Medieval Arthurian Legend
The Old French Pre-cyclic Lancelot
13th century, Old French.
Sir Lancelot is led into the presence of Sir Yvain and Queen Guinevere, who do not recognise him.
Upon emerging from a Dolorous Castle, which seemed to contain his own grave, Sir Lancelot takes on a succession of different disguises, in the form of changes of armour, and sometimes of personality. He has been invincible as a knight carrying a white shield with three red stripes. But then he allows himself to be captured by an incompetent knight while wearing a ‘blackened shield’. And as this knight’s prisoner, he is led into the presence of Sir Yvain and Queen Guinevere, who do not recognise him. Bizarrely, he makes no attempt at all to identify himself.
Then he is captured by the mistress of a castle who slams him into her prison. It is a curiously fashioned cell, made of stone; and the rock from which it is built is so transparent, like crystal, that nothing outside is hidden from the prisoner inside and the prisoner is in full view of everybody outside!
Sir Lancelot awaits his release, now separated from the world by a wall of transparent crystal, as though behind an astronomical boundary (remember, this was written in the thirteenth century when Aristotle's crystal spheres were thought to separate us from heaven). He achieves his release disguised as a Red Knight, in order to attend a tournament. The Red Knight does great deeds of valour, is proclaimed the best knight of the encounter, but returns to his prison behind its glassy walls in the evening, leaving King Arthur’s retinue wondering who he is. Sir Gawain, in fact, is sent on a quest to find him; unsuccessfully, as it turns out, because Sir Lancelot stays locked away in his crystal cell for a further year, until at another tournament, he rides forth again, this time as a Black Knight.
broomstick
∩ Weird Tales—discussion.
references
Lancelot - Wikipedia
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