زبان و ادبیات انگلیسی

summary of Book 6 - Enter Launcelot

After Rome, Sir Launcelot du Lac was quickly recognised as a great knight (especially by Queen Guenevere, who fell for him) and he went adventuring with his nephew, Sir Lionel.

Whilst Launcelot was sleeping, Sir Turquine appeared and carried Lionel off and threw him naked into his dungeon to join his collection of other naked knights. Launcelot's brother, Sir Ector de Maris, tracked Lionel down, but ended up the same way.

Meanwhile the sleeping Launcelot himself was enchanted and kidnapped by the four queens: Morgan le Fay of the land of Gore, the Queen of Northgalis, the Queen of Eastland, and the Queen of the Outer Isles, and taken to Castle Chariot to be seduced.

He was rescued by the daughter of King Bagdemagus, who took him out through the twelve locks in return for his promising to fight for her father against the King of Northgalis at the next tournament. On his way, he slept in a convenient pavillion, but whilst sleeping was mistaken by Lord Belleus for his lady, who kissed him. After that was cleared up and Belleus' wounds staunched, Launcelot continued on to meet Bagdemagus and his daughter at their abbey, and promised to fight on Tuesday.

At the tournament, Launcelot injured scores of Northgalis' men (including Sir Mordred (who had somehow been returned to court) and two other of Arthur's knights who just happened to be there, and killed a few others, winning the day for Bagdemagus. After the celebrations he then set off in search of Lionel.

In search of his nephew he met a damosel who, in return for a promise of help against a rapist knight called Sir Peris de Forest Savage - who was pestering her and her fellow damosels - identified Sir Turquine, already busy carrying off the recently vanquished Sir Gaheris.

After a long bloody duel - and conversation during which he discovered he had already killed Turquine's brother - Launcelot triumphed, and sent the eternally grateful Gaheris to free Ector, Lionel and the other captive knights while he kept his promise to the damosel. Using the damosel as bait, Launcelot soon had the rapist around his sword, and after chatting with her about his batchelorhood, they parted.

Then he killed two evil giants who had imprisoned sixty women in Tintagil Castle for seven years.

One night, Launcelot heard a commotion outside his remote lodging, and investigating, he rescued Sir Kay from three other knights, then the next morning he quietly departed, disguised as Kay.

Using the disguise to pick fights with a few Round Table knights on the way, he was eventually lead by a bloody black dog to the ancient, crumbling manor of Sir Gilbert the Bastard, recently slain by the Round Table Knight, Sir Meliot de Logres. Upon leaving, he accepted a mission from the injured Logres' sister to enter The Chapel Perilous and find a sword and a bloody cloth that would magically heal her brother's wounds (according to the sorceress Hellawes, who lived next door in the Castle Nigramous).

After successfully intimidating his way past thirty black knights and into the chapel, he found a bloody cloth wrapped around the cooling remains of Sir Gilbert, and braving earth-tremors, he also grabbed a likely-looking sword.

Upon exit, Launcelot was accosted by Hellawes herself, who made the astonishing admission that she had already had Gawaine (who had hacked off Gilbert's left hand in an earlier fight) but that she really desired him: Launcelot - so much so that she wanted him mounted (in the taxidermalogical sense). He refused her, and she died of frustration a fortnight later, and Launcelot returned with the damosel to heal Sir Meliot, before returning to his wanderings.

One day, he narrowly escaped murder by trickery after taking off his armour to climb a tree at the request of the wife of Sir Phelot, a knight of the King of Northgalis, to retrieve her husband's hawk. Then he failed to stop Sir Pedivere beheading his own wife on suspicion of sleeping with her cousin, before returning home with an account of his deeds.