Galahad

For ships of the Royal Navy with the same name, see HMS Sir Galahad

A potrait of Sir Galahad by George Frederick Watts.

Sir Galahad is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the bastard son of Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity.

Galahad's career

Sir Galahad's conception comes about when Elaine, daughter of the Grail King Pelles, uses magic to trick Lancelot into thinking she is Guinevere. They sleep together, but on discovering what has transpired, Lancelot abandons Elaine and returns to Arthur's court. Galahad is placed in the care of his great aunt, the abbess at a nunnery, and is raised there. "Galahad" was Lancelot's original name, but it had been changed when he was a child. Merlin prophesies that Galahad would surpass his father in valor and be successful in his achievement of the Holy Grail.

Upon reaching adulthood, Galahad is reunited with his father, who knights him. He is then brought to King Arthur's court at Camelot during Pentecost. Without realizing the danger he was putting himself in, Sir Galahad walks over to the Round Table amidst the revelry and takes his seat at the Siege Perilous. This place had been kept vacant for the sole person who would accomplish the quest of the Holy Grail; for anyone else sitting there, it would prove to be immediately fatal. Sir Galahad survives the event, witnessed by King Arthur and his knights. The king then asks the young knight to perform a test which involves pulling a sword from a stone. This he accomplishes with ease, and King Arthur swiftly proclaims Sir Galahad to be the greatest knight in the world. He is promptly invited to join the Order of the Round Table, and after an ethereal vision of the Holy Grail, the quest to find the famous object is set.

After finding the Grail, Galahad is taken to heaven in divine standing.

Galahad in popular culture

In 1949 Galahad was featured in his own Columbia serial, played by George Reeves, the future Superman. It was the first, and only, Arthurian film serial. However Galahad has fared less well in other cinematic retellings of the Matter of Britain. In Knights of the Round Table and Merlin he is only shown as a child, (though he is destined to find the Grail after the action of each film); and is left out of Excalibur and Camelot all together. Galahad had a minor part in King Arthur, as an adult but not as the son of Lancelot. Perhaps his most notable film appearence was in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when, while following a vision of the Grail, he is trapped in a castle of beautiful maidens eager to seduce him. But his chastity is saved when the other knights "rescue" him.

Galahad was also the subject of folk songs by Rick Wakeman and Joan Baez.

External links

[Biography of Sir Galahad]
[The full text of the poem Sir Galahad]
Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory [text]

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