"How Launcelot was shot by a gentlewoman hunting"

Illustration by Arthur Rackham

This illustration from Rackham was the basis for a colour plate published in the 1917 Edition of "The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights

of the Round Table". It is associated with the wounding of Sir Launcelot while at a hermitage, as described in the following text:

So Sir Launceot and Sir Lavaine departed, that no creature wist where he was become, but

the noble men of his blood. And when he was come to the hermitage, wit ye well he had

good cheer. And so daily Sir Launcelot would go to a well spring and burble, and sometime

he slept there. So at that time there was a lady dwelt in that forest, and she was a great

huntress, and daily she used to hunt, and ever she bare her bow with here; and no men

went never with her, but always women, and they were shooters, and could well kill a

deer, both at the stalk and at the trest; and they daily bare bows and arrows, horns and

wood-knives, and many good dogs they had, but for the string and for a bate. So it happed

this lady the huntress had abated her dog for the bow at a barren hind, and so this barren

hind took the flight over hedges and woods. And ever this lady and part of her women

costed the hind, and checked it by the noise of the hounds, to have met with the hind at

some water; and so it happed, the hind came to the well where Sir Launcelot was sleeping

and slumbering. And so when the hind came to the well, for heat she went to soil, and

there she lay a great while; and the dogs came after, and cast about, for they had lost the

very perfect scent of the hind. Right so came that lady the huntress, that knew by the dog

that she had, that the hind was at the soil in the well; and there she came stiffly and found

the hind, and she put a broad arrow in her bow, and shot at the hind, and over-shot the

hind; and so by misfortune the arrow smote Sir Launcelot in the thick of the thigh over the

barbs. When Sir Launcelot felt himself so hurt, he hurled up woodly, and saw the lady that

had smitten him. And when he saw she was a woman, he said thus, "Lady or damosel, what

that thou be, in an evil time bear ye a bow; the devil made you a shooter".