X
“Damsel,” saith the King, “Have many knights passed thereby sithence that the coffin was set there?”
“Yea, sir, so many that neither I nor none other may tell the number. Yet natheless hath not the coffin removed itself for none. When the lad heareth his father and mother talking thus, he asketh what a knight may be? ‘Fair son,’ saith his mother, ‘Of right ought you well to know by your lineage.’ She telleth the lad that he had eleven uncles on his father’s side that had all been slain in arms, and not one of them lived knight but twelve years. Sir,” saith she to the King, “The lad made answer that this was nor that he had asked, but how knights were made? And the father answered that they were such as had more valour than any other in the world. After that he said, ‘Fair son, they are clad in habergeons of iron to protect their bodies, and helms laced upon their heads, and shields and spears and swords girded wherewithal to defend their bodies.’”