King Arthur and the Witch

[bedpan]

Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighboring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death.

The question?....What do women really want? Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed an impossible query. But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's proposition to have an answer by year's end.

He returned to his kingdom and began to poll everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer.

Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would have the answer.

But the price would be high; as the witch was famous throughout the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged.

The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but to talk to the witch. She agreed to answer the question, but he would have to agree to her price first.

The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most noble of the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur's closest friend!

Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunchbacked and hideous, had only one tooth, smelled like sewerage, made obscene noises, etc. He had never encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life.

He refused to force his friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden, but Lancelot, learning of the proposal, spoke with Arthur.

He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice compared to Arthur's life and the preservation of the Round Table.

Hence, a wedding was proclaimed and the witch answered Arthur's question thus:

What a woman really wants, she answered....is to be in charge of her own life.

Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the witch had uttered a great truth and that Arthur's life would be spared.

And so it was, the neighboring monarch granted Arthur his freedom and Lancelot and the witch had a wonderful wedding.

The honeymoon hour approached and Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. But, what a sight awaited him. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen, lay before him on the bed. The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened

The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth, be her horrible deformed self only half the time and the beautiful maiden the other half.

Which would he prefer? Beautiful during the day....or night?

Lancelot pondered the predicament. During the day, a beautiful woman to show off to his friends, but at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch? Or, would he prefer having a hideous witch during the day, but by night, a beautiful woman for him to enjoy wondrous, intimate moments?

Noble Lancelot, knowing the answer the witch gave Arthur to his question, said that he would allow HER to make the choice herself.

Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life.

Now....what is the moral to this story?

The moral is..... If you don't let a woman have her own way.... Things are going to get ugly.

[jnette, ASN, EMT-I]

LOVED it !!! Too good !!! Whooooooooooooot ! :balloons: :balloons: :balloons:

Where have you been, Bedpan? Haven't seen you around in a good while !

Welcome back ! :)

[bedpan]

lol thanks jnette - Have been busy in the ~ugh~ real world

[Katnip, RN]

I read that story in my Western Civilization class. It came without the moral, and it was a different knight, though. Maybe not the exact story, but awfully close.

Maybe it was one of the Canterbury Tales? I'm too lazy to try to find the book now.

My memory is going fast.

[Jay-Jay, RN]

I have a song version of that story on a Pete Seeger album! It's called "The Half Hitch!"

A noble rich man in Plymouth did dwell

He had but one daughter, a beautiful girl

A handsome young farmer with riches supplied

He courted this fair maid to make her his bride

He courted her long and gained her love

And then she intended this young man to prove

When he asked her to marry she quickly replied

And told him right off she would not be his bride

He vowed then that home he quickly would steer

And by a sad oath to her he did swear

How he'd wed the first woman that e'er he did see

If she was as mean as a beggar could be

She ordered her servants this man to delay

Her jewels and rings, she laid them away

She put on the worst of old rags she could find

She looked like a teapot before and behind

She rubbed both her hands on the old chimney back

And then blackened her face from corner to crack

Then around to the road she flew like witch

With her petticoats hoisted all on the half hitch

The young man came riding and when he did see her

He cried out 'alas' for his oath he did fear

But being so faithful to keep his words true

He soon overtook her, saying "Pray, who are you?"

"I am a woman"

This answer did suit him as well as the rest

It lay very heavy and hard on his breast

"How can I bear for to make her my bride?"

But still he did ask her behind him to ride

"Your horse will throw me, I know"

"No", he replied, "My horse, he will not"

So then she climbed up and behind him she got

He wished himself well from his promises free

But he turned to her saying, "Will you have me?"

"Yes I will"

My heart it doth fail me, I dare not go home

My parents will think I am sorely undone

I will leave you here with my neighbor to tarry

Within a few days with you I will marry

"You won't, I know"

He told her he would and home he did go

He soon told his father and mother also

Of his woeful case and how he had sworn

His parents said to him, "For that do not mourn"

Oh, ne'er break your vows, but bring home your girl

We'll soon snug her up and she'll do very well

They asked his old spark to the wedding to come

Her servants replied that she was not at home

They invited her maidens to wait on her there

And then for the wedding they all did prepare

Published the banns and invited the guests

And then they intended the bride for to dress

"I'll just be married in my old clothes"

When they were married, they sat down to eat

With her fingers she hauled out the cabbage and meat

As she stood a-stooping some called to his bride

Saying pray go along and sit by his side

"I'll just sit in the chimney corner like I'm used to"

She burned all her fingers in the pudding, I fear

Then licked them and wiped them all on her old rags

They gave her a candle, what could she want more

And showed her the way to the chamber door

"Husband, when you hear my shoes go "clunk", you may come along"

Upstairs she then went and kept stepping about

His mother said to him, " What think is the rout?"

He cried out, "Dear Mother, Pray don't say a word

For ne'er any comfort can this world afford"

A little while later, her shoes they went "clunk"

They gave him a candle and bade him go along

Upstairs then he went and quickly he found

As handsome a lady as e'er stepped the ground

All dressed in the richest of clothes to behold

She was finer and fairer than pictures of gold

He greatly rejoiced at this end to his fears

For he had married the lady he courted for years

Downstairs they went and a frolic they had

Which made both their hearts feel merry and glad

They looked like two flower that pleased the eye

With many full glasses, all wished them great joy

___________

related to Child #31 The Marriage of Sir Gawain

Pete Seeger has recorded it on "Story Songs"

[Jay-Jay, RN]

It may indeed have come from Chaucher, but the idea is even older:

The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle

Edited by Thomas Hahn

Originally Published in Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales

Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995

INTRODUCTION

The episode that makes up the plot of The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle is one of the most popular stories of late medieval England. The transformation of the loathly lady - a story common in folktales, and here combined with motifs of fairy tales like the frog prince and sleeping beauty - occurs in a popular ballad (see The Marriage of Sir Gawain, below), and in more polished literary renditions from the late fourteenth century by Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower. The story also served for the plot of an interlude performed at one of Edward I's Round Tables in 1299: a loathly lady, with foot-long nose, donkey ears, neck sores, a gaping mouth, and blackened teeth, rode into the hall and demanded of Sir Perceval and Sir Gawain (Edward's knights had assumed Arthurian identities for the occasion) that they recover lost territory and end the strife between commons and lords. The author of the interlude evidently assumed that Edward's court would recognize the story in its outlines.

Ragnelle may in fact have had its origins in some distant and lost Arthurian narrative, for both Chrétien de Troyes in the Perceval and Wolfram von Eschenbach in the Parzival describe a Grail messenger who is an ugly hag. A variety of early European vernacular stories retell the plot of a loathly lady who, in return for certain crucial information or power, demands some sign of sexual favor from a hero, and is then transformed by the hero's compliance. In the earliest Old Irish versions, the reward for the hero's offering his favor or making the right choice is kingship or political dominance; the late medieval English versions recast the tales' setting, from the realm of epic exploits to a domestic environment of personal love characteristic of romance. Sir Gawain's reputation as a chivalric hero rides to a large extent on his talent for "luf talkyng" (as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, line 927) and courtesy towards women, though according to Ragnelle these in turn are motivated by his fealty to the king.

At the heart of Ragnelle lies the question of how the unknown, the marvelous, or the threatening is brought into line with legitimate, normative, idealized chivalric society. Perhaps even more than the Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gromer Somer Joure represents the forces of wildness and incivility: he appears suddenly in the midst of the forest, he behaves in ways that violate knightly protocols, and, most of all, he has a name that connects him with the licensed anarchy of Midsummer's Day. But Ragnelle represents these threats no less than her brother. Her seemingly omnivorous appetite marks her as an outsider, both sexually and socially, to the aristocratic court. Despite the counsels of her betters, she will have Gawain, and the entire court, led by Arthur and perhaps including Gawain, fears she is a sexual predator (lines 722 ff.). Her appearance and behavior - her raggedness, poverty, and general unkemptness, and her antisocial and indiscriminate consumption of vast quantities of food at the wedding feast - make clear that her repulsiveness is a function of her low estate and not simply a wild monstrosity. What brands Ragnelle as a hag is, in the terms defined by the central question of the poem, a form of desire or lack - a lack of manners, beauty, deference; what certifies her as a lady at the end is her possession of these qualities and of Sir Gawain. Though for the bewitched Ragnelle a good man is hard to find, once found he satisfies all her heart's desire.

The plot of Ragnelle, then, turns on the transformation of its heroine both physically and symbolically, from an ugly hag to a beautiful lady, and from an enigmatic threat to a fulfilled woman. Her double role - both Beauty and the Beast - endows her with a deep ambiguity, enmeshing both attraction and revulsion, fatal danger and life-giving knowledge; such worrisome duplicity often attaches itself to women (and to femininity generally) in popular romance, and throughout Western culture. The poem proceeds to establish a stable and benign identity for Ragnelle by providing a satisfying answer to Gawain's rather frantic question, "What ar ye?" (line 644). This inquiry unmistakably rephrases Ragnelle's pivotal question: "whate [do] wemen love best" (line 91), "whate [do] wemen desyren most" (line 406), what do "wemen desyren moste specialle" (line 465) - which itself uncannily anticipates the notorious formulation of Freud: "Was will das Weib?" - "What does Woman want?" It has sometimes been said that the fascination of this question and the wish to solve the enigma of Woman that it conveys express interests that are typically male (or, in more abstract, cultural terms, masculine). In the case of Ragnelle, the narrative unfolds in ways that have the heroine clearly serve the interests of the male chivalric society that the poem good-humoredly celebrates.

Source: The Camelot Project http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/mainmenu.htm