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.

CHAPTER VII. Of the opinion of some men of the death of King Arthur; and
how Queen Guenever made her a nun in Almesbury.

YET some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead,
but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say
that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross. I will not
say it shall be so, but rather I will say: here in this world he changed
his life. But many men say that there is written upon his tomb this
verse: _Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus._ Thus leave I
here Sir Bedivere with the hermit, that dwelled that time in a chapel
beside Glastonbury, and there was his hermitage. And so they lived
in their prayers, and fastings, and great abstinence. And when Queen
Guenever understood that King Arthur was slain, and all the noble
knights, Sir Mordred and all the remnant, then the queen stole away, and
five ladies with her, and so she went to Almesbury; and there she let
make herself a nun, and ware white clothes and black, and great penance
she took, as ever did s