[Sidenote:  Else rescued by Lohengrin.] With a God-sent champion opposed to a liar, the issue of the combat could not long remain doubtful.  Soon Frederick of Telramund lay in the dust and confessed his guilt, while the people hailed the Swan Knight as victor.  Else, touched by his prompt response to her appeal, and won by his passionate wooing, then consented to become his wife, without even knowing his name.  Their nuptials were celebrated at Antwerp, whither the emperor went with them and witnessed their marriage.

Lohengrin had cautioned Else that she must never ask his name; but she wished to show that he was above the people who, envying his lot, sought to injure him by circulating malicious rumors, so she finally asked the fatal question.  Regretfully Lohengrin led her into the great hall, where, in the presence of the assembled knights, he told her that he was Lohengrin, son of Parzival, the guardian of the Holy Grail.  Then, embracing her tenderly, he told her that “love cannot live without faith,” and that he must now leave her and return to the holy mountain.  When he had thrice blown his magic horn, the sound of faint music again heralded the approach of the swan; Lohengrin sprang into the boat, and soon vanished, leaving Else alone.

Some versions of the story relate that she did not long survive his departure, but that her released spirit followed him to Montsalvatch, where they dwelt happy forever.  Other accounts, however, aver that when Lohengrin vanished Else’s brother returned to champion her cause and prevent her ever being molested again.

CHAPTER XII.

MERLIN.

As Saintsbury so ably expressed it, “The origin of the legends of King Arthur, of the Round Table, of the Holy Grail, and of all the adventures and traditions connected with these centers, is one of the most intricate questions in the history of mediaeval literature.”  Owing to the loss of many ancient manuscripts, the real origin of all these tales may never be discovered; and whether the legends owe their birth to Celtic, Breton, or Welsh poetry we may never know, as the authorities fail to agree.  These tales, apparently almost unknown before the twelfth century, soon became so popular that in the course of the next two centuries they had given birth to more than a dozen poems and prose romances, whence Malory drew the materials for his version of the story of King Arthur.  Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Walter Map, Chrestien de Troyes, Robert de Borron, Gottfried von Strassburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hartmann von Aue, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Swinburne, and Wagner have all written of these legends in turn, and to these writers we owe the most noted versions of the tales forming the Arthurian cycle.  They include, besides the story of Arthur himself, an account of Merlin, of Lancelot, of Parzival, of the love of Tristan and Iseult, and of the quest of the Holy Grail.