seen. But as he had counted sixty, and would set foot upon the next, lo!
he saw none of all those he had left below him, save that upon which he
stood, and on which his foot was set, and above him he saw naught. And
it seemed to him that the door was distant from the step as high as one
might shoot with a bow. Thus might he go neither forward nor backward.
Then he beheld, and on the ground beneath were serpents and wild bears,
even as if they would tear him; they gnashed their teeth as if they
would seize him, and gaped with their jaws as they would swallow him. It
seemed to him as if they were even at his heels, and he saw the snakes
and dragons all twist themselves upwards. "And as I was thus fearful the
step brake beneath me, and I fell downwards." From his great discomfort
and his fear of the dragons he awoke, and slept no more.

The dream vexed him sorely whenever he thought thereon; he was angry and
wroth, and wist not what the portent of the vision might be. But his
heart forbode him that pain and mischief, and sore labour withal, drew
nigh to him. Then it fell out that he met with a learned clerk, to whom
he told the vision even as it had appeared to him; and when he had
hearkened to his tale, and understood it well, he interpreted it in this
wise: "Concerning our lands, great and small, that we thereof should be
in great stress and fear ere we might win to them again; for strong were
the castles and mighty the armies, therefore did the vision foretell
ill to my brother and myself each and singly. And further he spake
concerning my brother Perceval, and the Spear, and the Grail; for that
golden stairway betokened the Holy Grail, and that Perceval should aid
in the winning thereof, and in that service should he die. Thus did he
foretell me. And the door that stood above and the stairway itself both
alike betokened the heavenly kingdom, as might well be known by the
light that shone within; and the steps that lay before it they betokened
the days of Perceval's life. 'This I tell ye of a truth, each betokeneth