Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/321

 of the Round Table. 281

my room also not long after he had gone only a bow-shot from the town, — how could he then be killed there? If he hath indeed been killed, then was the man who came to me in my room not the Duke." These thoughts brought her near death, and she wailed and wept, but she could not get to the truth of the occurrence.

10. The King left the other town, and began to besiege this town wherein the Duchess was. The end of the thing was that the knights and the Duchess had to surrender. There were long discussions between him and her, which are too long to recite here. In the end they advised "that the King, for the sake of his honour, and in order to reconcile the Duchess and the princes and the people of the country, should marry the Duchess, and marry her four daughters to four kings or princes." The King, hearing this advice tendered to him by his princes and councillors, rejoiced very much and accepted it. He married the Duchess. The eldest daughter he gave to the King Lot of Orcania, who begat four sons ; the eldest Messer Galwan (Galwein);^ the second Gaharias (Gadriat);- the third Agravan (Agraban);^ and the fourth Gwidon. The second daughter he married to King Urans ; he begat Messer Ivain (Ivan).2 The third daughter he married to the Duke of Clarence (Klarensa).^ The fourth did not wish to marry. She learned witchcraft (the art of the demons) ; she is Morgana.'^

11. One night, when the King was with the Duchess in bed, he placed his hand upon her, and said to her, — " I see thou art with child ; dost thou know by whom thou wert left with child .? " She answered " I wot not. This time I was not left with child by the Duke ; for he did not leave me with child when the castle was besieged ; one night a man came to me looking exactly like the Duke, but it was certainly not the Duke : for, at precisely

^The Hebrew words in brackets may have been incorreclly read by the transcriber, and can easily be read as amended.