“Here shall come a libbard of king’s blood”

“Here shall come a libbard of king’s blood” is a prophecy inscribed in gold on a tomb that Sir Launcelot opens during an adventure. It foretells the slaying of a dragon by a champion of royal blood and the later birth, in a foreign country, of a lion who will surpass other knights. Launcelot kills the dragon, fulfilling the immediate prediction; the prophecy also points forward to the lineage associated with his encounter with King Pelles.

Inscription and Prophecy

The words appear on a tomb after Sir Launcelot has delivered a lady who had been held in enchanted suffering for five years. The people then ask him to free them from a serpent concealed within the tomb. Its golden inscription announces that a “libbard of king’s blood” will come to slay the creature and that this champion will engender a lion in a foreign country, a knight destined to surpass all others.

The prophecy joins two events across time: the defeat of the monster and the birth of an exceptional knight. Its heraldic imagery makes royal descent part of the prediction, while the second image, the lion, signals the future knight’s distinction. The text gives no further explanation of the wording, but the action that follows supplies an immediate test of its claim.

Launcelot Fulfills the First Prediction

Launcelot lifts the tomb, and a dragon emerges. He fights it at length and kills it with great effort, carrying out the act foretold by the inscription. The people’s request, the opened tomb, and the revealed monster turn the prophecy from writing into an immediate challenge; Launcelot’s victory confirms its first part within the scene.

The account does not have Launcelot interpret the inscription before acting. Instead, the prediction is made legible through the sequence of events: the tomb bears the words, the creature appears, and Launcelot defeats it. The encounter gives the prophecy a public consequence as well as a martial one, since the people had looked to him to deliver them from the danger.

King Pelles and the Future Lion

After the dragon is slain, King Pelles arrives and greets Launcelot. He asks the knight to tell him his name. The prophecy’s forecast of a lion born in a foreign country thus leads into a meeting with Pelles, linking the monster-slaying adventure to the story’s coming generation of knights.

The inscription promises more than Launcelot’s present victory: it makes that victory the first part of a lineage prediction. Its movement from royal blood to a future lion gives the episode a forward-looking function, connecting a contained adventure to the larger narrative of exceptional knighthood. The excerpt establishes the prediction and Launcelot’s encounter with Pelles, while leaving the future birth and the prophecy’s full fulfillment beyond this scene.