The _Mabinogion_, which contains other tales about King Arthur, is a collection of old Welsh romances. Though our earliest collection of them is to be found in a manuscript written in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, some of them are probably as old as the time when Welshmen clothed themselves in the skins of the beaver and the bear, and used stone for their tools and weapons. It may be that, when you get older, you will go back to the two books I have mentioned, and you will find them so fascinating that you will be impatient of any other book which pretends to tell you the same tales. But until that time arrives, I hope you will find the stories as I have told them quite interesting and exciting. HENRY GILBERT. _June_ 1911. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. HOW ARTHUR WAS MADE KING AND WON HIS KINGDOM 1 II. SIR BALIN AND THE STROKE DOLOROUS 32 III. HOW LANCELOT WAS MADE A KNIGHT. THE FOUR WITCH QUEENS, AND THE ADVENTURES AT THE CHAPEL PERILOUS 52 IV. THE KNIGHT OF THE KITCHEN 72 V. HOW SIR TRISTRAM KEPT HIS WORD 101 VI. THE DEEDS OF SIR GERAINT 131 VII. HOW SIR PERCEVAL WAS TAUGHT CHIVALRY, AND ENDED THE EVIL WROUGHT BY SIR BALIN'S DOLOROUS STROKE 164 VIII. HOW SIR OWEN WON THE EARLDOM OF THE FOUNTAIN 194 IX. OF SIR LANCELOT AND THE FAIR MAID OF ASTOLAT 229 X. HOW THE THREE GOOD KNIGHTS ACHIEVED THE HOLY GRAAL 250 XI. OF THE PLOTS OF SIR MORDRED; AND HOW SIR LANCELOT SAVED THE QUEEN 278 XII. OF SIR GAWAINE'S HATRED, AND THE WAR WITH SIR LANCELOT 307 XIII. OF THE REBELLION OF MORDRED AND THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR 333 KING ARTHUR'S KNIGHTS I HOW ARTHUR WAS MADE KING AND WON HIS KINGDOM In the hall of his Roman palace at London, King Uther, Pendragon of the Island of Britain, lay dying. He had been long sick with a wasting disease, and forced to lie in his bed, gnawing his beard with wrath at his weakness, while the pagan Saxons ravened up and down the fair broad lands, leaving in their tracks the smoking ruin of broken towns and desolated villages, where mothers lay dead beside their children on the hearths, fair churches stood pillaged and desecrated, and priests and nuns wandered in the wilds. At length, when the pagans, bold and insolent, had ventured near London, the king had been able to bear his shame and anguish no longer. He had put himself, in a litter, at the head of his army, and meeting the fierce, brave pagans at Verulam (now called St. Albans) he had, in a battle day-long and stubborn, forced them at length to fly with heavy slaughter.