Âventiure

The Chapel before the Lists

Artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (English, 1828–1882)

Date: 1857-1864

Medium: Watercolor on paper

JOAN OF ARC (1948)

Some jousting groups use these mesh eye protectors that are intended for racing horses:

These are good for keeping lance shrapnel out of your horses' eyes. Would probably also work for rings.

You can put them under a chamfron and it looks like this:

A reasonable safety compromise.

One of my favorite niche art genres is definitely “medieval Italian nobility absolutely pummeling each other in the face with snowballs”

The Sword in the Stone (1963, Wolfgang Reitherman, Clyde Geronimi, David Hand)

The Knight of the Flowers (1894)

REESE WITHERSPOON as BECKY SHARP

VANITY FAIR (2004)

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (2002)

Kingdom of the Dwarfs (1980) does for dwarves was Gnomes did for, well gnomes. It’s written by Robb Walsh, who I can’t find much about but who shares his name with a food writer (I kinda hope it is the same guy, honestly). David Wenzel’s done a bunch of stuff, probably most prominently a gorgeous graphic novel adaptation of The Hobbit in the 1989.

The text is basically a novella recounting the discovery of an ancient dwarf city called Aegol, the effort by archaeologists to uncover it and the piecing together of the history of the dwarfs using the artifacts and records found within. That frame supports the presentation of all facets of the dwarf culture, from lifestyle to metallurgy and so on, but also leaves room for a chronicle of the last king of the dwarfs in a fashion that kind of reminds me of a Norse epic. The dwarfs raised Stonehenge, incidentally, and had commerce with humans, but declined under the spread of Christianity. The kingdom eventually collapsed during a plague, with a few stragglers sailing west into history. It’s a bit sad, really, especially the tale of the prince and princess who preside over the end, attempt to relocate the kingdom, tend the ill when plague breaks out and eventually succumb to it.

She sighed; did the pose. The goddess lifted her, transformed her into a magical girl.