And two days before the feast of Pentecost, Sir Launcelot came home; and the king and all the court were passing glad of his coming.  And when Sir Gawain, Sir Uwaine, Sir Sagramour, and Sir Hector de Marys saw Sir Launcelot in Sir Kay’s armor then they wist well it was he that smote them down, all with one spear.  Then there was laughing and merriment among them; and from time to time came all the knights that Sir Turquine had prisoners, and they all honored and worshipped Sir Launcelot.  Then Sir Gaheris said, “I saw all the battle from the beginning to the end,” and he told King Arthur all how it was.  Then Sir Kay told the king how Sir Launcelot had rescued him, and how he “made the knights yield to me, and not to him.”  And there they were, all three, and confirmed it all “And, by my faith,” said Sir Kay, “because Sir Launcelot took my harness and left me his, I rode in peace, and no man would have to do with me.”

And so at that time Sir Launcelot had the greatest name of any knight of the world, and most was he honored of high and low.

CHAPTER IX

THE ADVENTURE OF THE CART

It befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called to her knights of the Table Round, and gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride a-maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster; “and I warn you that there be none of you but he be well horsed, and that ye all be clothed in green, either silk or cloth; and I shall bring with me ten ladies, and every knight shall have a lady behind him, and every knight shall have a squire and two yeoman, and all well horsed.”

    “For thus it chanced one morn when all the court,
     Green-suited, but with plumes that mock’d the May,
     Had been, their wont, a-maying”

    —­Guinevere.

So they made them ready; and these were the names of the knights:  Sir Kay the Seneschal, Sir Agrivaine, Sir Brandiles, Sir Sagramour le Desirus, Sir Dodynas le Sauvage, Sir Ozanna, Sir Ladynas, Sir Persant of Inde, Sir Ironside, and Sir Pelleas; and these ten knights made them ready, in the freshest manner, to ride with the queen.  So upon the morn they took their horses with the queen, and rode a-maying in woods and meadows, as it pleased them, in great joy and delight.  Now there was a knight named Maleagans, son to King Brademagus, who loved Queen Guenever passing well, and so had he done long and many years.  Now this knight, Sir Maleagans, learned the queen’s purpose, and that she had no men of arms with her but the ten noble knights all arrayed in green for maying; so he prepared him twenty men of arms, and a hundred archers, to take captive the queen and her knights.

    “In the merry month of May,
     In a morn at break of day,
     With a troop of damsels playing,
     The Queen, forsooth, went forth a-maying.”

    —­Old Song.