Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston
Copyright © 2004 by Gerald Morris
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce
selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
The text of this book is set in 12.5-point Horley Old Style.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morris, Gerald, 1963–
The princess, the crone, and the dung-cart knight / by Gerald Morris,
p. cm.
Summary: Determined to find the knight responsible for the terrible deaths of
her mother and the Jewish peddler who had given them a home, thirteen-year-old
Sarah is helped in her quest by a strange old woman, a magical sword, a young
faery, and an unkempt knight with little armor and no horse.
ISBN 0-618-37823-5
1. Lancelot (Legendary character)—Juvenile fiction. [1. Lancelot (Legendary
character)—Fiction. 2. Knights and knighthood—Fiction. 3. Fairies—Fiction.
4. Magic—Fiction. 5. England—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M82785Pr 2004 [Fic]—dc22 2003012296
Manufactured in the United States of America
VB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
II BELREPEIRE AND CAMELOT 22
III QUESTING 48
IV THE DUNG-CART KNIGHT 73
V THE DIVIDING OF THE WAYS 94
VI THE HERMIT OF THE TOMB 118
VII THE CUSTOM OF THE LAND 143
VIII THE SWORD BRIDGE 169
IX NIGHT IN LOGRES CASTLE 200
X THE WOUNDED LAND 224
XI THE TRIAL 252
XII HER OWN PRINCESS 274
AUTHOR'S NOTE 307
"But listen, gentlemen; to bring things down
To a conclusion, would you like a tale?
Now as I've drunk a draught of corn-ripe ale,
By God it stands to reason I can strike
On some good story that you all will like.
For though I am a coarse and wayward man
Don't think I can't tell moral tales. I can!"
Chaucer's "Pardoner," in the prologue to
his story in The Canterbury Tales