will, but all the days\n of my life here to pray for my lord Arthur. Ye are\n welcome to me, said the hermit, for I know ye better\n than ye ween that I do. Ye are the bold Bedivere, and\n the full noble duke, Sir Lucan the Butler, was your\n brother. Then Sir Bedivere told the hermit all as ye\n have heard to-fore. So there bode Sir Bedivere with the\n hermit that was to-fore Bishop of Canterbury, and there\n Sir Bedivere put upon him poor clothes, and served the\n hermit full lowly in fasting and in prayers.\n \n Thus of Arthur I find never more written in books\n that be authorised, nor more of the very certainty of his\n death heard I never read, but thus was he led away in a\n ship wherein were three queens; that one was King\n Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan le Fay; the other was the\n Queen of Northgalis; the third was the Queen of the\n Waste Lands. Also there was Nimue, the chief lady of\n the lake, that had wedded Pelleas the good knight; and\n this lady had done much for King Arthur, for she would\n never suffer Sir Pelleas to be in no place where he should\n be in danger of his life; and so he lived to the uttermost\n of his days with her in great rest. More of the death of\n King Arthur could I never find, but that ladies brought\n him to his burials; and such one was buried there, that\n the hermit bare witness that sometime was Bishop of\n Canterbury, but yet the hermit knew not in certain that\n he was verily the body of King Arthur: for this tale Sir\n Bedivere, knight of the Table Round, made it to be\n written.","title":"Le Morte d'Arthur BOOK XXI CHAPTER VI","type":"page"}