Myths and Legends from Around the World

by Robin Brockman

  “Go ahead,” said the giant with an indulgent smile, glad to let the king wriggle a while and draw out the moment. “I am listening.”

  “Might the answer to the question ‘What is it that all women most desire?’ be ‘To do their own will’?”

  “Who told you?” gasped the giant, turning pale and then red with fury all in an instant.

  “It is the right answer, isn't it?”

  “Yes, blast you.”

  “And my ransom is paid? I am free?”

  “Yes, yes, but how did you discover the answer?”

  “Just this morning when I thought all was lost, I was riding this way through a wood when an old woman in a red cloak greeted me and told me the correct reply to your question.”

  “Old you say, in a red cloak and ugly as an aged and diseased boar?”

  “That was the lady, yes.”

  “By thunder,” cried the giant. “I vow that if I catch her I will burn her alive, for she has cheated me of being King of Britain. Now, be gone Arthur, your ransom is settled.”

  “Very well,” Arthur said, dismounting to retrieve Excalibur and his shield. “But two things must be said. Having me and all I possess would not have made you king, for no Britons would have followed such as you for a moment. They'd die first. Secondly, unless you can take this enchantment with you wherever you go, which you cannot, you had best leave the loathly lady be. It will be the worse for you if you do not.” After remounting, Arthur looked once more at the giant knight and said, “Repent of your ways and find grace,” before riding away, back to the forest where the loathly lady sat waiting for him.

  “Much thanks to you, lady. I am free now because your answer was the true one. What boon would you have as reward? As I promised, anything you name shall be yours.”

  “The boon, King Arthur, is this,” said the malformed old woman. “I wish for you to bring some young and courteous knight from your court at Camelot to marry me. He must be both brave and handsome, too.”

  “Oh, but lady …” Arthur began.

  “Nothing else will do. Remember, King Arthur, you have sworn. Would you now break your word?”

  “No, no, lady, I'll not break my word.” he said reluctantly. He had indeed been about to try to dissuade her from such an unreasonable notion, but he now realized this would be futile.

  The old woman watched him ride off back to Camelot with a mixture of emotions. Both pain and excitement stirred in her bosom.

  Arthur was almost as sad returning to Camelot as he had been when trudging around trying to find the answer to the giant's question. He arrived home to be greeted happily by his wife and knights, but he could barely raise a slight smile in response and could not hide his distress. Seated in the great hall where it had all begun, he and Guinevere caught up on what had happened while he had been away.

  “I suppose the damsel went home after I left.” Arthur said first.

  “Why yes.” the queen affirmed.

  “I failed her, but we will find a way to defeat the giant soon.” He then told Guinevere about the giant's tricks, the enchantment and the ransom. “I was able to answer his question and buy my freedom only with the help of a loathly lady. But it seems that her help came at a very terrible price and one that I cannot meet myself.”

  “Why not, uncle?” asked Sir Gawain, who had entered the room and heard all without the couple realizing. The sight of his favourite nephew cheered the king for a moment until he recollected what it might mean for the young man.

  “Never mind,” the king mumbled.

  “But tell us, husband,” said the queen.

  “Why can you not pay the loathly lady for her secret, uncle?” Gawain asked.

  “I promised to grant her any boon she asked, and she has asked a thing impossible.”

  “What was her boon?” asked Guinevere.

  “A promise is a promise,” Sir Gawain said.

  “Why can you not grant her boon?” the queen asked again.

  “Can I help you grant it somehow, sire?” Sir Gawain offered, supposing that money or some quest far from home might be involved.

  “I cannot pay the price myself,” the king said sadly and a little exasperated, “because I am a married man.”

  “I ask again, uncle, is it possible that I can be of service in this matter?” Gawain smiled. He would gladly have died for Arthur and they both knew it, so anything else was also the king's for the asking. It must be said, however, that the young knight was thinking along the lines of a kiss or even perhaps some more intimate contact with the old woman as her price for helping his uncle.

  “Oh, you could help me indeed, dear Gawain.” said King Arthur. “But I can not ask you to do so. It is too horrible a thing.”

  “I am ready to do it, uncle,” Gawain laughed, highly amused at the king's supposed embarrassment before his wife in speaking of such things. “Why, I'd do whatever it takes to pay this debt for you, even marry the loathly lady herself.”

  “Gawain,” Arthur said seriously. “That is exactly what she asks, that a handsome young knight should marry her.”

  “Well,” Gawain said after a long pause while he turned a little pale and swallowed hard. At last he saw that the king was truly upset and not merely uncomfortable. “I said I would do it and I will.”

  “But the poor woman is old, hideous and deformed. No man can make her his wife.”

  “Uncle, if that is all that is worrying you,” Sir Gawain told him, “then everything is settled. Let nothing trouble you. I'll marry this illfavoured dame, and settle your debt to her.”

  “You have no idea what you are agreeing to,” said the king. “I have never seen so deformed a being. While she speaks well enough and nicely, her face is terrible, with a warty crooked nose and pointy chin. Why, the unfortunate creature has only one eye and that with a cast in it.”

  “Ill-favoured as the lady may be, it does not matter,” said Sir Gawain gallantly. “Not if I can save you a moment's care. I am in earnest.”

  “God be praised for you kindness, dear Gawain,” cried Arthur, moved to tears. “And a thousand times thank you. Now through your devotion I can keep my word.”

  For a moment he simply held his beloved nephew in his arms in a great bear hug and then stepped back and smiled apologetically.

  “Tomorrow,” the king said shyly. “We must bring your bride from her lonely lodging in the greenwood, but I think to save everyone's feelings we will find some excuse for the trip and not excite the curiosity of the people. We'll make it a hunting party, with horses, hounds and riders. No one will know we are off to fetch home so ugly a bride.”

  “Lord have mercy, uncle,” Sir Gawain shrugged. “Until tomorrow then, I am still a bachelor and a free man.”

  The following morning King Arthur called all his knights together to go hunting in the greenwood close to Tarn Wathelan. He did not take them near the castle with its giant and the enchanted circle about it. Things were likely to become awkward if they went there and yet all the while he was applying his mind to ways of defeating the giant and freeing his prisoners. But for now there was little reason to disturb him or put him on his guard.

  The hunt soon roused a noble stag which the party pursued far into the forest until they lost its trail among the dense thickets of holly and yew interspersed with copses of hazel and oak. The chase had been thrilling, despite the loss of their quarry, and the train of knights laughed and talked gaily as they rode back through the forest. Seemingly the happiest of all was Sir Gawain, who rode wildly down the forest drives. Drawing level with the churlish Sir Kay, who always rode alone by preference and because he did not make good company, he fell silent, lost in his own thoughts.

  Sir Lancelot, Sir Stephen, Sir Banier and Sir Bors eyed him curiously, wondering at his reckless mood, while his brother, Gareth, began to feel concern, for he knew Gawain must be troubled by something. Sir Tristram, absorbed in his love for Isolde, far off in Cornwall, noticed nothing and rode heedlessly, wrapped in sa
d musings.

  With a jolt, Sir Kay reined in his horse and sat staring at the large flash of scarlet he had caught sight of under the trees. As he studied the apparition, he realized he was looking at a woman, wearing a dress of finest scarlet, sitting between a holly bush and an oak tree.

  “Good morning, Sir Kay,” said the lady.

  The churlish knight could only stare in morbid fascination, sure that he had never imagined that such a face could exist. As he gaped, he ignored her salutation.

  Seeing his attention so absorbed the rest of the knights joined him, curious to discover what it was that so held his gaze. When they found out, they too stared in astonishment at the woman's hideous features. Sir Kay was the only one among them willing to put his thoughts into words. He was almost proud of his strange discovery and, basking in the presence of an audience, showed his rude and thoughtless nature. The king was still some distance off when Sir Kay began to jest loudly and to point at the woman in the red cloak.

  “So which of you gallant swains will woo this fair lady?” he asked. “Tempting, ain't it? Though I fear it will take a braver man than I. But who will try to win a kiss? Careful though that you do not miss her mouth. Ah, I hear you say, that might be best wished but look at the alternatives and wonder if t'were so. Yet come, who will pay her court, perchance to win a charming bride?”

  King Arthur rode up and at sight of him Sir Kay fell silent though by now the loathly lady had hidden her face in her hands, deeply hurt and mortified by Kay's cruel scorn, and she wept piteously.

  Touched with compassion for this uncomely woman, Sir Gawain felt a lump of shame in his throat. Here she was alone, helpless and illfavoured, among these strong, well mounted, confident and very handsome knights.

  “Be still, churlish Kay, we do not choose our faces and it is not a matter of poor taste in fashion. What right have you to jeer at anybody? Such behaviour does not become a knight of Arthur's Round Table. Besides, it is fated that one of us here will marry this unfortunate lady.”

  “Marry her?” cried Kay. “You must be insane, Gawain.”

  “My liege, is this not true?” asked Sir Gawain, turning to the king.

  “Yes, I have promised, for the lady gave me help when I was in great distress. The boon she craved was for a young and noble knight to be her husband. Sir knights, I have given my royal word and I must keep it. That is why I've brought you all here to meet her.”

  “What?’ Sir Kay burst out with derisive laughter. “You'd actually ask me to marry this foul female? You can't be serious. Whoever I wed, be she the devil's sister, she'll be more comely than this hideous hag.”

  “Silence, Sir Kay,” snapped the king. “I'll not have you abuse this poor lady as well as refuse her. Watch your tougue or you'll be no knight of mine any longer.”

  Turning to the others, he said: “Will someone not wed this lady and help me to keep my pledge? Would you all refuse over a little ugliness and deformity, for my promise is given and surely you would not let your king and kinsman break his plighted word of honour.”

  He observed them all intently to see who was sufficiently devoted to him, and as he did so the knights began to excuse themselves and move away. They called their hounds to them, and made ready to search for the track of the lost stag, some of the knights becoming absorbed in tightening a girth while others dismounted to feel the leg of a perfectly sound horse.

  Then Gawain spoke up. “Before you all disappear or become fascinated by nothing, my friends, stop worrying. I will wed this lady myself. Lady, will you have me for your husband?” He asked, slipping from the saddle to kneel at her feet.

  Lost for words at first, the poor lady then struggled to express her gratitude to the young knight.

  “But truly, Sir Gawain,” she said after recovering her wits a touch more, “you are only joking, are you not? How could you marry someone as ugly and deformed as me? What kind of wife would I be for so handsome and gallant a knight as you, the king's own nephew? Imagine what Queen Guinevere and the ladies of the Court will say when you return to Camelot with a bride like me. You would be shamed by me, and through me.”

  She now wept bitterly, and her tears and swollen cheeks made her more hideous than ever.

  “Lady,” said Arthur, “rest assured there will be no knight or dame at my court who dares mock my nephew's bride. They'll not be there long if they do.” The king glared meaningfully at Sir Kay.

  Raising her head the lady looked into Sir Gawain's eyes as he took her hand.

  “Lady, if you will have me, I will be a true and loyal husband to you. Trust too, that I will know how to guard my wife from insult. Come to Camelot, lady, and my uncle will announce the betrothal.”

  “Sir Gawain, may God bless you,” the lady. “And believe me when I say you shall never regret this wedding, and the great courtesy you have shown.”

  A horse with a side-saddle was brought for Sir Gawain's bride, but when the lady moved towards it to mount, everyone saw that she was lame. She not only halted in her walk but there was a slight hunch to her back, neither of which showed when she was seated. As she moved, the other knights looked at one another, and then quickly away, pitying Sir Gawain even more for being bound to a deformed wife.

  The bride rode between King Arthur and her betrothed, while the rest of the train rode behind, some of the knights whispering and sneering.

  There was great excitement in Camelot when people at the gate and in the street saw the ugly dame. In the hall of the castle there was even greater confusion and embarrassment when it was learned that this loathly lady was to be Sir Gawain's bride.

  Queen Guinevere was the only one who understood, and she showed much courtesy to the deformed lady. At the wedding that evening she acted as her maid-of-honour while King Arthur was best man to his nephew. After the long banquet a time came when the bride and bridegroom need no longer sit beside one another. The tables were cleared away and the hall was made ready for dancing. All the men supposed that Sir Gawain would free himself and come away to chat with his friends, but he did not.

  “ ’Tis tradition that bride and groom should take the first dance together. Would you like to?” he asked.

  As she only smiled in surprise, he held out his hand and asked again.

  “Shall we?”

  “My sweet husband, thank you,” she said and, taking his hand, she moved forwards with him to open the dance.

  His dignity was so perfect, the courtesy and grace with which he danced so natural, that even the meanest heart among them never dreamt of smiling with derision as the deformed lady moved clumsily through the long and intricate movements.

  When the evening was finally over, the last dance had been danced and the last toast drunk, the bride was escorted to her chamber by a group of ladies. All the guests went to their rooms, the lights were extinguished and Gawain was left a moment to reflect on what he had done, and to dwell on how he had wrecked any hope of happiness he might have had. He also thought of his uncle's distress, of the poor lady's gratitude and the blessing she had invoked upon him. He determined always to treat her gently, though he knew he would never be able to love her properly as his wife. With all the will in the world, he did not believe it possible.

  As he entered the bride-chamber he tried not to appear like a man condemned. He felt he must endure and be kind, and with a whistle and as light an air as he could manage, he sat on a chair beside her at the fire. He looked into the glowing embers and searched for something to say.

  “Why, husband, have you no word for me?” asked the lady. “Can you not even spare me a glance?”

  “Of course, my dear,” said Sir Gawain, attempting a smile and turning his eyes to her.

  Suddenly, he leapt up and stepped back, his eyes wide in amazement. There sat no loathly lady, no ugly and deformed old woman, but a lovely girl of two and twenty, with long black curls, a beautiful face and a tall and graceful figure.

  “Who are you, miss? And where, pray tell, is my wife
?” asked Sir Gawain.

  “I am the very wife you found between the holly and the oak, whom you married this night and danced so gallantly with.”

  “But how can such a thing be?” He asked, marvelling at her beauty.

  “I am in bondage to an enchantment,” said she. “Our marrying has partly set me free from it. Now, for a time, I may appear to you as I really am.”

  Stepping forward with shyness he admired her lovely face and clear bright blue eyes.

  “Is my handsome knight pleased with his loving bride?” she asked with a little smile as she rose and stood before him.

  “Pleased?” he said, taking her gently in his arms. “How could I not be pleased with the fairest dame in Arthur's court? If the beauty I somehow felt was within you even before is not only in the flesh now, I am the most fortunate knight in Christendom. I thought to save my uncle and help a hapless lady, and it seems I have won my own happiness thereby.”

  “There is one more thing you must know, husband. A weighty choice awaits you. You see, I am still under the spell of an evil witch. Even now I am only allowed my own face and form for half the day. I must have the hideous appearance in which you first saw me for the other half. You must choose whether to have me fair by day and ugly by night, or hideous by day and beauteous by night. What do you say?”

  Sir Gawain was fully awake now, though moments before he had been feeling quite sleepy. The choice he was presented with was too difficult. If the lady was hideous in the daytime he would have to endure the taunts of his fellows and probably be in endless fights, causing the whole kingdom trouble. If she was ugly at night, he would be unhappy himself. Then again if the lady was so beautiful all day, other men would attempt to woo her, also causing trouble. Yet if she became beautiful to him after dark, his love would make them both look ridiculous at court and embarrass the king.

  “Oh, be beautiful just for me, that I might love you by night,” he said, unable to think properly and prompted by his immediate desire.