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Messire Gawain presenteth himself on the one side and the other, but all of them avoid him, and he seeth that he maketh but an ill stay therewithin for himself, wherefore he departeth from the castle and meeteth a knight at the gate. "Sir," saith he, "What castle is this?" "And see you not," saith the knight, "that it is a castle of joy?"
He harboured the night therewithin. Messire Gawain asked him tidings of Perceval, and the hermit telleth him he hath not seen him since before the assembly of the Red Launde. "And can you tell me where I may find him?" saith Messire Gawain. "Not I," saith the hermit, "I cannot tell you whereabout he is."
"Sir," saith the hermit, "I know not now to blazon it, for nought know I of arms. Three score years and more have I been in this hermitage, yet never saw I this kingdom before so dismayed as is it now." Messire Gawain lay the night therewithin, and departed when he had heard mass.
But they cannot depart thence at their will, for Ahuret the Bastard that was brother of Nabigant of the Rock, that Messire Gawain slew on account of Meliot of Logres, knoweth well that they are therewithin, and hath assembled his knights and holdeth them within so strait that they may not depart without sore damage.
Lancelot was much honoured throughout the city. The two damsels are at great pains to wait upon him, and right great worship had he of all them that were therewithin and them that came thither, both clerks and priests.
The damsel signeth her of the cross and commendeth her to the Saviour and to His sweet Mother. She looketh before her to the head of the grave-yard, and seeth the chapel, small and ancient. She smiteth her mule with her whip, and cometh thitherward and alighteth. She entered therewithin and found a great brightness of light.
"Sir," saith Perceval, "For whom have you done such service? meseemed that the corpse lay therewithin for whom the service was ordained." "You say truth," saith the hermit. "I have done it for Lohot, King Arthur's son, that lieth buried under this pall." "Who, then, hath slain him?" saith Perceval. "That will I tell you plainly," saith the hermit.
Lancelot heareth vespers being chanted in the chapel, and seeth the path that turned thitherward, but the mountain is so rugged that he could not go along it on horseback. So he alighteth and leadeth his horse after him by the reins until he cometh nigh the chapel. There were three hermits therewithin that had sung their vespers, and came over against Lancelot.
At that hour I fell on sleep, and meseemed that I saw one of the fairest Ladies in the world, and she was delivered of a Child therewithin, and He had about Him a great brightness of light like it were the sun shone at right noonday."
No knight is there in the world so good as that he might issue forth of this castle through the midst of these four and twenty knights, but my lady sendeth you word that there is a cavern under this castle that goeth therefrom underground as far as the forest, so that a knight may well pass thereby all armed, but there is therein a lion, the fiercest and most horrible in the world, and two serpents that are called griffons, that have the face of a man and the beaks of birds and eyes of an owl and teeth of a dog and ears of an ass and feet of a lion and tail of a serpent, and they have couched them therewithin, but never saw no man beasts so fell and felonous.
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