terval. Here a
knight finds one antagonist quite sufficient for one man; there he does
not hesitate to attack fifty at once; here a slight wound disables him;
there a dozen deep wounds are fully healed by a night's rest. Many
similar instances might be given, but these will suffice. The
discrepancies here indicated were perhaps due to the employment of
diverse legends, without care to bring them into accordance, but they
lay the work open to adverse criticism.

This lack of critical accuracy may have been a necessary accompaniment
of the credulous frame of mind that could render such a work possible.
It needed an artlessness of mental make-up, a full capacity for
acceptance of the marvellous, a simple-minded faith in chivalry and its
doings, which could scarcely exist in common with the critical
temperament. In truth, the flavor of an age of credulity and simplicity
of thought everywhere permeates this quaint old work, than which nothing
more artless, simple, and unique exists in literature, and nothing with
a higher value as a presentation of the taste in fiction of our mediaeval
predecessors.

Yet the "Morte Darthur" is not easy or attractive reading, to other than
special students of literature. Aside from its confusion of events and
arrangement, it tells the story of chivalry with a monotonous lack of
inflection that is apt to grow wearisome, and in a largely obsolete
style and dialect with whose difficulties readers in general may not
care to grapple. Its pages present an endless succession of single
combats with spear and sword, whose details are repeated with wearisome
iteration. Knights fight furiously for hours together, till they are
carved with deep wounds, and the ground crimsoned with gore. Sometimes
they are so inconsiderate as to die, sometimes so weak as to seek a
leech, but as often they mount and ride away in philosophical disregard
of their wounds, and come up fresh for as fierce a fight the next day.

As for a background of scenery and architecture, it scarcely exists.
Deep interest in man and woman seems to have shut out all scenic
accessories from the mind of the good old knight. It is always but a
step from the castle to the forest, into which the knights-errant
plunge, and where most of their adventures take place; and the favorite
resting-and jousting-place is by the side of forest springs--or wells,
as in the text. We have mention abundant of fair castles, fair valleys,
fair meadows, and the