Now the season whereof this chapter speaketh was in the autumn of the year, what time all the earth is glorious with the brown and gold of the woodlands.  For anon, when the wind would blow, then the leaves would fall down from the trees like showers of gold so that everywhere they lay heaped like flakes of gold upon the russet sward, rustling dry and warm beneath the feet, and carpeting all the world with splendor.  And the deep blue sky overhead was heaped full of white, slow-moving clouds, and everywhere the warm air was fragrant with the perfume of the forest, and at every strong breeze the nuts would fall pattering down upon the ground like hailstones.

[Sidenote:  Sir Tristram rides ahunting] And because the world was so beautiful and so lusty, Sir Tristram took great pleasure in life in spite of that trouble that lay upon him.  So he and his court rode very joyfully amid the trees and thickets, making the woodlands merry with the music of winding horns and loud-calling voices and with the baying of hounds sounding like sweet tolling bells in the remoter aisles of the forest spaces.

Thus Sir Tristram made sport all one morning, in such an autumn season, and when noon had come he found himself to be anhungered.  So he gave orders to those who were in attendance upon him that food should be spread at a certain open space in the forest; and therewith, in accordance with those orders, they in attendance immediately opened sundry hampers of wicker, and therefrom brought forth a noble pasty of venison, and manchets of bread and nuts and apples and several flasks and flagons of noble wine of France and the Rhine countries.  This abundance of good things they set upon a cloth as white as snow which they had laid out upon the ground.

Now just as Sir Tristram was about to seat himself at this goodly feast he beheld amid the thin yellow foliage that there rode through a forest path not far away a very noble-seeming knight clad all in shining armor and with vestments and trappings of scarlet so that he shone like a flame of fire in the woodlands.

Then Sir Tristram said to those who stood near him, “Know ye who is yonder knight who rides alone?” They say, “No, Lord, we know him not.”  Sir Tristram said, “Go and bid that knight of his courtesy that he come hither and eat with me.”

So three or four esquires ran to where that knight was riding, and in a little they came attending him to where Sir Tristram was, and Sir Tristram went to meet him.

Then Sir Tristram said:  “Sir Knight, I pray you for to tell me your name and degree, for it seems to me that you are someone very high in order of knighthood.”

[Sidenote:  Sir Lamorack meets Sir Tristam] “Messire,” quoth the other, “I shall be very glad to tell you my name if so be you will do the like courtesy unto me.  I am Sir Lamorack of Gales, and I am son of the late King Pellinore, who was in his days held to be the foremost knight in this realm.  I come to these parts seeking Sir Tristram of Lyonesse, of whose fame I hear told in every court of chivalry whither I go.  For I have never beheld Sir Tristram, and I have a great desire to do so.”