d they bow down and worship it, and sing 'Te
Deum laudamus'. With such joy was Messire Gawain received at the
castle, and he set the sword back in his scabbard, and kept it right
anigh him, and made it not known in all the places where he lodged that
it was such. The priests and knights of the castle make right great
joy, and pray him right instantly that so God should lead him to the
castle of King Fisherman, and the Graal should appear before him, he
would not be so forgetful as the other knights. And he made answer
that he would do that which God should teach him.

XI.

"Messire Gawain," saith the master of the priests, that was right
ancient: "Great need have you to take rest, for meseemeth you have had
much travail."

"Sir, many things have I seen whereof I am sore abashed, nor know I
what castle this may be."

"Sir," saith the priest, "This Castle is the Castle of Inquest, for
nought you shall ask whereof it shall not tell you the meaning, by the
witness of Joseph, the good clerk and good hermit through whom we have
it, and he knoweth it by annunciation of the Holy Ghost."

"By my faith," saith Messire Gawain, "I am much abashed of the three
damsels that were at the court of King Arthur. Two of them carried,
the one the head of a king and the other of a queen, and they had in a
car an hundred and fifty heads of knights whereof some were sealed in
gold, other in silver, and the rest in lead."

"True," saith the priest, "For as by the queen was the king betrayed
and killed, and the knights whereof the heads were in the car, so saith
she truth as Joseph witnesseth to us, for he saith of remembrance that
by envy was Adam betrayed, and all the people that were after him and
the people that are yet to come shall have dole thereof for ever more.
And for that Adam was the first man is he called King, for he was our
earthly father, and his wife Queen. And the heads of the knights
sealed in gold signify the new law, and the heads sealed in silver the
old, and the heads sealed in lead the false law of the Sarrazins. Of
these three manner of folk is the world stablished."

"Sir," saith Messire Gawain, "I marvel of the castle of the Black
Hermit, there where the heads were all taken from her, and the Damsel
told me that the Good Knight should cast them all forth when he should
come. And the other folk that are therewithin are longing for him."

"Well know you," saith the priest, "that on account of the apple