King Arthur and His Knights by Maude L. Radford, Fiction, Legends, Myths, & Fables - Arthurian

A collection of King Arthur's adventures. Following his ascent to King of Britain to his death.

The powerful lords rode up in their clanking armor and entered the church. There were so many of them that they quite filled the nave and side-aisles of the building. The Archbishop looked at their stern bronzed faces, their heavy beards, their broad shoulders and their glittering armor and prayed God to make the best man in the land king.

*

"She is the Lady of the Lake," says Merlin. "She lives in a rock in the middle of the lake. See, she is coming toward us. And look at what is rising beyond her from the water!" Arthur, wounded from his battle with the knight and holding the pieces of his broken sword, looks out onto the waters where Merlin points, and sees an arm clothed in pure white, holding a huge, cross-hilted sword, so brilliant that his eyes are dazzled. "'Take me, ' the writing says, on one side of the sword," said Arthur when he takes the blade into his hands. "And 'Cast me away, ' on the other. I'm glad to take the sword, but it saddens me to think of casting it away." Merlin's face grows sad, too. He knows what is to pass in the future -- and is well aware that when the time comes to cast the sword away, much evil will have befallen the young king at his side.