Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/624

 see the mysteries of the sacred vessel, and as their signification.

This Amfortas is the Pelles or Pellam of “Mort d’Arthure.”

Years passed, and the king lay wounded in palace. The brotherhood of the Grail was dissolve and the existence of the temple and its mystic rite was almost forgotten. Sir Thomas Malory gives a different account of the wounding of the king from that in the Romans du San Greal, and makes his healing depend on the arrival of a knight who is a “clean maid,” who shall apply to him the sacred blood.

In the fulness of time, Galahad, the Good Knight, came to king Arthur’s court, and went forth, with the other knights, to the quest of the holy Grail.

Let us follow Launcelot who was on a ship.

“The winde arose and drove Sir Launcelot more than a moneth throughout the sea, where he slept but little and prayed unto God that he might have a sight of the Sancgreall. So it befell upon a night at midnight hee arived afore a castle on the backe side, which was rich and faire, and there was a posterne that opened toward the sea, and was open without any keeping, save two lions kept the entrie, and the moone shined cleare.