"King Arthur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their own hair into their gifts to favoured knights. King Ris, if he had received any such token from his lady-love, returned it with interest; for he sent her a mantle in which were inwoven the beards of nine conquered kings, a tenth space being left for that of King Arthur, which he promised to add in ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... Of Christ, 517. king Arthur in the second yeere of his reigne, hauing subdued all parts of Ireland, sailed with his fleet into Island, and brought it and the people thereof vnder his subiection. The rumour afterwards being spread thorowout all the other Islands, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... prose; prose the emotion of which (I dare to say) you must recognise if you have ears to hear. So you see that already our English prose not only achieves the 'high moment,' but seems to obey it rather and be lifted by it, until we ask ourselves, 'Who could help writing nobly, having to tell how King Arthur died or how the Bruce?' Yes, but I bid you observe that Malory and Berners are both relating what, however noble, is quite simple, quite straightforward. It is when prose attempts to philosophise, to express thoughts as well as to relate simple sayings and doings—it is then ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... cost of $7,500,000. The great gateways are known as Henry VIII.'s, St. George's, and King George IV.'s, while within is the Norman or Queen Elizabeth's Gate. The Round Tower or Keep was built for the assemblage of a fraternity of knights which King Edward intended to model after King Arthur's "Knights of the Round Table," but the project was abandoned after the institution of the ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... the grandfather of Aneurin, but as he died in king Arthur's time, A.D. 530, we can hardly identify him with the Geraint of the text, who probably was a son, or some other relation, that had inherited ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... verses of this stanza also characterize the King Arthur of the 'Idylls of the King'. *1* In the next stanza we have the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... the din. Guy Pearson, too, had got a black eye from a brick bat, and the assailants were clambering over the outer wall. So the Baron called for his Sunday hauberk of Milan steel, and his great two-handed sword with the terrible name:—it was the fashion in feudal times to give names to swords: King Arthur's was christened Excalibar; the Baron called his Tickletoby, and whenever he took it in hand, it ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... Paupukkeewis, the boastful Iagoo, and the strong Kwasind. If a Chinese traveller, during the middle ages, inquiring into the history and religion of the western nations, had confounded King Alfred with King Arthur, and both with Odin, he would not have made a more preposterous confusion of names and characters than that which has hitherto disguised the genuine personality of the ...
— Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederation • Horatio Hale
... I greatly enjoy, for it is full of the tales of the mighty King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. You will like to hear me read these brave stories when you are tired with your day's work, or on rainy days when you can neither hunt nor ride. Then you know not how to amuse yourselves and time is heavy on your hands, since you can ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... properties of plants, the art of picture writing, the secrets of magic; who founded their institutions and established their religions, who governed them long with glory abroad and peace at home; and finally, did not die, but like Frederick Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, and all great heroes, vanished mysteriously, and still lives somewhere, ready at the right moment to return to his beloved people and lead them to victory and happiness. Such to the Algonkins was Michabo or ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... most purely romantic of Thomas Warton's poems are "The Crusade" and "The Grave of King Arthur." The former ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... selfsame oak is enshrined in a thousand noble associations. It sings for him like a hymn; it shines like a vision; it suggests ships, storms and ocean battles; the spear of Launcelot, the forests of Arden; old baronial halls mellow with lights falling on oaken floors; King Arthur's banqueting chamber. To the scientist's thought the oak is a vital mechanism. By day and by night, the long summer through, it lifts tons of moisture and forces it into the wide-spreading branches, but without the rattle of huge engines. With what uproar and clang of iron ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... to a ballad, or to any Historian. This is not only necessary to save a writer from such gross blunder as we met the other day in Wharton's Ballad, called "The Grave of King Arthur," where he talks of "the steeps of rough Kildare," but to give accuracy and force to both ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... and cried hysterically in his arms. Jack had experienced the same feeling for some poor rescued kitten. Fred, with his head full of King Arthur and his knights, mythology, and bits of children's histories, wherein figured heroes and soldiers, elected Jack to the highest niche in ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... A game played on board ship in warm climates, in which a person, grotesquely personating King Arthur, is drenched with buckets of water until he can, by making one of his persecutors smile or ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... about whose historical existence there can be but little doubt, and just because of the accretion of tradition round them their historical existence has oftentimes been denied. The most famous example in our history is of course King Arthur, and so great an authority as Sir John Rhys is obliged to resort to a special argument to account for the problems he is faced with. He argues, and argues strongly, for an historic Arthur—an Arthur who was the British successor of the Roman emperor after Britain had ceased ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... a good woodman to shoot at a target so broad as had hitherto been used, was to put shame upon his skill. "For my own part," he said, "and in the land where I was bred, men would as soon take for their mark King Arthur's round table, which held sixty knights around it. A child of seven years old," he said, "might hit yonder target with a headless shaft; but," added he, walking deliberately to the other end of the lists, and sticking the willow wand upright in the ground, "he that hits that rod at five-score ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... the King is not suffering from any special malady, but is the victim of extreme old age; not surprising, as he is Brons himself, who has survived from the dawn of Christianity to the days of King Arthur. We are told that the effect of asking the question will be to restore him to youth;[7] as a matter of fact it appears to bring about his death, as he only lives three days after ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... Romance Narratives and Legends of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Centuries, relating to King Arthur and other Heroes of the Welsh and Breton cycle of Fiction. To be edited by Sir FREDERIC MADDEN, K.H., ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... and heroic age of our nation. After the natural and just representations of the Roman scene, the stage is again crowded with enchanters, giants, and all the extravagant images of the wildest and most remote antiquity. No personage makes so conspicuous a figure in these stories as King Arthur: a prince whether of British or Roman origin, whether born on this island or in Amorica, is uncertain; but it appears that he opposed the Saxons with remarkable virtue and no small degree of success, which has rendered him and his exploits so large an argument of romance that both ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... child's mind with things dead and gone—with the Puritan world of Miles Standish, the Revolutionary days of Paul Revere, the Dutch epoch of Rip Van Winkle; or with not even this comparatively recent national interest, it takes the child back to the strange folk of the days of King Arthur and King Robert of Sicily, of Ivanhoe and the Ancient Mariner. Thus when the child leaves school his literary studies do not connect helpfully with those forms of literature with which—if he reads at all—he is most likely to be concerned: the short story, the ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... condescension, even with chivalry, as if the kitchen and the nursery were less important than the office in the city. When his swagger is exhausted he drivels into erotic poetry or sentimental uxoriousness; and the Tennysonian King Arthur posing as Guinevere becomes Don Quixote grovelling before Dulcinea. You must admit that here Nature beats Comedy out of the field: the wildest hominist or feminist farce is insipid after the most ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... me to set down the hubbub of thoughts and ideas that filled my mind. I had been plunged into a new world, and floundered about in it pretty hopelessly, I can tell you. The days of knight-errantry had come over again, and chance, mightier even than King Arthur, had commanded me to serve a sweet lady in distress. But I had had no training, no preliminary squireship, in which I could learn how things were done by watching brave and accomplished knights do them. I had lived among the parts of speech, not among the facts of ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... ideal. No man can be or do the best he is capable of unless he is ever reaching out toward an ideal that lies beyond his grasp. Tennyson put this truth in the mouth of the ancient sage who tells the youthful and ambitious Gareth who is eager to enter into the service of King Arthur of the Table Round: ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... most excellent where all are so good. A mother of a few generations ago whose small boy was eager to read tales of chivalry simply gave him "Le Morte D'Arthur"; there was no "children's edition" of it, no "Boy's King Arthur," no "Tales of the Round Table." The father whose little girl desired to read for herself the stories of Greece he had told her put into her hands Bulfinch's "Age of Fable"; he could not, as can fathers ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... In great King Arthur's reign, Tom's history first begun; A farmer's wife had sigh'd in vain to have a darling son! A fairy listen'd to her call, and granted her the same; But being very small, Tom ...
— An Entertaining History of Tom Thumb - William Raine's Edition • Unknown
... to tell them tales of many things that have been done in the world by clean knights and faithful squires. Of the wars against the Saracens and misbelieving men; of the discomfiture of the Romans when they came to take truage of King Arthur; of the strife with the eleven kings and the battle that was ended but never finished; of the Questing Beast and how King Pellinore and then Sir Palamides followed it; of Balin that gave the dolourous stroke unto ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... Sir Mordred was at Dover with his host, there came King Arthur with a great navy of ships, galleys, and carracks. And there was Sir Mordred ready waiting upon his landing, to let his own father to land upon the land that he was king of. Then was there launching of great boats and small, and all were full of noble men of arms; and there was much ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... performance, carried over almost to grotesqueness just to show it was not done for mere delight in the frank naturalism of the functions with which it deals. That Mark Twain had made considerable study of this frankness is apparent from chapter four of 'A Yankee At King Arthur's Court,' where he refers to the conversation at the famous Round ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... borders of the haphazard. There may be at least one breathless moment when the bill for the dinner is presented. Perhaps, after all, the pilgrims who traveled without scrip or purse found a keener taste to life than did the knights of the Round Table who rode abroad with a retinue and King Arthur's certified checks in the lining of their helmets. And now, if you've finished your coffee, suppose we match one of your insufficient coins for the impending blow of Fate. What ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... of the Middle Ages has some points of light, always around a man. The great Frederic Barbarossa stands for Germany, as does William Tell for Switzerland, as Ivan the Great for Russia, as the Cid for Spain, as King Arthur for ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... heath-clad moor, with stony ridges, and here and there a distant mine-chimney—a desolate barren scene enough, but with sunshine, and a breeze from the unseen sea. It is classic ground, for here, or hereabouts, twelve centuries ago, was fought "that last weird battle in the west," wherein King Arthur perished, and many a gallant knight, Lancelot, or Galahad, may have pricked across that Cornish moor before him on a less promising quest than even his. How silent and how solitary it was; for even what men were ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Declaration of Independence. Amesbury or Ambresbury, so called from the "anointed stones" of the great Druidical temple near it, was the seat of one of the earliest religious houses in Britain. The tradition that the guilty wife of King Arthur fled thither for protection forms one of the finest passages in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Barmouth a beautiful cliff known as Dinas-o-lea, Llanlleiana Head, Anglesey, the fifteen acres of cliff land at Tintagel, called Barras Head, looking on to the magnificent pile of rocks on which stand the ruins of King Arthur's Castle, and the summit of Kymin, near Monmouth, whence you can see a charming view of the Wye Valley, are all owned and protected by the Trust. Every one knows the curious appearance of Sarsen stones, often ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... series of ramparts and ditches. The interior "ring" is faced with wrought masonry. The fortifications enclose an area of some 18 acres, and the crest of the hill is crowned by a mound locally known as King Arthur's Palace. The defensive works must originally have been of great strength, and are impressive even in their decay. The S. face of the hill is fashioned into a series of terraces, possibly with a view to cultivation. ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... twelve grave and ancient men entered the banquet-hall where he sat at table. They bore each an olive-branch in his hand, to signify that they were ambassadors from Lucius the Emperor of Rome, and after they had reverently made obeisance to King Arthur, they ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... American artist Howard Pyle undertook to retell and illustrate the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. His four-volume work has long been considered one of the outstanding ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... of the books lived in the Tower of Cologne, besides many more, whom Barbara did not know. Maggie Tulliver, Little Nell, Dora, Agnes, Mr. Pickwick, King Arthur, the Lady of Shalott, and unnumbered others dwelt happily there. They all knew Barbara and were always glad to ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... year before at Wallingford, and of which the provisions have comedown to us in phrases drawn from the two sources which were most familiar to the learned and the vulgar of that day,—the Bible, and the prophecies of Merlin, the seer of King Arthur. The nobles were to give up all illegal rights and estates which they had usurped. The castles built by the warring barons were to be destroyed. The king was to bring back husbandmen to the desolate ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... organizations in primitive and modern times. The books and articles, however, on organized boys' groups deal with the plan of organization of Boy Scouts, Boys' Brotherhood Republic, George Junior Republics, Knights of King Arthur, and many other clubs of these types. They are ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... in which the chief element of interest is that which arises from the deeds of heroic characters, are the Robin Hood and the King Arthur stories. The Robin Hood tales contain material unusually interesting and valuable for children; but, though they have been told and retold times without number, there is but one version that may properly be called a "masterpiece." ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... heard this he was greatly displeased, for he wist well that they might not again say their avows. "Alas!" said King Arthur unto Sir Gawaine, "ye have nigh slain me with the avow and promise that ye have made. For through you ye have bereft me of the fairest fellowship and the truest of knighthood that ever were seen together in any realm of the world. For when they depart from hence, I am sure they ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... to the right as in the chasse-croise of the Caledonians. Failing this, the only remaining method of avoiding monotony and the chilling separation of the extremes of the board is to follow the example of King Arthur and employ a round table. The round dinner-table is the only way of making ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... the poem is laid in Wales, in the days of King Arthur. The plot is very simple. Percival, count of Wales, who had married Griselda, the daughter of a charcoal burner, appears at court on occasion of a great festival, in the course of which he is challenged by Ginevra, the Queen, to give an account of Griselda, and to tell how he came ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... muscular development and that of the body were held in high respect; so that the spirit of the age fostered conceptions not unlike those of the Japanese Bushido. Where elements of Christianity were combined with this we have the spirit of the pure chivalry of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, which affords perhaps the very best ideals for youth to be found in history, as we shall ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... Had printing come earlier it would have been to a passive, indifferent populace; now it appeared in answer to the craving of a people thirsty to read of travel, invention, poetry; to consume the Tales of King Arthur, Sir John Mandeville's Travels, Sidney's 'Arcadia', Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The Elizabethans reflected in England the rebirth of literature and learning which was sweeping all Europe at the time. Printing was not ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... that neither," said Dame Ursley, in the same tone; "let a man bear his folly gaily and his knavery stoutly, and let me see if gravity or honesty will look him in the face now-a- days. Tut, man, it was only in the time of King Arthur or King Lud, that a gentleman was held to blemish his scutcheon by a leap over the line of reason or honesty—It is the bold look, the ready hand, the fine clothes, the brisk oath, and the wild brain, that makes the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... as he rides through a wide valley, enclosed by mountains, clad in the hazy purple of coming night,—with his face turned steadily down the long, long road, "the road that the sun goes down." Dauntless, reckless, without the unearthly purity of Sir Galahad though as gentle to a pure woman as King Arthur, he is truly a knight of the twentieth century. A vagrant puff of wind shakes a corner of the crimson handkerchief knotted loosely at his throat; the thud of his pony's feet mingling with the jingle of his spurs is borne back; and ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... beautiful a thing—such a silent, white, fairy-like city, under such a brilliant sky, that I lost all earthly fear, and, in spite of the tangible railway carriage in which I was, I felt as if, like King Arthur, I was being borne by fairies ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... My pa, he drinks. He drinks like—" The word he used, in description, was not the sort of a word that should have issued from childish lips. "An' my big brother—he ain't like Pa, but he's a bum, too! I don't wanter be like they are—not if I kin help it! I wanter be th' sort of a guy King Arthur was, an' them knights of his'n. I wanter be like that there St. George feller, as killed dragons. I wanter do real things," unconsciously he was quoting from the gospel of Rose-Marie, "wi' my life! I wanter be a ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... hovering over the early history of Windsor Castle appear the mighty phantoms of the renowned King Arthur and his knights, for whom it is said Merlin reared a magic fortress upon its heights, in a great hall whereof, decorated with trophies of war and of the chase, was placed the famous Round Table. But if the antique tale is now worn out, and no longer part of our faith, it is ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... otherwise have gone into books. He was not entirely idle. He did an occasional magazine article or story, and he began a book which he worked at from time to time the story of a Connecticut Yankee who suddenly finds himself back in the days of King Arthur's reign. Webster was eager to publish another book by his great literary partner, but the work on it went slowly. Then Webster broke down from two years of overwork, and the business management fell into other hands. Though still recognized as a great publishing-house, those within the firm of ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... true of the Arthurian Legend and the story of the Holy Grail. Dante knew of King Arthur's fame, and mentions him in the Inferno. To Dante he was a Christian hero, and the historical Arthur may have been a Christian; but much in the story goes back to the pagan Celtic religion. We can find in Irish literature many references that indicate a belief in a self-sustaining, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... knowledge of the mythical prince Siegfried, hero of the earliest literature of the Teutonic people, finally immortalized in the nineteenth century through the musical dramas of Wagner. Any understanding of English civilization would be similarly incomplete without the semi-historic figure of King Arthur, glorified through the accumulated legends of the Middle Ages and made to live again in the melodic idylls of the great Victorian laureate. And so one might go on. In many ways the mythology and folklore of a country are a truer index to the life of its people than any of ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... rose on a medieval castle hall richly done in the new stage-craft made in Germany and consisting of pink and blue cheesecloth. The Child King Arthur and the Child Queen Guinevere were disclosed upon thrones, with the Child Elaine and many other celebrities in attendance; while about fifteen Child Knights were seated at a dining-room table round, ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... no other was called upon to restore the entire world to the ancient conditions of chivalry, and bring back the tournaments and the courteous knights and fair ladies whose like had existed in the times of the famous King Arthur of Britain. Believing this, it was an easy step for him to think that the world was still full of giants and fierce dragons for him to vanquish, and that as a man of honor and skill at arms he must leave his comfortable home and ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... possess a commanding interest to him who has familiarised himself with their history. All places too connected with the memory and half fabulous history of king Arthur—the grand forms of Welch scenery ennobled and glorified by the fine old romancers, Norman or English, or by the ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... renewed, or at least of Badajoz, which, though not quite so dreadful, if we may believe his Grace the Duke of Wellington, as the former scenes of slaughter, were nevertheless severe enough: but we must not venture upon any ill-timed pleasantries in presence of the disturbed King Arthur and the awful ghost of ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... could be multiplied indefinitely by going back into the past ages and reading the histories and stories of the knights of King Arthur, of the Crusaders, and of the great explorers and navigators of ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... coveting national honors, men spend months in laying out a campaign. A vast human mechanism is organized with ramifications extending through the nation. As in the olden times in the court of King Arthur, knights entered the tournament and some Lancelot clothed in steel armor rode forth to meet some Ivanhoe in mortal combat; so it is to-day when one plumed knight meets another in the political arena—one ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... suppose this was done by A. T.'s order, I have written to acknowledge the Gift, and to tell him something, if not all, of what I think of them. I do not tell him that I think his hand weakened; but I tell him (what is very true) that, though the main Myth of King Arthur's Dynasty in Britain has a certain Grandeur in my Eyes, the several legendary fragments of it never did much interest me; excepting the Morte, which I suppose most interested him also, as he took it up first of all. I am not sure if such a Romance as Arthur's is not best told in the ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... places on Sundays; but then he also dragged down his father's kingdom into disgrace and ruin. The minstrels repaid Charlemagne for his kindness to them. They gave him everlasting fame; for all through the Middle Ages the legend of Charlemagne grew, and he shares with our King Arthur the honour of being the hero of one of the greatest romance-cycles of the Middle Ages. Every different century clad him anew in its own dress and sang new lays about him. What the monkish chroniclers in their cells could never do for Charlemagne, these despised and accursed ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... royal castle, supposed to have been begun by King Arthur, its buildings much increased by Edward III. The situation is entirely worthy of being a royal residence, a more beautiful being scarce to be found; for, from the brow of a gentle rising, it enjoys the prospect of an even and green country; its front commands a valley ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... yourself, dad, and V. C. and Colonel Kinloch? Where could a girl have found finer company than with my Knights of King Arthur? And do you dare to insinuate that I could have been content away from the regiment, that made me their daughter after mother died, ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... King Arthur. An heroick poem. In twelve books. London, for Awnsham and John Churchill, ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges
... "is my very own tree, because he's so very big, an' so very, very old,—Adam says he's the oldest tree in the orchard. I call him 'King Arthur' 'cause he is so big, an' strong,—just like a king should be, you know,—an' all the other trees are his Knights ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... went down to the gardens, and roamed about in the twilight, and talked, and talked, and talked, as only true lovers can talk, be they Strephon and Daphne in life's glad morning, or grey-haired Darby and Joan; and lastly they went down to the hike, and rowed about in the moonlight, and talked of King Arthur's death, and of that mystic sword, Excalibur, 'wrought by the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... or three years previously and separated from it in order of opus number merely by a group of unimportant piano pieces comprising Op. 24. Lancelot and Elaine has its poetical basis in the legends of King Arthur's days, which MacDowell loved to read about and idealize. The work as a whole follows Tennyson's poem and is essentially programme music. It is impressively scored, rich and sonorous in harmonic treatment and full of strikingly vivid and expressive poetical ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... brilliant Round Table days of Bennett, Greeley, Webb, Prentice, and Raymond. Their standards were high. Their energy was tremendous. And when they came to blows the combat was terrific. But Greeley, the last survivor, found his Camlan in 1872. He was ambushed and came to his end much as King Arthur from a race that he had trusted and defended. In Greeley's defeat for the Presidency all theorists who had dwelt upon the so-called "Power of the Press" received a shuddering blow. The men who had affected to believe that the press could make and unmake ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... Geraint; the gold boat and silver oars were not visible. The remains were replaced and the excavation closed. There was a later Geraint who fought against the Saxon Ina in 710. But it is almost more difficult to identify these Geraints than it is to attain any certitude about King Arthur himself. ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... morrow lingered not long in Innsbruck. They did not fail, however, to visit the tomb of Maximilian in the Franciscan Church of the Holy Cross, and gaze with some admiration upon the twenty-eight gigantic bronze statues of Godfrey of Bouillon, and King Arthur and Ernest the Iron-man, and Frederick of the Empty Pockets, kings and heroes, and others, which stand leaning on their swords between the columns of the church, as if guarding the tomb of the dead. These statues reminded Flemming of the bronze giants, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the first few lectures on English literature to glance at the character of our old Saxon ancestors, and the legends connected with their first invasion of the country; and above all at the magnificent fables of King Arthur and his times which exercised so great an influence on the English mind, and were in fact, although originally Celtic, so thoroughly adopted and naturalised by the Saxon, as to reappear under different forms in every age, and form the keynote of most of our fictions, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... not always an easy one to answer. By the adaptation in it of some purely mythical character or event, a novel is no more constituted "historical" than is a Fairy-tale by the adaptation of folklore. King Arthur and Robin Hood are unhistorical, and, if I have ventured to insert in my list certain tales which deal with the latter, it is not on that account, but because other figures truly historical (e.g., Richard I.) appear. As there has been some dispute on this question of the Historical ...
— A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales • Jonathan Nield
... King Arthur ruled this land, He was a goodly king; He stole three pecks of barley-meal, ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... river, she was reminded of Tennyson's "Morte d'Arthur." She heard the ripples lapping on the reeds and, with an imaginary Sir Bedivere at her elbow, hurried back to the farm to dress herself as a Scottish edition of King Arthur in kilts that had belonged to her grandfather. She worshipped the shine of the moon on the great jewel at her breast as she stepped into the little frail boat, very tired after a long day's wandering on Ben Grief without food. To a Kelt death is a thing so interpenetrating life that thought ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... Sea was made Knight," we are told how a boy of twelve became a page to the queen, and in the opening pages of the story "The Adventures of Sir Gareth," we get a glimpse of a young man growing up at the court of King Arthur. It was not an easy life, that of a boy who wished to become a knight, but it made a man of him. He was taken at an early age, sometimes when only seven years old, to the castle of the king or knight he was to serve. He first became a page or valet, and, under the instruction ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... invariably preferred the second. In the sequel he missed the premiership; but he very definitely accomplished his second desire. He died the unquestioned leader, the idol of his people; and it may well be that as the centuries pass he will become the legendary embodiment of the race—like King Arthur of the English awaiting in the Isle of Avalon the summons of posterity. As for Bourassa, he may live in Canadian history as Douglas lives in the history of the United States—by reason of his relations ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... headland, 300 ft high, on the W. Cornish coast, 22 m. W. of Launceston; associated with the Arthurian legend as the site of King Arthur's castle and court; 6 m. distant lies ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... very gallant knight," said Neville, who had when a boy, read with delight Sir Thomas Mallory's book of King Arthur; but he did not seem to relish the comparison and led the conversation into a serious vein, as ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... good King Arthur ruled our land He was a goodly king, And his idea of what to eat Was a good ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... during a previous illness in which he was tended by a maiden of that nation) about a certain Rebecca Ben Isaacs, of whom, being a married man, he never would have thought, had he been in his sound senses. During this delirium, what were politics to him, or he to politics? King John or King Arthur was entirely indifferent to a man who announced to his nurse-tenders, the good hermits of Chalus before mentioned, that he was the Marquis of Jericho, and about to marry Rebecca the Queen of Sheba. In a word, he only heard of what had occurred ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his large works in a serious form is the second sonata, called the "Eroica." This is designated by the composer as a "flower from the realm of King Arthur," and it is dedicated to Dr. William Mason. Beginning very seriously and slowly, it almost immediately rises to intense vigor, which, after a while, gives place to a second subject—a song-melody in the folk-tone; and out of these two ingredients—or three, more properly (the motive ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... the sign of the Red Pole. It produced in all sixty-four books, nearly all of them in English, some of them written by Caxton himself. One of the most important of them was Sir Thomas Malory's History of King Arthur, the storehouse from which Tennyson drew the stories which form the groundwork of his ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... preux chevalier, who, had he lived in King Arthur's time, would have had a place ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... wanderers raised a fortress upon the wooded heights above the dread lake of Avernus.—Venerable Mother of Italy! dost thou still survive muttering thy strange warnings in some sunless labyrinth, that the rapacious guides of Baiae have yet failed to penetrate? Art thou, like King Arthur of romantic Wales, still keeping watch over the destiny of thy country, ever ready to assist ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... him after death as birds.[1224] The bird form of the soul after death is still a current belief in the Hebrides. Butterflies in Ireland, and moths in Cornwall, and in France bats or butterflies, are believed to be souls of the dead.[1225] King Arthur is thought by Cornishmen to have died and to have been changed into the form of a raven, and in mediaeval Wales souls of the wicked appear as ravens, in Brittany as black dogs, petrels, or hares, or serve their term of penitence as cows or bulls, or remain as crows till the day of judgment.[1226] ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... specimen of an intended national work by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket, in Suffolk; harness and collar makers; intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table." The real author of Mr. Whistlecraft's specimen was the Right Hon. J. Hookham Frere, who has the merit of having first introduced the Italian burlesque style into our literature. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... their horses. They were quite unknown to the people of Gisors, but seen for great men, as indeed they were. Richard of Anjou was the first of them, a young man of inches incredible to Gisors. 'He had a face like King Arthur's of Britain,' says one: 'A red face, a tawny beard, eyes like stones.' Behind him were three abreast: Roussillon, a grim, dark, heavy-eyed man, bearded like a Turk; Beziers, sanguine and loose-limbed, a man with a sharp tongue; Gaston of Bearn, airy hunter of ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... Wales, or Dumnonia, was the home of King Arthur, so justly celebrated in song and story. Arthur was more interesting to the poet than the historian, and probably as a champion of human rights and a higher civilization should stand in that great galaxy occupied by Santa Claus and Jack ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing ill is to be spoken of the dead; and therefore peace be to the manes of his Arthurs! I will only say, that it was not for this noble knight that I drew the plan of an Epic poem on King Arthur, in my preface to the translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected them, as Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were thrown before him by Entellus. Yet from ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Dog—as being "mighty good, but nowhar 'longside o' Mart." So the Hon. Sam might have a good substitute, after all, and being a devoted disciple of Sir Walter, I knew his knight would rival, in splendor, at least, any that rode with King Arthur in ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... believe that with those wonderful shaping hands of yours you can mould that boy of yours into the manhood of Sir Galahad, "whose strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure"; that you can send him forth into the world like King Arthur, of whom our own poet, Spenser, says, that the poorest, the most unprotected girl ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer; Lewis's Beginnings of English Literature; Ker's Epic and Romance; Saintsbury's The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory; Newell's King Arthur and the Round Table; Maynadier, The Arthur of the English Poets; Rhys's Studies ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... had been heard in its shady recesses—many great things had been done there by knights from all quarters, particularly the Tristans and the Launcelots, and the Gawains, and others of the Round Table of King Arthur. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... Shakespeare's historical plays have stamped upon the English mind the figures of Hotspur or Richard III., which have been thus set up in permanent type for all subsequent ages. At any rate portraits of this kind have not been modernised to suit the taste of a later age, as has been done with King Arthur in Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King.' And when work of this sort has been finely executed, the question whether the details are untrustworthy or even fictitious is immaterial, particularly in cases where the precise facts can never be recovered. We do not know exactly ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the higher class, especially that of exemption from taxation. [69] Knighthood appears to have been regarded with especial favor by the law of Castile. Its ample privileges and its duties are defined with a precision and in a spirit of romance, that might have served for the court of King Arthur. [70] Spain was indeed the land of chivalry. The respect for the sex, which had descended from the Visigoths, [71] was mingled with the religious enthusiasm, which had been kindled in the long wars with the infidel. The apotheosis of chivalry, in the person of their apostle and patron, St. James, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... how little is known regarding the great personalities in history. Taking three characters at random: we know extremely little that is authentic regarding King Arthur; our knowledge of the actual history of Robin Hood is extremely meagre; and the precise historian would have to dismiss Cleopatra in a few paragraphs. But let the archaeologist know so well the manners and customs of the period with which he is dealing that ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... King Arthur's court had grievously transgressed the laws of chivalry and knightly honor, and for this cause had he been condemned to suffer death. Great sorrow reigned among all the lords and dames, and Queen ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... neighbours, and dressed in the moire and a handsome shawl; then Mrs Jonathan, in the richest of silks, and the loveliest of caps; and, finally, Minette between her and her grandfather; completing a 'round table' more cheerful and natural than that of King Arthur. ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... called leonine; but whence they derived that appellation, the learned Camden [18] confesses himself ignorant; so that the style carries no certain marks of its age. I shall only observe farther, on this head, that the characters are nearly of the same form with those on king Arthur's coffin; but whether, from their similitude, we may venture to pronounce them of the same date, I must refer to the decision ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... famous King Arthur there lived in Cornwall a lad named Jack, who was a boy of a bold temper, and took delight in hearing or reading of conjurers, giants, and fairies; and used to listen eagerly to the deeds of the knights of ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... assonanced verse; even when they passed into the form of prose they retained something of their charm. Breton harpers wandering through France and England made Celtic themes known through their lais; the fame of King Arthur was spread abroad by these singers and by the History of Geoffrey of Monmouth. French poets welcomed the new matter of romance, infused into it their own chivalric spirit, made it a receptacle for their ideals of gallantry, courtesy, honour, grace, and added their ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... fulfilling of appointments, and achieving amorous adventures; while we are condemned to sit in our royal halls, as dull and as immovable as if our Majesty was carved on the stern of some Manx smuggling dogger, and christened the King Arthur of Ramsey." ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the story in a sympathetic vein. "Though the success of the 'Prophetess' and 'King Arthur' (two dramatic operas in which the patentees[A] had embark'd all their hopes) was in appearance very great, yet their whole receipts did not so far balance their expense as to keep them out of a large ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... subservience to her. When I saw her in her new splendour at Somerset House, all smiles and gaiety, with youth and beauty revived in the sunshine of restored fortune, I could but remember all he was, in dignity and manly affection, proud and pure as King Arthur in the old romance, and all she cost him by womanish tyrannies and prejudices, and difficult commands laid upon him at a ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... portrayed in such a manner as to flatter the national vanity, which seeks for remote antecedents of greatness; under the guise of the Chronicle of Brittany, Geoffrey undertook to do this. Polydore Virgil distinctly condemns him for relating "many fictitious things of King Arthur and the ancient Britons, invented by himself, and pretended to be translated by him into Latin, which he palms on the world with the sacred name of true history;" and this view is substantiated by the fact that the earlier writers ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... knights, and in their various exploits, the characteristics of "a gentleman or noble person," "fashioned in virtuous and gentle discipline." He took his machinery from the popular legends about King Arthur, and his heads of moral philosophy from the current ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... other, to re-edit and reprint all that is most valuable in printed English books, which from their scarcity or price are not within the reach of the student of moderate means.[6] Those relating to KING ARTHUR will be the Committee's first care; those relating to our Language and its Dialects the second; while in due proportion with these, will be mixed others of general interest, though with no one special common design. The Committee hope that no year will pass without ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume
... Misses Buzza engaged in rowing their papa homewards. The Three Queens as they steered King Arthur to Avilion can have been no sadder pageant. It is true the Misses Buzza grieved for no Excalibur, but the Admiral had lost ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... water flowers. A wall of gray stucco gently curves along the canyon side, while a high lattice on the other shows dim outlines of the hills beyond. In the wall are arches with gates so curved as to leave circular openings, through which we get glimpses of the sea. It makes me think of King Arthur's castle at Tintagel. In the lattice there is a wicket gate. There is something very alluring about a wicket gate—it connotes a Robin. Unfortunately, my Robin can only appear from Friday to Monday, but I'm not complaining. Any ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... performance of it. This, too, I had intended chiefly for the honour of my native country, to which a poet is particularly obliged. Of two subjects, both relating to it, I was doubtful—whether I should choose that of King Arthur conquering the Saxons (which, being farther distant in time, gives the greater scope to my invention), or that of Edward the Black Prince in subduing Spain and restoring it to the lawful prince, though a great tyrant, Don Pedro the Cruel—which for the compass of ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... Raleigh esteemed fame more than conscience; the best wits in England were employed in making his history. Ben himself had written a piece to him on the Punic war, which he altered and put in his book. He said there was no such ground for an heroic poem, as King Arthur's fiction, and Sir Philip Sidney had an intention of turning all his Arcadia to the stories of King Arthur. He said Owen was a poor pedantic school-master, sucking his living from the posteriors of little children, and has nothing good in him, his epigrams being bare narrations. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... England has been singularly happy in producing men like King Arthur and others who performed actions of only moderate valour or interest, which subsequent ages mistook for great achievements, ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... Eroica" (op. 50) bears the legend "Flos regum Arthurus." It is also in G minor. The spirit of King Arthur dominates the work ideally, and justifies not only the ferocious and warlike first subject with its peculiar and influential rhythm, but the old-fashioned and unadorned folk-tone of the second subject. ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... "King Arthur aims at relating one of the most fascinating of all national and chivalrous legends. It is a valuable addition to the poetical treasures of our language, and we regard it as not only worthy, but likely, to take its ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... times," replied Simon, "when King Arthur and his Round Table could not make stand against them. I wish, Henry, you would speak more reverently of the Highlanders. They are often in Perth, both alone and in numbers, and you ought to keep peace with them so long as they will keep peace ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... corn, that he bought for his horse. He housed his dumb friend under a human roof too. After which he prepared a habitation for the women. He swept the likeliest hut clean of ashes, brazier, and bits of pots and jars. He carpeted the earth floor in Spanish moss, as King Arthur's knights once strewed their halls with rushes. It was luxury for a coroneted lass, if one went back a dozen centuries. There were chinks between the sooty saplings that formed the wall, but over these he hung matting, and he drove a stake ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... and clean, and wholesome, and the man who lives by it is a man to be admired. The point of view may be higher in course of time, and the observer's horizon widened. The limitations of the mind which adopts the present standpoint may be found in 'A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur.' Apart from its ethics, the book is a mistake, for a jest which could have been elaborated to tedium in a score of pages is stretched to spread through a bulky volume, and snaps into pieces ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... These people were wild and savage, and held not in them the love of God nor of their neighbours, because all evill cometh from the North; yet there were among them certeine Christians living in secret. But King Arthur was an exceeding good Christian, and caused them to be baptised and thorowout all Norway to worship one God, and to receive and keepe inviolably for ever faith ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... humorist or essayist. Is "Roughing It" more typical of his genius than "Tom Sawyer" or "Huckleberry Finn"? How shall we characterize "Puddin' Head Wilson"? Under what category shall we place "A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur" and "Joan of Arc"? The query reminds us once more that literature means personality as well as literary forms and that personality is more important than are they. And again we turn away regretfully (remembering that ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... the adventures and deeds of Sir Launcelot, fully and beautifully illustrated in Mr. Pyle's characteristic style, and uniform with his other two books, "The Story of King Arthur and His Knights" and "The Story of the Champions of the Round Table." This book takes up the adventures of the greatest of the Arthurian heroes, from the very beginning, and also that ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... was being told to an uncritical and unchronological audience, or Dame Agnes might have received a gentle intimation that she was antedating the reign of King Arthur by the short period of ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... letters home contained descriptions and sketches of them, and my mamma became interested in their spiritual welfare." Surrounded by the halo of memory, they afterwards seemed to him primitive gentlemen worthy of King Arthur's Round Table. He describes existence between the hours of work as full of charm owing to the friendship of surrounding farmers and small gentry. In a "Trilby" way he describes how he "rode, and wrestled, ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... Dyke in his "Poetry of Tennyson" and Newell Dwight Hillis in his "Great Books as Life-Teachers." Without interpretation "The Idylls" may teach false as well as true lessons of life. Some of the Knights of the Round Table (Galahad and Percivale) were worthy followers of the good and pure King Arthur, and some of them (like Lancelot and Tristram and Merlin) proved unable to live up to the vow of chastity to which Arthur swore all his knights. And on the part of the ladies of Arthur's court, there was purity and devotion and true ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... is doing all he can to set the King against the Duke; he always calls him 'King Arthur,' which made the King very angry at first, and he desired he would not, but he calls him so still, and the King submits. He never lets any of the Royal Family see the King alone; the Duchess of Gloucester complains ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... to her unknowe"; but his "Legende of Goode Women" might, so far as its subject-matter is concerned, have been written by a French, a Spanish, or an Italian Chaucer, just as well as by the British Daniel. Spenser's "Faerie Queene" numbers St. George and King Arthur among its heroes; but its scene is laid in Faerie Lande, if it be laid anywhere, and it is a barefaced moral allegory throughout. Shakespeare wrote thirty-seven plays, the elimination of which from English literature would undeniably be a serious loss to it; yet, of ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... her bright young loveliness, that touched the noblest chords of his heart. He loved her with a chivalrous devotion, which, after all, is as natural to the breast of a young Englishman in these modern days, miscalled degenerate, as when the spotless knight King Arthur loved ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... see you again some day," said Mrs. Hilary; the tone suggested that she was looking forward to some future existence, when my earthly sins should have been sufficiently purged. It reminded me for the moment of King Arthur ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... the first of which Gawayne is seen approaching the Grene Chapel, whilst his enemy appears above, wielding his huge axe; and in the second Sir Gawayne, fully equipped in armour, is represented in the presence of king Arthur and queen Guenever, after his return ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... Angel leading King and Shepherd to adore the new-born Saviour, while the angelic choir in white robes stand around the manger in the night, singing their song of Peace and Good-will,—or Queen Guinever and Sir Lancelot meeting in the autumn day at King Arthur's tomb,—or Mary of Magdala flying from the house of revels, and clasping the alabaster box of ointment to her bosom,—or Ophelia redelivering to Hamlet his gifts of remembrance, while he strips the leaves from a rosetree as he breaks her heart,—or the young farmer, who, having driven his cart ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... to me," I said, "that it was a vision of the Holy Grail; and happy would King Arthur or our Wessex Ina have held you that you saw it, ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... olive branches in their hands, Blancandrin and the ten messengers sent by Marsile arrived at Cordova, where Charlemagne rested with his army. Fifteen thousand tried veterans were with him there, and his "Douzeperes"—his Twelve Peers—who were to him what the Knights of the Round Table were to King Arthur of Britain. He held his court in an orchard, and under a great pine tree from which the wild honeysuckle hung like a fragrant canopy, the mighty king and emperor sat ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... who is to be Denmark's deliverer when heavy troubles come upon her, is one which has its counterpart in other countries, resembling that of our own King Arthur and the German Frederick Barbarossa. When Denmark's necessity demands, Holger Danske will come to her aid; till then he sits "in the deep dark cellar of Kronborg Castle, into which none may enter. He is clad in iron and steel, and rests his head on his strong arms; his long beard hangs down upon ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... Alliterative Romance of the Death of King Arthur; now first printed, from a Manuscript in the Library of Lincoln ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... the Town" paints his ideal of a Christian minister—simple, poor, and devoted to his holy work,—has nothing but contempt for the friars at large, and for the whole machinery worked by them, half effete, and half spasmodic, and altogether sham. In King Arthur's time, says that accurate and unprejudiced observer the "Wife of Bath," the land was filled with fairies—NOW it is filled with friars as thick as motes in the beam of the sun. Among them there is the "Pardoner," i.e. seller of pardons (indulgences)—with his "haughty" ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... supposed to take place, in heaven and earth, upon Charles' attaining the pinnacle of uncontrolled power, was originally the intended termination of the opera; which, as first written, consisted of only one act, introductory to the drama of "King Arthur." But the eye and the ear of Charles were never to be regaled by this flattering representation: he died while the opera was in rehearsal. A slight addition, as the author has himself informed us, adapted the conclusion of his piece to this new and unexpected ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden |
