should I call them also fathers. Now a free man has two things
thoroughly his own, his body and his land. To Rohalt then, here, I
will release my land. Do you hold it, father, and your son shall hold
it after you. But my body I give up to King Mark. I will leave this
country, dear though it be, and in Cornwall I will serve King Mark as
my lord. Such is my judgment, but you, my lords of Lyonesse, are my
lieges, and owe me counsel; if then, some one of you will counsel me
another thing let him rise and speak.”

But all the barons praised him, though they wept; and taking with him
Gorvenal only, Tristan set sail for King Mark’s land.

THE MORHOLT OUT OF IRELAND

When Tristan came back to that land, King Mark and all his Barony were
mourning; for the King of Ireland had manned a fleet to ravage
Cornwall, should King Mark refuse, as he had refused these fifteen
years, to pay a tribute his fathers had paid. Now that year this King
had sent to Tintagel, to carry his summons, a giant knight; the
Morholt, whose sister he had wed, and whom no man had yet been able to
overcome: so King Mark had summoned all the barons of his land to
Council, by letters sealed.

On the day assigned, when the barons were gathered in hall, and when
the King had taken his throne, the Morholt said these things:

“King Mark, hear for the last time the summons of the King of Ireland,
my lord. He arraigns you to pay at last that which you have owed so
long, and because you have refused it too long already he bids you
give over to me this day three hundred youths and three hundred