Le Morte d’Arthur Guided Reading 5: Book 1, Chapters 3 & 4

Chapter Three 

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 child within her body. Then she was sore bashed to give answer.

“Dismay you not,” said the king, “but tell me the truth and I shall love you better, by the faith of my body.”

“Sir,” said she, “the same night that my lord was dead, at the hour of his death, as his knights record, there came in to my castle of Tintagel a man like my lord in speech and in countenance, and two knights with him in the likeness of his two knights Brastias and Jordanus. And so I went to 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 you say, for it was I myself that came in the likeness, and therefore dismay you not, for I am father to 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. 

Okay, so here is another example of a change that Malory made to the story which helps it be a little less offensive and our heroes seem less despicable. In this version, Uther goes to her and comes clean that he was the man who came in disguise. In the Vulgate Cycle, Merlin explicitly tells Uther not to tell her it was him, because if she doesn’t know who the father is, she will be more willing to give up the baby. So Uther asks and she answers that she doesn’t know who the father is, and Uther says, “Well, since you don’t know who the father is, we should give the baby away,” and she agrees. So not only did they trick her into bed with a man she despises, not only did she have to marry the guy who tricked her into sex and impregnated her, now they’re going to make her disgusted with her own baby in order to get it from her. Way to go, guys! But at least by 1485 Malory saw this as a teensy bit problematic. 

However, you will notice that in this version, Igraine “made great joy” because she knew who fathered her baby. However, you’ll notice it just drops the topic of her giving the child away. So she now knows it’s her husband’s baby, but the text simply stays mum on the fact that after carrying this thing for nine months, she now just has to hand it over without complaint. Interesting.

Soon came Merlin unto the king and said, “Sir, you must purvey now for the nourishing of your child.”

“As thou will,” 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. His name is Sir Ector, and he is a lord of fair living in many parts of England and Wales. This lord, Sir Ector, let him be sent for to come and speak with you, and desire him yourself, as he loves you, that he will put his own child to nourishing by another woman and 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 promised the king to nourish the child 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 deliver him to what poor man they 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 a holy man christen him and name him Arthur. And so Sir Ector’s wife nourished him with her own pap.

So Merlin comes to Uther and tells him to send for Sir Ector and arrange for him to take and raise the child. Again, how much is Merlin actually directing this whole operation? Even in the Vulgate, it never comes out and says that Merlin is creating Arthur, but it does tell us a lot of things Merlin does that make it seem like he certainly is the driving force behind it. In my book series, I decided to go for it and tie it together so that Merlin actually creates Arthur as a kind of massive social engineering experiment, just because I think that’s a very interesting angle to explore.

So one thing that may go by without noticing is that Uther is going to pay Ector to take and raise Arthur. We hear that Ector has a “fair livelihood,” but we can assume that he is not wealthy. Now, why does Merlin need to have Arthur raised away from his whole royal lineage? Where he might have Uther as father, at least for a while, and Igraine as a mother, and be raised within the royal apparatus as a future king? The text doesn’t tell us, but we can assume that Merlin wants him to grow up in a less wealthy, more humble family with more solid, common person values. 

One thing Le Morte d’Arthur does not say that is specified in the Vulgate is that Sir Ector and his wife are never to tell Arthur that he is not their own child. But one thing that is included here is that they are expecting their own child, which will turn out to be Kay, who is with Arthur in the story right up until the end. And Merlin specifies that Lady Ector is to put her own son to a wet-nurse and breastfeed Arthur herself. Interesting, no? Later Kay turns out to be a quite irritable and sarcastic individual, and one might wonder if the reason—in the medieval logic of the time—is that he was not breastfed by his own mother. I’m sort of fascinated by those little details in the Arthurian legend that are specified but not really elaborated on or explained.

Chapter Four

Then within two years, King Uther fell sick of a great malady, and in the meantime his enemies usurped upon him and did a great battle upon his men and slew many of his people.

“Sir,” said Merlin, “you may not lie so as you do, for you must to the field, though you lie on a horse litter, for you shall never have the better of your enemies, but if your person be there, and then shall you have the victory.”

So it was done as Merlin devised, and they carried the king forth on a horse litter with a great host toward his enemies, and at St. Alban’s there met with the king a great host of the north. And on that day Sir Ulfius and Sir Brastias did great deeds of arms, and King Uther’s men overcame the northern battle and slew many people and put the remnant to flight. Then the king returned to London and made great joy of his victory.

Okay, so within two years Uther mysteriously gets sick. In some versions, he is poisoned. In the Vulgate, his hands and feet swell without explanation. This thing about him going in a litter before his troops is in the legend. A litter is sort of a flat wagon. So his troops are losing because Uther himself is not present to encourage them. So what Merlin is proposing is that even though Uther is sick, he be pulled in front of his troops in order to inspire them.

Now one thing that is in the longer story but left out here is this situation with King Claudas, a person who is barely mentioned in Le Morte d’Arthur but very important in the larger saga. Claudas is in Gaul, which is France. He is trying to take over Gaul, and sometime in the past few years Uther went over to help the king there repel Claudas, which they did. On the way out, Uther destroyed the land so that if Claudas retook it, it would be useless to him. This is called the Land Laid Waste, which is not the same thing as the Waste Land, which we will hear of later in the saga. The point is: King Claudas, because he will be coming back later.

Then he fell passing sore sick, so that three days and three nights he was speechless, wherefore all the barons made great sorrow and asked Merlin what counsel were best. 

“There is no other remedy,” said Merlin, “but God will have his will. But look, all you barons, be before the King Uther to-morn, and God and I shall make him to speak.”

So on the morn, all the barons with Merlin came before the king. Then Merlin said aloud unto King Uther, “Sire, shall your son Arthur be king, after your days, of this realm with all the appurtenances?”

Then Uther Pendragon turned him and said, in hearing of them all, “I give him God’s blessing and mine, and bid him to pray for my soul and righteously and worshipfully that he claim the crown upon forfeiture of my blessing.” 

Then he yielded up the ghost and was interred as proper for a king, wherefore Queen Igraine made great sorrow, and all the barons.

All right, then Uther is so sick he cannot speak. Merlin makes him speak, and he asks him if Arthur should be king after him. Thing is—no one knows who Arthur is! No one has heard of him, because he was taken away right after birth, so that’s a bit of an oddity. In the Vulgate, they make sure to mention that Uther’s words are written down, so this proclamation can be brought out when Arthur finally comes to the throne. 

Okay, let’s move into the next chapter when we get the sword in the stone!