One August morning, while in Winchester, England, I — of full faith and high spirits — embarked upon the quest for the Holy Sweatshirt.

(“Holy,” not in the religious sense, but in the sense that the Mickey Mouse apparel in question surely contained a couple of holes).

It was a well-loved relic, one our 2-year-old daughter Millie had insisted on wearing most every day of our three-week trip overseas. But suddenly, it was gone.

“We’ve got to find it,” my wife whispers once we’d ransacked our rental property, “before Millie knows it’s missing.”

And so, my quest beginneth.

I’d come to England not to incite an international crisis, but to teach a course on King Arthur to a group of University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire students brave enough to accompany me.

In the preceding weeks, the students and I had visited St. Paul’s Cathedral (where a young Arthur allegedly pulled a sword from a stone), stopped in at Stonehenge (where Merlin supposedly stacked the most famous rocks in the world), and laid eyes upon a 15th-century re-creation of The Round Table (which hangs upon the wall of the Great Hall in Winchester, the leading candidate for Camelot).

None of these adventures prepared me for the task ahead: scouring a city nearly the size of Eau Claire in search of an extra small-sized sweatshirt.

My quest begins at Winchester Cathedral, the longest medieval cathedral in the world. I scour every inch of it, roaming all 53,000 square feet. In its nearly 1,000-year history, the cathedral had served as the site of its fair share of miracles, though no such miracles befall me.

Next, I stop by the town’s visitor’s center, where upon learning of our dilemma, an overly concerned visitor center employee suggests I alert the authorities.

“You want me to call the police?” I ask. “Over a sweatshirt?”

“You could try them,” the employee says. “Or you could try the fence at Abbey Gardens. Sometimes people hang lost items there.”

And so, I enter Abbey Gardens — once home to St. Mary’s Abbey before it fell victim to Henry VIII Dissolution of the Monasteries back in 1539. I scan the fence posts, desperately seeking that which I am not destined to find.

Dispirited, I sit alongside the River Itchen — 26 miles of crystal clear streams that weave throughout this ancient town and beyond. Most mornings, I’d pushed Millie in her stroller along its shore, conjuring wisps of Arthurian myth as I prepared for the day’s lessons: a mirage of the Lady in the Lake peering up from the water or Sir Lancelot’s shadow resting beneath a tree. As the course progressed, every cup I saw became a holy grail, and every steak knife a stand-in for Excalibur. It was hard not to get caught up in the myth while inhabiting the place where those myths were born.

But what exactly are the King Arthur myths about? As the students and I learned, they’re tales of fellowship, chivalry and hospitality. But we needed only read a bit deeper to see that most of their plotlines involved some wayward knight striving toward a higher ideal and rarely achieving it. They win and lose in equal measure. Always, they’re at the mercy of Fortune’s Wheel.

Staring into the river, I take refuge in the failures of the knights who came before. Perhaps, I think, The Quest For the Holy Sweatshirt will simply go unfulfilled until some worthier father comes along.

True, my primary motivation for finding my daughter’s sweatshirt is to keep the kid from crying. But I’m guided by a second motive, too.

As difficult as it is for me to admit, Millie — a mere 2 years old — is destined to remember virtually nothing about our family’s once-in-a-lifetime adventure. As our photos confirm, she’s opted for a snooze in her stroller every time we experience anything of historical significance — Stonehenge, Big Ben, Winchester Cathedral.

Yet I’m certain if we lose her beloved sweatshirt, that memory will stick forever.

Inspired by parental guilt, I leap from the bench, strike spurs, and continue my quest, which leads me to one last place. Not some ancient abbey or cathedral, but a local chain restaurant called Pizza Express where we’d eaten the previous day. I enter directly behind a female employee upon whose shoulders are slung a Mickey Mouse backpack.

The manager and I roam the restaurant to no avail, and at last, I’m ready to abandon my quest.

“Why don’t you leave your contact information?” the manager suggests. Hopeless, I reach for the nearest crayon and scrawl my email address on a scrap of paper.

But then, as I step out the door, the employee wearing the Mickey Mouse backpack moves swiftly toward me, hands me the sweatshirt, and vanishes.

The sweatshirt is no Grail, but it might as well be.

I strike spurs, head home, and race up the stairs to our rental property.

“Millie!” I say. “Look what I found!”

My daughter glances up from her coloring book just long enough to spot her sweatshirt, which, as far as she knows, was safe in her suitcase all along.

It is hardly the hero’s welcome I’d imagined, but it’s all the praise I’m worthy to receive, given the secretive nature of my quest.

“You found it,” my wife says, impressed.

“By the grace of God,” I smile.

B.J. Hollars is the author of several books, most recently "Go West Young Man: A Father and Son Rediscover America on the Oregon Trail" and the editor of "Hope Is The Thing: Wisconsinites on Perseverance in a Pandemic." He is a professor, arts advocate, husband, father, son and dog walker. Follow him on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook @bjhollars.

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