Tristan and Iseult Read Online Free PDF

King has offered his daughter, the Princess Iseult, in marriage to any man who can kill the monster; and many bold young warriors have tried and failed. It is for the latest of them that you can hear the bell tolling now.’
    Then Tristan grew very thoughtful, and later, when the ship was safely beached above the tide-line and the horses grazing under guard, he went below, and calling Gorvenal after him, bade him to help him arm. ‘I thought that would be the way of it,’ said Gorvenal, ‘for I never yet knew you to get wind of an adventure but you must be off on it! But truly this is madness! You heard what the men said – it is certain death to go against this fire-drake.’
    ‘It is I who got you all into this hazard, by bringing you with me on this strange quest for the Princess of the Swallow’s Hair; it is for me to get you out of it, if that may be. For if I should succeed in slaying this monster, the King of Ireland can scarcely have us killed, even if he discovers after all that we are from Cornwall.’
    ‘No, he will give you his daughter,’ said Gorvenal, exasperated. ‘Have you thought what you will do with an unknown Irish princess, with this quest still before you?’
    ‘To be sure, there’s the risk. And I value my freedom too much to wish for marriage yet,’ said Tristan, laughing. ‘But who knows? She may be fair enough to make me change my mind!’
    And they looked at each other, and the exasperation fell away from Gorvenal, and the laughter fromTristan; and Gorvenal said, ‘At least take me with you.’
    Tristan shook his head. ‘I leave you here in command. If in three days I have not returned, you must give me up for dead, and get the ship re-floated, and fight your way out as best you may; and God be with you all. Now help me on with my mail and wish me well.’
    And that night, when dark had fallen, Tristan took his leave of his companions camped about the ship, and while they made an uproar to draw the attention of the guards, he got his own horse from among those grazing on the shore, and leading it by the forelock, stole away.
    He found a thicket of hazels well back from the shore, and lay up there with his saddle for a pillow until morning; at first light, he mounted and rode off towards the hills where the dragon had its lair. He knew that he was travelling the right way by the scorched desolation of the countryside; and suddenly as he came towards the lower slopes of the hills, he heard a distant roaring, and across his path came a knot of mounted men, all riding as though the Wild Hunt was behind them; and as they passed, they shouted to him to turn back and fly for his life.
    ‘Well, that makes my search easier,’ said Tristan to himself, and turned his horse into the track by which they had come. All the country looked as though a heath fire had swept across it; black snags of trees and bushes stood up from the ashy ground, and here and there among them lay the scorched and half-eaten bodies of cattle. The whole land reeked of death and fear. Small blame to any that run from this place, thought Tristan, soothing his horse that had begun to dance and snort. And then, rounding an outcrop of heat-scoured rock, he saw before him a little hollow, and on the far side of it a cave mouth in the side of the hill. It must once have been a pleasant spot, where a stream meandered down through hazel bushes. Now the hazels were only black skeletons, and the streamboiled and spat like a witch’s cauldron. And before the cave mouth, coiling itself to and fro in anger, was the dragon that he had come to seek.

    It was long as a troop of horses, sinuous as a cat and wicked as sin. Green bale light blazed from its eyes, fire and smoke and deadly fumes came and went, playing over it with the breath from its nostrils; and watching him come, it swung its upreared head from side to side like a snake before it strikes.
    Tristan crouched low in the saddle, and levelling his spear, struck spurs to his