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GALAHAD

Galahad is the son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic. Galahad was conceived when Elaine tricked Lancelot into thinking he was meeting and sleeping with Guinevere. Galahad is best known as the knight who achieves the quest for the Holy Grail. As the chosen knight he is allowed to sit in the Siege Perilous, the seat at the Round Table that is reserved for the Grail Knight. The first appearance of Galahad in medieval romance is in the thirteenth-century Vulgate Cycle. His coming is predicted in the first romance in the cycle, the Estoire del saint Graal, where he is said to be the ninth in the line of Nascien, who was baptized by Josephus, son of Joseph of Arimathea, and who was one of those who is said to have brought Christianity to Britain. Galahad remains the pre-eminent Grail Knight in Malory's Morte d'Arthur and in Tennyson's Idylls of the King. A shorter poem by Tennyson, "Sir Galahad," presented the popular image of the perfect knight whose "strength was as the strength of ten" because his "heart is pure." The popular painting "Sir Galahad"(1862) by George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) also presents Galahad as an idealized figure.

TEXTS:

Arthur's Knights: An Adventure from the Legend of the Sangrale (1859)
Bridges, Sally, "The Quest of the Sancgreal" (1864)
Burns, James (1865-1948), Sir Galahad: A Call to the Heroic (1915)
Cawein, Madison J. (1865-1914), "The Dream of Sir Galahad"
De Beverley (Pseudonym of George Newcomen), "The Achievement of the Sangraele and the Death of Sir Galahad" (1925)
De Beverley (Pseudonym of George Newcomen), "The Birth of Galahad" (1925)
Morris, William (1834-1896), "Sir Galahad, A Christmas Mystery" (1858)
Morris, William (1834-1896), "The Chapel in Lyoness" (1858)
Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart (1844-1911), "The Christmas of Sir Galahad" (1871)
Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart (1844-1911), "The Terrible Test" (1878)
Rhys, Ernest (1859-1946), "The Sermon of the Gentlewoman the Which Was Sister to Sir Percivale; Shewing to Sir Galahad the Virtue of the Sword" (1905)
Sweetman, Elinor, "Pastoral of Galahad" (1899)
Teasdale, Sara (1884-1933), "Galahad in the Castle of the Maidens" (1911)
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809-1892), "Sir Galahad" (1834)
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809-1892), "The Holy Grail" from The Idylls of the King

IMAGES:

Beardsley, Aubrey (1872-1898), "The Achieving of the Sangreal" (1894)
Cameron, Julia Margaret (1815-1879), "Sir Galahad and the Nun" (1875)
Chapman, William Ernest, "Galahad Meets with His Father" (1908)
Chapman, William Ernest, "The Golden Girdle" (1908)
Chapman, William Ernest, "The Marvelous Appearance of the Sangreal at Camelot" (1908)
Chapman, William Ernest, "Sir Bors Sees the Child Galahad" (1908)
Chapman, William Ernest, "Sir Galahad Beholds the Sangreal Uncovered" (1908)
Chapman, William Ernest, "Sir Galahad Overthrows Lancelot and Percivale" (1908)
Dixon, Arthur (fl. 1893-1920), "There Came an Aged Man... Leading by the Hand the Young New-Made Knight" (1921)
Flint, William Russell, Sir (1880-1969), "'My Knights, and My Servants, and My True Children, Which Be Come out of Deadly Life into Spiritual Life, I Will Now No Longer Hide Me from You'" (1927)
Flint, William Russell, Sir (1880-1969), "Sir Launcelot Beheld the Young Squire and Saw Him Seemly and Demure as a Dove, with All Manner of Good Features, that He Weened of His Age Never to Have Seen so Fair a Man of Form" (1927)
Ford, H. J. (1860-1941), Sir Galahad Opens the Tomb" (1902)
Garrett, Edmund H. (1853-1929), "Galahad Rides out of Camelot" (1901)
Garrett, Edmund H. (1853-1929), "The Nun and Galahad" (1901)
Harrison, Florence (1884-19--), "Rise up, and Look and Listen, Galahad" (1914)
Kappes, Alfred (1850-1894), "Sir Galahad Brought to the Siege Perilous" (1880)
Mackenzie, T[homas] (1887-1944), "A Castle was in Sight, Built Close by the Sea" (n.d.; 1920?)
Pyle, Howard (1853-1911), "Sir Galahad of the Grail" (1910)
Rackham, Arthur (1867-1939), "How Galahad Drew out the Sword from the Floating Stone at Camelot" (1917)
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882), "Sir Galahad" (1857)
Speed, Lancelot (1860-1931), "Galahad . . . . quickly lifted up the stone, and forthwith came out a foul smoke" (1912)
Speed, Lancelot (1860-1931), "'This girdle, lords,' said she, 'is made for the most part of mine own hair, which, while I was yet in the world, I loved most well'" (1912)