www.avalon.co.uk

• Avalon, the Roleplaying Game
• King Arthur: Myths and Legends
• King Arthur:A Story of his Life
• King Arthur: Map of Britain
• Camelot - Kingdom of Arthur
• Tintagel - King Arthur's Parentage
• The Round Table: Myths and Legends
• Merlin: Story of Siege Perilous
• Geoffrey Monmouth: Kings of Britain
• Glastonbury Tor
• Avalon on Catalina Island
• The Sisterhood of Avalon
• King Arthur Ency Britannia
• Tintagel isle, Cornwall
• Tintagel isle, Cornwall
• The Wicca Connection
• Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Strawberry Fair, Cambridge

In the accounts of Merlin as the maker of the Round Table is the myth of Siege Perilous. It is told that Merlin engraved onto the Table the name of each of the Knights of the Round Table in gold leaf lettering. One seat was kept vacant and Merlin declared that 'No man should sit in this chair but he only that shall surpass all other knights.'. On the chair was engraved the term 'Siege Perilous'.

The consequences of course are that the Knights of the Round table quarreled over this seat, as all other seats were equal, except The Perilous Seat. It was described as being Perilous because Merlin stated that it was fatal to any man except for the knight who was destined to quest for and return with the Holy Grail, thus saving King Arthur's life who is fatally ill and reuniting the Order of the Knights after Lancelot leaves for France. Sir Galahad alone was the purest of the Knights of the Round Table and in many versions of the tale he completes the quest and earns the Grail. After being knighted by his father Sir Lancelot, Galahad took up the seat in Camelot on Whitsunday, 454 years after the death of Jesus. He thus became the knight who surpassed all other knights. One theory mentioned in the tale of King Arthur, is that Merlin one day accidentally sat in the Siege Perilous and was killed. Though this is an odd story as Merlin not only made the Perilous Seat but was also characterised as being a wise man.

You can find telling of these stories in Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur and in Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King.

Another story concerning the Perilous Seat tells that one day Merlin seats a visiting noble, King Pellinore, in the seat and a general outcry begins at this breach of Merlin's own words. Eventually the chair's letters are covered. Many years later King Pellinore's son, Percival, unknowingly sits in Siege Perilous when he joins the order of the Knights of the Round Table. Merlin removes the covering, and the coincidence causes huge astonishment. Some say this foretells Percival's part in the Quest for the Holy Grail. But accounts over which Knight succeeded in the quest (Galahad or Percival) differ depending on which version of the myths and legends you read

In another version of the story, the empty chair that Percival sits in is completely unmarked. It is the thirteenth chair from King Arthur going both clock-wise and anti clock-wise. One myth suggests that the seat is left empty to remind the knights of Jesus' sacrifice at the Last Supper. In another, the seat is equated with the seat at the Last Supper of the thirteenth disciple, Judas, who betrayed Jesus to the Romans. In these accounts it is Percival who retrieves the grail, and in doing so the legacy of Judas's weakness is lifted from mankind.