Le Morte d'Arthur BOOK XXI CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VI

How Sir Bedivere found him on the morrow dead in an
hermitage, and how he abode there with the hermit

THEN was Sir Bedivere glad, and thither he went; and
when he came into the chapel, he saw where lay an hermit
grovelling on all four, there fast by a tomb was new graven.
When the hermit saw Sir Bedivere he knew him well, for
he was but little to-fore Bishop of Canterbury, that Sir
Mordred flemed.  Sir, said Bedivere, what man is there
interred that ye pray so fast for?  Fair son, said the
hermit, I wot not verily, but by deeming.  But this night,
at midnight, here came a number of ladies, and brought
hither a dead corpse, and prayed me to bury him; and
here they offered an hundred tapers, and they gave me an
hundred besants.  Alas, said Sir Bedivere, that was my
lord King Arthur, that here lieth buried in this chapel.
Then Sir Bedivere swooned; and when he awoke he
prayed the hermit he might abide with him still there, to
live with fasting and prayers.  For from hence will I
never go, said Sir Bedivere, by my will, but all the days
of my life here to pray for my lord Arthur.  Ye are
welcome to me, said the hermit, for I know ye better
than ye ween that I do.  Ye are the bold Bedivere, and
the full noble duke, Sir Lucan the Butler, was your
brother.  Then Sir Bedivere told the hermit all as ye
have heard to-fore.  So there bode Sir Bedivere with the
hermit that was to-fore Bishop of Canterbury, and there
Sir Bedivere put upon him poor clothes, and served the
hermit full lowly in fasting and in prayers.

Thus of Arthur I find never more written in books
that be authorised, nor more of the very certainty of his
death heard I never read, but thus was he led away in a
ship wherein were three queens; that one was King
Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan le Fay; the other was the
Queen of Northgalis; the third was the Queen of the
Waste Lands.  Also there was Nimue, the chief lady of
the lake, that had wedded Pelleas the good knight; and
this lady had done much for King Arthur, for she would
never suffer Sir Pelleas to be in no place where he should
be in danger of his life; and so he lived to the uttermost
of his days with her in great rest.  More of the death of
King Arthur could I never find, but that ladies brought
him to his burials; and such one was buried there, that
the hermit bare witness that sometime was Bishop of
Canterbury, but yet the hermit knew not in certain that
he was verily the body of King Arthur: for this tale Sir
Bedivere, knight of the Table Round, made it to be
written.