The sons of his seed and his blood

Written to Guitararama by Stephen Dale Petit

And now we come to the Grail, the Quest. I think it is true that any man...when he comes to maturity has a very deep sense that he will not win the Quest. He knows his failings, his shortcoming and particularly his memories of sins of cruelty, of thoughtlessness, of disloyalty, of adultery, and these will not permit him to win the Grail...Lancelot could not see the Grail because of his faults and sins of Malory himself. He knows he has fallen short and all his excellences, his courage, his courtesy, in his own mind cannot balance his vices and errors, his stupidities.

I think this happens to every man who has ever lived...But there is an answer ready to hand for every man...The self-character cannot win the Quest, but his son can, his spotless son of his seed and his blood who has his virtues but not his faults. And so Galahad is able to win the Quest, the dear son, the unspoiled son, and because he is the seed of Lancelot and the seed of Malory, Malory-Lancelot has in a sense won the Quest and in his issue broken through to the glory which his own faults have forbidden him.
- John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Our three Galahads have each won a Quest in June:

Johannes, now 22 years old, graduated from Imperial College London, ranked 6th overall in the Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings of the world's top 100 universities in 2008, with his BSc in Physics -and he was informed last Friday that he achieved a 2:1 -approx. 3.5 G.P.A. He will begin working for Teach First, an independent charity launched in 2002 to bring excellent teachers into challenged secondary schools across the UK. Johannes will teach Science at New College in Leicester, the birthplace of my father, who passed away two years ago.

Not to be outdone, Esben, 20, completed his second year at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester as the top student in his year...for the second straight year.

And last but by no means least, Pelle, 19, finished his first year at the University of Leicester, University of the Year 2008/9 in UK, as the 9th best student in his Geography class of more than 100.

Alfheim's own Malory-Lancelot feel as though they have in a sense won a Quest.

Other Quests won this week:

• Chiquina has been repatriated to the hog pen, though we still have to feed her four times a day. Looking at these 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 photos, there can be little doubt that Lone enjoys this work.
• Gilt 8, gave birth -in the open air- to seven healthy piglets. We just released the next four expectant gilts from the hog pen. 7-9-13!
• The Saturday fencers finished pasture 6...and the cattle are now grazing on virgin pasture.
• Lone harvested her first crop of Capim Limão or Lemon Grass...and decided to dry it in our living room. 23 years teaches one patience.
• Marcos and his father completed Clair's and Rosana's carport.
• We broke ground on our churasqueira...BBQ'd beef, pork and poultry coming soon!
• I reached an agreement with the individual who had been renting a portion of our fazenda, and we now have access to the last mandioca field...approx. 10 hectares is my best guess.
  

In last week's blog post, Me love you long time, I mentioned our new book shelves. Unfortunately, the photo did not do justice to the fine work done by Marcos' father...consider that mistake corrected.

Finally, as also mentioned in last week's blog post, Esben, his friend Brian, and Pelle, will be arriving on Thursday, July 2nd. Pasture 7 awaits, i.e. approx. 500 mourões or fence posts need moving -the 220 cm variety rather than the shorter, lighter 130 cm variety. It goes without saying that I will be supervising everything.