Chapel Perilous is the setting for one of Sir Launcelot’s most uncanny adventures: a threshold guarded by armed apparitions, a chapel holding a dead knight, and a sorceress whose desire turns the ordeal into a personal trap. Launcelot leaves with a sword and a piece of cloth, refuses Hellawes, and uses what he has taken to heal Sir Meliot.

Setting and Approach

Launcelot reaches the chapel on horseback, dismounts, and ties his horse to a small gate. At the front of the chapel he sees rich shields turned upside down, several of which he recognizes as having been borne by knights. Nearby stand thirty armed figures, each described as taller than ordinary men. They grin and gnash their teeth at him, but when he advances with his shield before him and sword ready, they scatter and give him passage. Their threatening appearance establishes the danger of the place; their sudden retreat allows him to cross its boundary without a fight.

The Chapel and Its Relics

Inside, the chapel is lit only by a dim lamp. Launcelot finds a corpse covered with silk, cuts away a piece of its cloth, and feels the ground seem to quake beneath him. He is frightened, but also notices a fine sword lying beside the dead knight and takes it with him. The tremor and the guardians’ warning make the objects more than ordinary spoils: leaving the chapel, Launcelot is challenged to surrender the sword on pain of death. He refuses and passes through the figures again.

Hellawes and the Personal Ordeal

Beyond the chapel yard, a damsel tells Launcelot that he will die if he keeps the sword. She then offers a different inducement: if he gives it up, he will never see Queen Guenever again. Launcelot refuses to part with it. The damsel asks him to kiss her once, but he rejects the request; she reveals that the kiss would have ended his life and that she had prepared the chapel for him and Sir Gawaine.

The damsel identifies herself as Hellawes, a sorceress and lady of Castle Nigramous. She says she has loved Launcelot for seven years, but acknowledges that no woman can have his love except Queen Guenever. Unable to win his affection in life, she had hoped to preserve his dead body and keep it for herself. Launcelot rejects her designs and leaves. The account says that Hellawes dies of sorrow within fourteen days of his departure, closing the episode with the failure of her long-laid scheme rather than with Launcelot’s capture.

Healing and Narrative Significance

After escaping the chapel, Launcelot meets Sir Meliot’s sister, who is overjoyed to see him, and rides with her to the castle where Sir Meliot lies weakened by blood loss. Launcelot touches his wounds with the sword taken from the chapel and wipes them with a piece of the bloody cloth removed from the dead knight’s covering; Sir Meliot is immediately restored to health. The episode thus turns the objects that mark Launcelot’s passage through a perilous, enchanted space into the means of another knight’s recovery. The chapel’s threat is real within the narrative, but the adventure ends in release and healing.