67 pages • 2 hours read
The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur
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Part 2, Chapters 18-23Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “A God of Sand and Dust”
Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary: “A Silver Shilling”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and death by suicide.
After the battle is over, the knights and their allies—such as King Cador of Cornwall, the father of Constantine—discuss who to next appoint king. Collum had expected Cador to support his son, but Cador seems intent on tearing Constantine down. Unexpectedly, Sir Melehan, the 11-year-old son of Mordred, walks in, announcing that he has an army waiting nearby. If Melehan does not return crowned as king in the next three days, the army will attack Camelot. The feast is abandoned.
Collum is unable to sleep, thinking of the six men he killed that day. He goes out into the garden, where he finds Nimue working on a spell to protect the borders of Camelot. Collum helps her out. Nimue tells Collum that though she practices sorcery, she also believes in God. She thinks that God will send them a sign about who should rule Britain when the time is right. Nimue hands Collum a silver shilling that she stole from Dinadan, telling him that he’ll need it more than her.
Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary: “The Lion in the Desert”
The next morning, the knights summon Collum to get him a new suit of armor but instead stuff him into a coffin and throw him down a well. Collum’s initiation has begun. A terrified Collum manages to break through the battered coffin and swims toward the shore, ending up in Astolat (a legendary land of Arthurian lore), where he is appointed the Knight of the Fountain. His duty is to defend a sacred fountain shaped like a stone goddess. Collum accepts his new life, routinely fighting knights who try to attack the statue.
Days turn to years. One day, a duel draws Collum into a rocky, red desert. In the desert, Collum rescues a black lion from a banded serpent. Grateful, the lion stays by Collum’s side. Collum tries to return to Astolat, leaving behind the black lion, but ends up in a dragon’s cave. He is nearly killed by the beast until the black lion comes to his rescue. Collum finally arrives in Astolat, where the lord of the land berates him for abandoning the black lion. Collum accepts his sin but tells Astolat that he must go back to Camelot.
The lord asks Collum to pay the fountain a passage fee. Collum remembers Nimue’s silver shilling, still in his pocket after all these years, and offers the shilling to the goddess. The goddess climbs down the plinth, and Collum jumps into the fountain and emerges in a stone pool in a chapel, where the knights are waiting for him. Collum has passed his initiation. Bedivere welcomes him back, calling him “Sir Collum of the Table Round” (322).
Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary: “The Twisted Staff”
Collum was lost in the well only for a day and a half in real time, though in magical time, he spent over three years in Astolat and the red desert. The knights give Collum new armor, plain but of the highest craftsmanship. After Collum’s knighthood, the medal that Collum took off Sir Three Scepters begins to burn, making him cry out in pain. Collum throws the medal on the floor. The knights pick it up and notice the wooden staff on its end. They decide that this represents the Holy Lance of Longinus. The suggestion is cemented when the staff begins to bleed. The message is clear: God has sent the knights the sign that they must go on a quest for the Holy Lance. Meanwhile, they receive the news that Sir Kay died by suicide in his chambers.
Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary: “The Tale of Sir Dagonet and Sir Constantine; or, the Quest for the Holy Grail; or, the Very Last Adventure”
The narrative shifts to the tale of Sir Dagonet and Sir Constantine. It was Sir Dagonet, who considered himself the lowliest of Arthur’s knights, who foresaw that the quest for the Holy Grail was a disaster disguised as a marvel.
Growing up in the fenlands, Dagonet is prone to fits of despair, able to see the meaninglessness of the world. It is only when he discovers juggling that he finds relief from his melancholy nature. The skill earns him a place with a party of traveling minstrels, and they go to Arthur’s court. Soon after, Arthur knights him, perhaps as a joke. However, sometimes it seems to Dagonet that Arthur made him a knight because he saw something of himself in the ex-fool.
In the 23rd year of Arthur’s reign, a stone with a sword is spotted floating in the River Brass. The inscription on the stone says that only the best knight will be able to pull out the sword. Only Galahad, a handsome, 14-year-old boy of unknown birth, is able to pull out the sword. He is initiated and declared the purest of knights. The Holy Grail appears in the air, giving each knight what they most long to eat and drink, and vanishes, indicating that the knights must go in search of the Grail.
The Grail quest begins, and the knights set off in pairs. Arthur declines the quest, perhaps because he feels that the quest is meant to determine his successor (since Arthur has no “legitimate” children, it is unclear who will be king after him). Constantine, known more for his beauty than his strength, is left unpartnered. He asks Dagonet to accompany him. The two arrive at Blackfast castle, where they are defeated and tossed into the dungeon.
Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary: “The Tale of Sir Dagonet and Sir Constantine, Part II”
Dagonet and Constantine languish in the dungeon for eight months before Sir Galahad rescues them. To Dagonet’s surprise, Galahad asks him and Constantine to join him in the Grail quest. The two weary knights relent, following Galahad as he moves from village to village, performing so many miracles that they lose count. During their travels, Galahad reveals his true parentage: That he is the “illegitimate” son of Elaine, daughter of King Pellas, is well-known; what no one knows is that Lancelot is Galahad’s father.
As the three roam Britain searching for the Holy Grail, they cross paths with the other knights. The news of the quest is grim: 38 knights have already perished in the adventure. One day, they spot Lancelot in the distance. Galahad defeats him, putting him out of the reckoning. Dagonet feels sorry for Galahad, a young boy whom God set on a mission without giving him a choice in the matter. After Sir Percival (a pure knight of Arthurian legend) joins their party, Galahad and Percival leave behind Constantine and Dagonet.
Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary: “The Tale of Sir Dagonet and Sir Constantine, Part III”
Dagonet and Constanine re-enter the quest when a young woman with short hair, called Agnes, summons them to a ship. Agnes says that the knights are to accompany her immediately for the most fantastic adventure of their lives. She leads them to a waiting ship, with her brother Percival and Galahad onboard. The boat sails out to sea, where a spur of red-brown stone, thousands of feet tall with a castle on top, rears itself. The castle is Corbenic, the legendary home of the Grail. Only the pure in body and spirit can journey to Corbenic.
Dagonet and Constantine watch the young knights and Agnes go to the castle. As rainbow-winged angels descend to the castle from heaven and enter it, all its doors slam shut. Dagonet feels the grace of the Grail at that moment, clearing his mind of worries.
After midnight, an angel swoops down from Corbenic onto the ship to tell Constanine and Dagonet that the Grail has left Britain forever: God has taken Galahad with him, and the ship will now return. A confused Constantine asks the angel the reason for the Grail’s departure. As far as he can see, they’ve found it and fulfilled the quest. The angel replies that only very few knights out of many proved worthy, indicating that Britain did not deserve the Grail. The Grail’s purpose was never to choose an heir to Britain but to test the knights.
Dagonet and Constantine are plunged into sorrow at the loss of Galahad. Dagonet begs the angel to at least give him the same peace he felt in the presence of the Grail. The angel remains impassive. Dagonet clasps the angel’s calves, but the angel flies away. Dagonet tells Constantine that he did manage to get something from the angel: a golden knife that the angel had strapped on his calf.
Part 2, Chapters 18-23 Analysis
This section continues the exploration of The Conflict Between Magic and Religion, with God continuously challenging the Round Table knights in the quest for the Holy Grail. Knight after knight perishes in the quest, forcing Constantine to wonder if a God who gave them such a terrible task is “a God as bloodthirsty as any pagan idol” (361). The sense of anticlimax accompanies the Grail quest as well, with the long journey that involves a fabulous floating castle and rainbow-winged angels ending without a prize. The seeming arbitrariness of the quest makes God look like a tyrant to the knights, as they feel like misguided souls. In this light, the Grail symbolizes an impossible perfection, the quest for which only leads to misery.
The portrayal of the Grail quest also shows how magic and religion are nearly indistinguishable from each other. The Faerie world introduced in the previous section is weird and wonderful, but so are God’s miracles, with an enormous castle suddenly appearing on a rocky hill on the sea and rainbow-winged angels, nine feet tall and with eyes that are liquid gold, descending from heaven. Corbenic castle itself is a foil for Morgan’s glass castle and is an equally ambiguous symbol, with its many doors slamming shut together and the castle consuming Galahad. Magic and religion also mirror each other in the story of Collum’s initiation. The initiation through water is a quasi-Christian rite, imitating the Christian baptism, yet Collum’s experience in the well is eerily close to his journey to the flat river of the Pagan Otherworld.
The novel contains many easter eggs, or hidden allusions, to Arthurian and medieval Christian lore, such as Agnes, Percival, and Astolat. The Astolat section is rich in Christian symbolism. The black lion that Collum encounters in the desert is a symbol of Christ since in Christian iconography, Jesus is both lamb and lion. Collum’s abandonment of the lion indicates his rejection of God’s grace. The lion’s return means that God’s grace is always with Collum. Just as Collum describes life in Astolat as a recurring dream, characters often describe quests and adventures as dreams and games in which they participate, not necessarily out of free will but because they have little choice. As an example, Dagonet describes Agnes’s fetching of him and Constantine as being in a “game of snakes and ladders” (364). The comparison of a holy quest to a game that relies on chance suggests both that the game is arbitrary and that the characters themselves are pawns and pieces.
As these chapters show, one of the features of Grossman’s telling of the Arthurian lore is the psychological depth he gives to characters. Constantine, handsome and princely, emerges as a man thwarted by his father, which explains Constantine’s hero worship of Lancelot. Dagonet, traditionally a source of humor, is presented here as a complex, highly intelligent man dealing with mental health concerns. Dagonet experiences moments of great despair, as if “some dark God had left his heavy thumbprint on Dagonet” (338). The characterization reinforces the text’s interest in unlikely or unconventional heroes.
The very fact that Dagonet and Constantine—side players in the Arthurian legend in their own words—are the only knights who witness the end of the Grail quest shows that heroes come in all forms. Unlike Lancelot, who is a fiend with a sword, or Arthur, a master strategist, the two knights are described as mediocre in combat. As soon as they set out for the Grail quest, they are defeated by Lord Turquine. Dagonet surrenders without even raising his sword. This may make the knights seem unheroic, but on the ship, they face the mighty angel and demand to know God’s purpose in ending the Grail quest this way. They grieve for Galahad, wondering why the 14-year-old had to die before he could live. Dagonet’s retrieval of the knife from the angel symbolizes a minor victory of sorts: He becomes a hero by refusing to submit to the angel’s vision of human life.
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