HKB
THE TALE. <1>
In olde dayes of the king Arthour, Of which that Britons speake great honour, All was this land full fill’d of faerie;* fairies The Elf-queen, with her jolly company, Danced full oft in many a green mead This was the old opinion, as I read; I speak of many hundred years ago; But now can no man see none elves mo’, For now the great charity and prayeres Of limitours, and other holy freres, begging friars <2> That search every land and ev’ry stream As thick as motes in the sunne-beam, Blessing halls, chambers, kitchenes, and bowers, Cities and burghes, castles high and towers, Thorpes and barnes, shepens** and dairies, villages <3> stables This makes that there be now no faeries: For there as wont to walke was an elf, where There walketh now the limitour himself, In undermeles and in morrowings, *evenings <4> *mornings And saith his matins and his holy things, As he goes in his limitatioun. *begging district Women may now go safely up and down, In every bush, and under every tree; There is none other incubus <5> but he; And he will do to them no dishonour.
And so befell it, that this king Arthour Had in his house a lusty bacheler, That on a day came riding from river: <6> And happen’d, that, alone as she was born, He saw a maiden walking him beforn, Of which maiden anon, maugre* her head, in spite of By very force he reft her maidenhead: For which oppression was such clamour, And such pursuit unto the king Arthour, That damned was this knight for to be dead condemned By course of law, and should have lost his head; (Paraventure such was the statute tho), then But that the queen and other ladies mo’ So long they prayed the king of his grace, Till he his life him granted in the place, And gave him to the queen, all at her will To choose whether she would him save or spill destroy The queen thanked the king with all her might; And, after this, thus spake she to the knight, When that she saw her time upon a day. “Thou standest yet,” quoth she, “in such array, a position That of thy life yet hast thou no surety; I grant thee life, if thou canst tell to me What thing is it that women most desiren: Beware, and keep thy neck-bone from the iron executioner’s axe And if thou canst not tell it me anon, Yet will I give thee leave for to gon A twelvemonth and a day, to seek and lear learn An answer suffisant in this mattere. satisfactory And surety will I have, ere that thou pace, go Thy body for to yielden in this place.” Woe was the knight, and sorrowfully siked; sighed But what? he might not do all as him liked. And at the last he chose him for to wend, depart And come again, right at the yeare’s end, With such answer as God would him purvey: *provide And took his leave, and wended forth his way.