Sometimes reading Arthuriana feels like reading Alice in Wonderland.
“Well,” said Alice, “these are a dreadfully strange assortment of objects!”
“They all symbolize different aspects of Our Lord’s martyrdom,” said the Fisher King, casting a line into his teacup.
“Indeed. I am sure everything symbolizes something else, for if everything was only itself I should be very confused. Might I ask what the point of the bleeding lance is?”
Alice regretted asking the question as soon as she had done so, for she saw the pun that would likely be made about the word point. Instead, however, the room erupted in applause and shouts of “The Grail! She has achieved the Grail!”
The next castle she visited, Alice resolved to herself as the inhabitants of this one danced for joy, would be more sensible.
Or I could do this with The Knight of the Cart.
“Which shall you choose?” asked the guardian. “The underwater bridge or the sword bridge?”
“Both sound dreadful,” said Alice. “I think I’ll just float the cart across.”
The guardian sputtered so hard his helmet broke.
“You cannot ride in a cart to rescue a queen!”
“I don’t see why not,” said Alice, growing cross. “It can’t be worse than abducting a queen.”
“Oh, much worse! For to abduct a Queen is wicked but heard of, while to save he on a cart is virtuous and unheard of.”
“Oh, tosh!” said Alice, floating the cart.
“If you cut my head off,” said the Green Knight, “then in a year and a day, I shall cut off yours.”
“Certainly not!” said Alice. “For if you can survive such a blow, it would be quite unfair to me, and if you cannot, then I will have killed a man over a silly game!”
“Silly games are the most important thing in the world,” said the Green Knight, “for it is after them that we judge honor.”
Alice thought to herself that if this was honor, adults could keep it.
In honor of a thing that keeps popping up in Arthurian novels I read…
“You have nothing to fear,” said the robber knight, “for you are traveling alone. Everyone knows a knight may not attack a maiden alone, but only a maiden traveling with a knightly protector!”
“That can’t possibly be a law,” said Alice. “Camelot is absurd, but not that absurd.”
“It is not a law, but a custom.” The robber knight sounded as if he were lecturing a fool, which Alice felt was very unfair of him. “Customs are far more important than laws, for laws may change, but customs never do.”
Alice didn’t think that was true, but she would not argue the point.
“What about attacking a knight?” she asked. “Can someone attack a lone knight, or only a knight traveling with a maiden?”
“One may attack a knight any time and under any circumstance. That is the meaning of the word ‘knight’- he can be attacked by day or by knight!”
With the understanding that, as a maiden traveling alone, she might attack the knight and he could not return the attack, Alice picked up a handful of rocks from the ground and began to throw them at him. She was not generally an unruly child, but everyone has their limits.
“And this,” said Morgan le Fay, witch queen of the isles, “is my healing potion.” She gestured to a luminous, bubbling concoction in a pewter cauldron, which issued a smell that was a bit like lavender and a bit like castor oil. “I keep an endless supply of it, should my brother King Arthur ever fall to a mortal blow with none else who could heal him.”
Alice thought this sounded reasonable enough, until a thought occurred to her. (That was the trouble with thoughts- they upset otherwise reasonable conversation.)
“Didn’t you try to kill your brother?” she asked. “With a cloak that turned into fire?”
“Yes,” said Morgan. “What of it?”
“It seems,” said Alice as politely as possible (for she did not wish to anger a woman who could turn clothes into fire) “that nearly killing your brother and then saving him is going to a great deal of trouble, which could be avoided by simply not killing him at all.”
“Ah,” said Morgan chidingly, “foolish child! If I did not strike the mortal blow against Arthur, then how would he know to be grateful to me when I saved him?”
Alice considered quarrels she’d had with her sister, and was thankful that neither of them were witches.
“A curse upon me,” Mordred cried, “a curse that ever I was born! I have brought ruin upon Camelot, and an end to the days of noble knights, all by my destiny to slay my father!”
Alice looked about, just in case the city of Camelot had fallen while she wasn’t looking. It hadn’t. She felt very sorry to see Mordred weep, and when he ignored her offer of a handkerchief, she thought she might be able to settle things simply by making an observation.
“You haven’t destroyed Camelot!” she noted with a bright tone. “Look, it’s still here!”
“What does that matter?” Mordred snapped. “I must mourn now for the dead I will cause, for I will not have time after I have killed them! Just as my father should have repented for all the infants he could have drowned alongside me on May Day, as he would not had time afterwards!”
“But he didn’t,” Alice pointed out. “You’re not drowned.” She hadn’t personally thought King Arthur the infant-drowning sort, but if he was, he had clearly missed at least one. “And you haven’t killed him, either!”
“And thus, because he did not repent and then proceed to drown me and all the other boys, I must mourn and then proceed to kill him and everyone else! One of us has to get destiny going around here, even if he’s slacking!”
Alice put a head to her forehead, which was beginning to hurt. Perhaps she was the one who had sustained a blow to the skull in the tournament rather than Mordred.
Alice had once seen a giraffe in a zoo, and was rather excited to see one in the wild. When she finally encountered the Questing Beast, however, it turned out it really was a strange creature with the neck of a snake, the body of a leopard, the haunches of a lion and the feet of a deer. In retrospect, she really should have anticipated that.
“Beware, human child,” said the Beast over the sound of hurgling and gurgling in its belly, “for I am an ill omen!”
“I am very sorry to hear it,” said Alice. “Can you go to a doctor for that?”
“My birth was a very unpleasant story,” it said as if it had not heard her.
“In that case,” Alice said quickly, “you needn’t-”
“It began with a pair of royal siblings and an incubus…”
Alice sighed and slumped down on the ground, knowing this to be the start of a story she wasn’t going to easily escape from.
“This sword,” said the Lady of the Lake, “proclaims its bearer the True King of the Britons!”
“Oh,” said Alice. “Pardon me for asking, but I thought King Arthur already had a sword proclaiming him the True King of the Britons. I think he got it from a stone?”
“Ah,” said the Lady, “but this is Excalibur, the better sword!”
“I thought the other sword was Excalibur?” Alice should have probably let the subject drop, but she was going to have trouble talking about any of this if she couldn’t get it straight.
“No,” said the Lady, “that was Caliburn! Sometimes called Excalibur! This is also Excalibur!”
“But King Arthur already has-”
The Lady thrust the sword towards her, and although it was larger than she was tall, Alice took it, if only to get out of the conversation as soon as possible.
“Which do you prefer,” asked the Lady, “the sword or its sheath?”
“I didn’t really want either of them,” said Alice. “But I suppose the sword, since that’s what you’ve been making such a fuss over.”
“Then you are a fool!” proclaimed the Lady, “for the sheath is far more valuable!”
Alice, who had had quite enough of this by now, stomped off with the sword and sheath through the water.
