And King Lot of Lothian and of Orkney then wedded Margawse that
was Gawaine's mother, and King Nentres of the land of Garlot
wedded Elaine. All this was done at the request of King Uther.
And the third sister Morgan le Fay was put to school in a
nunnery, and there she learned so much that she was a great clerk
of necromancy. And after she was wedded to King Uriens of the
land of Gore, that was Sir Ewain's le Blanchemain's father.


CHAPTER III

Of the birth of King Arthur and of his nurture.

THEN Queen Igraine waxed daily greater and greater, so
it befell after within half a year, as King Uther lay by his
queen, he asked her, by the faith she owed to him, whose was
<5 CH. III OF THE BIRTH OF KING ARTHUR>the child within her
body; then she sore abashed to give answer. Dismay you not, said
the king, but tell me the truth, and I shall love you the better,
by the faith of my body. Sir, said she, I shall tell you the
truth. The same night that my lord was dead, the hour of his
death, as his knights record, there came into my castle of
Tintagil a man like my lord in speech and in countenance, and two
knights with him in likeness of his two knights Brastias and
Jordanus, and so I went unto bed with him as I ought to do with
my lord, and the same night, as I shall answer unto God, this
child was begotten upon me. That is truth, said the king, as ye
say; for it was I myself that came in the likeness, and therefore
dismay you not, for I am father of the child; and there he told