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How Sir Tor was made knight of the Round Table, and how Bagdemagus was displeased. |
NOW, said king Pellinore, I shall put to you two knights, and ye shall choose which is most worthy, that is Sir Bagdemagus, and Sir Tor, my son. But because Sir Tor is my son I may not praise him, but else, and he were not my son, I durst say that of his age there is not in this land a better knight then he is, nor of better conditions, and loth to do any wrong, and loth to take any wrong. By my head, said Arthur, he is a passing good knight, as any ye spake of this day, that wot I well, said the king, for I have seen him proved, but he saith little, and he doth much more, for I know none in all this court, and he were as well born on his mother’s side as he is on your side, that is like him of prowess and of might; and therefore I will have him at this time, and leave Sir Bagdemagus till another time. So when they were so chosen by the assent of all the barons, so were there found in their sieges every knight’s names that here are rehearsed. And so were they set in their sieges, whereof Sir Bagdemagus was wonderly wroth, that Sir Tor was advanced afore him, and therefore suddenly he departed from the court, and took his squire with him, and rode long in a forest till they came to a cross, and there alight and said his prayers devoutly. The meanwhile his squire found written upon the cross, that Bagdemagus should never return unto the court again till he had won a knight’s body of the Round Table, body for body. Lo, sir, said his squire, here I find writing of you, therefore I counsel you return again to the court. That shall I never, said Bagdemagus, till men speak of me great worship, and that I be worthy to be a knight of the Round Table. And so he rode forth. And there by the way he found a branch of an holy herb that was the sign of the Sangreal, and no knight found such tokens but he were a good liver. So as Sir Bagdemagus rode to see many adventures, it happed him to come to the rock there as the lady of the lake had put Merlin under a stone, and there he heard him make great dole; whereof Sir Bagdemagus would have holpen him, and went unto the great stone, and it was so heavy that an hundred men might not lift it up. When Merlin wist he was there, he bad leave his labour, for all was in vain, for he might never be holpen but by her that put him there. And so Sir Bagdemagus departed, and did many adventures, and proved after a full good knight, and came again to the court, and was made knight of the Round Table. So on the morn there fell new tidings and other adventures.