Chapter Chapter 4 · Of the birth of King Arthur and of his nurture.

. Of the birth of King Arthur and of his nurture.

Then Queen Igraine waxed daily greater and greater, so it befell after

within half a year, as King Uther lay by his queen, he asked her, by

the faith she owed to him, whose was the body; then she sore abashed to

give answer. Dismay you not, said the king, but tell me the truth, and

I shall love you the better, by the faith of my body. Sir, said she, I

shall tell you the truth. The same night that my lord was dead, the

hour of his death, as his knights record, there came into my castle of

Tintagil a man like my lord in speech and in countenance, and two

knights with him in likeness of his two knights Brastias and Jordanus,

and so I went unto bed with him as I ought to do with my lord, and the

same night, as I shall answer unto God, this child was begotten upon

me. That is truth, said the king, as ye say; for it was I myself that

came in the likeness, and therefore dismay you not, for I am father of

the child; and there he told her all the cause, how it was by Merlin’s

counsel. Then the queen made great joy when she knew who was the father

of her child.

Soon came Merlin unto the king, and said, Sir, ye must purvey you for

the nourishing of your child. As thou wilt, said the king, be it. Well,

said Merlin, I know a lord of yours in this land, that is a passing

true man and a faithful, and he shall have the nourishing of your

child, and his name is Sir Ector, and he is a lord of fair livelihood

in many parts in England and Wales; and this lord, Sir Ector, let him

be sent for, for to come and speak with you, and desire him yourself,

as he loveth you, that he will put his own child to nourishing to

another woman, and that his wife nourish yours. And when the child is

born let it be delivered to me at yonder privy postern unchristened. So

like as Merlin devised it was done. And when Sir Ector was come he made

fiaunce to the king for to nourish the child like as the king desired;

and there the king granted Sir Ector great rewards. Then when the lady

was delivered, the king commanded two knights and two ladies to take

the child, bound in a cloth of gold, and that ye deliver him to what

poor man ye meet at the postern gate of the castle. So the child was

delivered unto Merlin, and so he bare it forth unto Sir Ector, and made

an holy man to christen him, and named him Arthur; and so Sir Ector’s

wife nourished him with her own pap.