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Mark
Sir Mark, king of Cornwall, who held his court at Tintagel. He was a wily, treacherous coward, hated and despised by all true knights.
One day, sir Dinadan, in jest, told him that sir Launcelot might be recognized by “his shield, which was silver with a black rim.” This was, in fact, the cognizance of sir Mordred; but, to carry out the joke, sir Mordred lent it to Dagonet, king Arthur’s fool. Then, mounting the jester on a large horse, and placing a huge spear in his hand, the knights sent him to offer battle to king Mark. When Dagonet beheld the coward king, he cried aloud, “Keep thee, sir knight, for I will slay thee!” King Mark, thinking it to be sir Launcelot, spurred his horse to flight. The fool gave chase, rating king Mark “as a woodman [madman].” All the knights who beheld it roared at the jest, told king Arthur, and the forest rang with their laughter.
The wife of king Mark was Isond (Ysolde) the Fair of Ireland, whose love for sir Tristram was a public scandal. Le Morte d'Arthur By Sir Thomas Malory. Book VIII
What more fitting than that the grave of Tristram and Iseult should have been at Tintagel, where the sea they loved came with its strong and awful tides, and now
"Sweeps above their coffined bones
In the wrecked chancel by the shivered shrine"?
The deep sea guards them and engirds them, and no man shall
say where the lovers lie in their last sleep. King Mark buried
the two in one grave, and planted over it a rose-bush and vine,
the branches of which so intermingled that they became
inseparable.
The
Lost Land Of King Arthur By J. Cuming Walters
