When I decided to learn more about the Arthurian legends I had a choice between Thomas Malory’s lengthy Le Morte D’Arthur or Rosemary Sutcliff’s trilogy written for children.  Mark Twain is quoted as saying that “the reading of any two chapters of Le Morte D’Arthur would put even the Knights of the Round Table to sleep.”

Heh, heh.  It’s no agony to choose, for apart from time limitations, I believe that Sutcliff is one of the most gifted writers of children’s books.  She has been steeped in the old literature (yes, even Malory); she comes as close as a modern author can to replicating the cadences and word pictures of the great medieval poets.  Her turns of phrases (he drew a breath of quiet), the kennings (compound expression used in place of a noun, i.e. hunger-water for saliva), the pulsing verbs (horses went bucketing along the road) and in particular the vivid similes are quite extraordinary. 

So much separates us from medieval thought; many stories are thus inaccessible.  Some are plain cheesy. There, I said it. Others ate around the edges of my heart, to quote my friend Di.  My favorite is Gawain and the Loathely Lady.  It  touches the tender psyche of women, most of whom are insecure about their appearance.

In short, King Arthur gets in a bind; an ugly, deformed, misshapen hag (Lady Ragnell) saves Arthur in exchange for one wish.  She asks for one of his Knights of the Round Table to marry her.  He’s devastated to have to honor his word.  All the married knights praise God they don’t qualify to serve their king this time.  Gawain takes one for the team, really for his king, and offers to marry her.  He is kind-hearted and determined to make the best of it.  On their wedding night he steels himself to be a true husband in the biblical way, ahem, and when he arrives at the bed, lo! she is changed into the babe of all babes.  

Lady Ragnell tells him that his kindness broke half of the spell and now he must choose whether to have the babe at night and the hag at day, or vice versa.  He bounces between the options and then asks her which she would prefer.  In asking her preference, he breaks the entire spell, because he allowed her to choose.  The next day the court is astounded at the beautiful woman who is his wife.

It’s a sensitive story, well-told, but it leaves lingering questions.  The puzzle Arthur could not solve without the hag’s help was this: What is it that all women desire?  The correct answer is: Their own way.  Gawain profited from giving Lady Ragnell her own way.  Does Genesis 3 come to mind when you read this?  While the story doesn’t indicate that this will be the pattern of their marriage, the thought of a marriage where I always got my own way is terrifying.   Hmmmm.