Sir Accolon of Gaul

Sir Accolon of Gaul is a knight and Morgan le Fay’s lover whose role in her attempt to kill King Arthur turns a secret conspiracy into a fatal encounter between the king and his own knight. Morgan supplies Accolon with Arthur’s stolen sword and scabbard and arranges for him to fight an unidentified opponent; after the combat, Accolon reveals the plot and learns that his adversary was Arthur himself. Arthur grants him mercy, but Accolon dies four days later from his wounds.

Identity and Connections

The narrative places Accolon in the company of Arthur and King Uriens during a hunt. The three pursue a hart into a great forest and ride so far from their companions that they eventually lose their horses. The hunt ends at the water’s edge, where the exhausted hart is brought down and a richly appointed ship arrives. Its welcome is followed by a strange separation: Uriens wakes in Camelot, Arthur finds himself in a prison, and Accolon awakes beside a deep well, close to falling in. These displacements set the scene for Morgan’s intervention and the coming combat.

Accolon is also Morgan’s paramour. After his fight with Arthur, he explains that Arthur’s sword had been in his keeping for most of a year, and that Morgan sent it to him the day before the combat. He says she loved him and intended, if Arthur were killed, to have Accolon become king and herself queen. His attachment to Morgan makes him a participant in the conspiracy, not simply a knight who happens upon an unexplained challenge.

The Plot and the Stolen Sword

At the well, a dwarf arrives as Morgan’s messenger. He tells Accolon that Morgan greets him, expects him to fight a knight the following morning, and has sent him Excalibur and its scabbard. The message urges Accolon to fight without mercy, as he had promised Morgan in private, and reports that Morgan will make queen whichever damsel brings her the opponent’s head. Accolon accepts the charge and asks the dwarf to assure Morgan that he will carry out what he promised, even at the cost of his life.

The sword changes the terms of the encounter. Accolon understands that Morgan’s enchantments have placed him in this situation, yet he proceeds with the fight. At Sir Damas’s manor, he volunteers to take the combat in place of Sir Ontzlake, who is wounded in both thighs and otherwise expected to fight. Accolon’s possession of Arthur’s weapon therefore serves Morgan’s design while also providing the immediate reason he enters the contest.

Combat, Recognition, and Mercy

Only after the combat does Accolon explain the sword’s history and Morgan’s intention to kill her brother. He also discloses the larger plan: if Arthur died, Morgan meant to arrange for Accolon to rule the land with her as queen. Arthur then reveals his identity. Accolon cries out for mercy, saying that he did not know whom he had fought.

Arthur distinguishes Accolon’s ignorance of his opponent from his agreement to the intended killing. He calls Accolon a traitor for consenting to the plot, while recognizing that Morgan’s enchantments helped draw him into it; he nevertheless grants mercy because Accolon did not know Arthur’s identity. The disclosure changes the combat from an apparent contest between two knights into a direct consequence of Morgan’s attempt to murder her brother and seize power through Accolon.

Death and Aftermath

Arthur and Accolon are both seriously hurt, and Arthur says that the battle might not have taken place had either recognized the other. He also identifies the stolen sword as part of the treason that arranged the encounter. After judging the dispute between Sir Damas and Sir Ontzlake and freeing Damas’s twenty prisoners, Arthur travels with Accolon to an abbey three miles away, where healers examine them both.

Accolon dies within four days, having lost too much blood to recover; Arthur survives and recovers. Arthur has Accolon’s body carried to Camelot on a horse-bier by six knights, with instructions to deliver it to Morgan as a present and tell her that he has recovered Excalibur and its scabbard. Accolon’s ending thus returns both the dead conspirator and the failed instrument of the plot to Morgan, while confirming that Arthur has survived her attempt.