Not long after that Joseph was laid in his deadly bed. And when King
Evelake saw that he made much sorrow, and said: For thy love I have
left my country, and sith ye shall depart out of this world, leave me
some token of yours that I may think on you. Joseph said: That will I
do full gladly; now bring me your shield that I took you when ye went
into battle against King Tolleme. Then Joseph bled sore at the nose, so
that he might not by no mean be staunched. And there upon that shield
he made a cross of his own blood. Now may ye see a remembrance that I
love you, for ye shall never see this shield but ye shall think on me,
and it shall be always as fresh as it is now. And never shall man bear
this shield about his neck but he shall repent it, unto the time that
Galahad, the good knight, bear it; and the last of my lineage shall
have it about his neck, that shall do many marvellous deeds. Now, said
King Evelake, where shall I put this shield, that this worthy knight
may have it? Ye shall leave it thereas Nacien, the hermit, shall be put
after his death; for thither shall that good knight come the fifteenth
day after that he shall receive the order of knighthood: and so that
day that they set is this time that he have his shield, and in the same
abbey lieth Nacien, the hermit. And then the White Knight vanished
away.
Anon as the squire had heard these words, he alighted off his hackney
and kneeled down at Galahad’s feet, and prayed him that he might go
with him till he had made him knight.
If I would not refuse you.
Then will ye make me a knight? said the squire, and that order, by the
grace of God, shall be well set in me.
So Sir Galahad granted him, and turned again unto the abbey where they
came from; and there men made great joy of Sir Galahad. And anon as he
was alighted there was a monk brought him unto a tomb in a churchyard,
where there was such a noise that who that heard it should verily nigh
be mad or lose his strength: and sir, they said, we deem it is a fiend.
CHAPTER XII. Of the marvel that Sir Galahad saw and heard in the tomb,
and how he made Melias knight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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