sit tight, because a strange adventure was about to start.
Sure enough, during the soup course, in ran a white hart, getting run down by a white hound and thirty black hounds. Right in the middle of the wedding reception, hart and thirty-one dogs.
"Oh, for the love of --" said Arthur. Guenever rolled her eyes.
"Wait for it," said Merlin.
As the hart was running around all the tables (including but not limited to the Round Table), the white hound caught up to it and ripped out a chunk of its hindquarters. They both went spinning base over apex and knocked right into some knight sitting at a sideboard in the back. The knight threw down his food, grabbed the white hound by the scruff of the neck, and ran out of the hall to his waiting horse. As he rode off, the injured hart recovered quickly and dashed away, too.
"Wait for it," said Merlin.
As the dognapper and the hart departed, a lady on a white walking-horse came riding in from the other direction. Believe it or not, this lady is in the Top Four Ladies of Le Morte D'Arthur countdown, and I'd place her at 1 myself. We'll get into it later.
"My dog!" she shouted to King Arthur. "That knight just stole my best white brachet!"
"It's my wedding day!" Arthur shouted back at her. "You're crashing! Get lost!"
"Wait for it," said Merlin.
And then another rider came in behind her, a knight on a big ol' horse. He scooped up the shouting woman and carried her off, her screaming and protesting the whole time. All Arthur's knights looked to Arthur and Merlin for direction: should they leap up and subdue the guy, or what? But Arthur just held his head in his hands. Merlin signaled for everyone to sit tight, so they didn't move.
"I hate this strange adventure stuff," Arthur said finally. "Let's just pretend that never happened and try to enjoy the rest of the reception."
"Sire!" said Merlin, reproachfully.
"I mean, she busted in here and she was shouting, and I don't want to deal with it," said Arthur.
"But thou must!" cried Merlin. "When strange adventures get started you've got to deal with them or else all hell breaks loose."
"Fine, fine." Arthur slammed down his fork. "But I'm not doing it myself. I refuse. I hate these strange adventures."
"Very well," said Merlin icily. "Then you must send Sir Gawaine to track down the white hart, and Sir Tor to track down the white hound, and send King Pellinore to rescue the damsel or else die in the attempt."
"Hmm, die in the attempt, you say?"
"These three knights shall be sent off, and have strange adventures," proclaimed Merlin. "Which will occupy the bulk of the remainder of Book III, and occur contemporaneously, but we'll start with Sir Gawaine, because he was mentioned first."
Have you noticed yet that Guenever still hasn't had any lines?
In which Gawaine completes his first quest with only a little whining
Sir Gawaine and his brother Gaheris rode out together, knight and squire, after the white hart. Before too long they came across a pair of knights on horseback, jousting.
Gawaine approached, in between the two knights.
"You two random dudes! Take five, and answer my questions!" he shouted. "Have you seen a white hart run through here? An injured white hart?"
The two knights explained that they weren't just any random pair of dudes, they were brothers. Sir Sorlouse of the Forest and his younger brother Sir Brian of the Forest (Brian of the Forest, that greatest character of the Arthurian canon) had been just hanging out, but then a strange adventure had sprung up around them: the sudden appearance of a white hart, running hard, chased by thirty black hounds and one white hound.
Sorlouse had wanted to chase after the hart, because he could tell straightaway that this was an adventure hook set up for King Arthur's wedding. He'd reasoned that if he ran down the hart he could take it to the wedding, to which he had not been invited. But as the hart-catcher he'd get to show off, and meet Sir Kay and everybody.
Brian, on the other hand, had wanted to do all of those things himself, on the grounds that he, Brian of the Forest, was a better knight than his brother. So, naturally, they'd started jousting over it.
"Okay, so, first off, dummies, you shouldn't be fighting," said Gawaine. "That one's a no-brainer. Save your violence for foes who aren't your brother. I'm sure this dictum will never turn around ironically on me. No way will I eventually die in battle against one of my brothers."
Gaheris nodded, because what were the odds that he and Gawaine (or their presumed-dead infant half-brother Mordred) would ever end up on the opposite sides of an issue?
According to Malory, Sir Gawaine then suggested that they go to King Arthur and apologize to him for fighting one another. Apparently this was a reasonable thing to suggest, because Sorlouse and Brian agreed to it.
At first Gawaine wanted them all to head back to Camelot together, but Brian and Sorlouse lost a lot of blood fighting one another and needed some time to recuperate, so Gawaine decided to press on after the white hart without them. "As soon as y'all are feeling up to it, head to Camelot and apologize to Arthur for being jerks, okay? And let him know that Gawaine sent you!"
So the one set of brothers went one way as the other set of brothers went another, and Gawaine and Gaheris arrived at the next scene.
A great rushing river! Hella majestic! The hart spotted! Even as Gawaine approached, it swam to the other side, black hounds still chasing it.
"My lucky day!" cried Gawaine. He made to cross the river, but paused when another knight appeared over on the far bank.
"Give up!" shouted the other knight. "Do not chase this hart over here or else we'll have a fight! For no reason whatsoever!"
"Screw you!" shouted Gawaine back, and swam across. Or, to be more precisely correct, he made his horse to carry him over the water.
Sure enough, Gawaine and this other knight fought, blah blah, Gawaine fought competently, blah blah, other knight was soon dehorsed.
"Give up?" asked Gawaine.
"No!" said the other knight.
"Well I'll just kill you then! Also what's your name?" asked Gawaine.
"I am Sir Allardin of the Isles!"
So Gawaine dismounted and they did the part of the joust where you fight on foot. If this was the story of Sir Allardin then maybe there'd have been another outcome, but no. Gawaine knocked his block, as they say, off. It's messy.
Gaheris complimented Gawaine on the helmet-crushed-into-brainpan finishing move he'd just pulled off. Unfortunately by the time Allardin was dead the hart was long gone, so Gawaine and Gaheris moved on. It was at about this point that Gaheris decided to release the dogs.
Yeah, Malory totally forgot to mention this, but it turns out they brought dogs! Six greyhounds, specifically. The greyhounds dashed on ahead and caught up to the hart easily. The thirty black hounds that had been chasing it are no more, for whatever reason; it was down to just Gaheris's greyhounds and the hart. The dogs chased the hart into a castle tucked away in the woods, in the central courtyard of which they cornered the hart, laid into it, and killed it.
Before Sir Gawaine and Gaheris caught up to the dogs, this racket from the death of the hart alerted the knight who lived in the castle. That guy stormed out, sword drawn! He lay into the dogs and started killing them. All the while he cursed them out about the hart; apparently it had been his hart, and a present from his queen. A pretty terrible present, I'd say, but what do I know?
Gawaine and Gaheris showed up just as the four or so surviving greyhounds ran off with their tails tucked between their legs. Of course Sir Gawaine was pissed that this knight took it upon himself to kill their dogs, wouldn't you be? He drew his sword and advanced on the knight. "What the hell, dude? You killed my dogs!"
"Yeah I killed your dogs," said the knight. "They killed my hart!"
"They're my dogs!" spit Gawaine. "If you're going to revenge yourself on someone, revenge yourself on me!"
"Don't mind if I do!" shouted the knight, and he and Gawaine started sword-
fighting.
One short fight later, the knight lay on the ground, bleeding from several wounds, begging Gawaine not to kill him. It was pretty pathetic.
"I'm so sorry! Have mercy! Look into your heart! I'm so sorry! I'll make it up to you, anything you want, just let me live, look into your heart!" Wailing, moaning, gnashing of teeth.
"What heart?" muttered Gawaine. He wound up to decapitate this knight the same way he decapitated Sir Allardin in the previous chapter. But then -- oh no! -- It's this knight's wife! She ran up, she screamed, she ran straight into Gawaine's sword! Oh, it's pretty bloody.
Apparently knights accidentally killing ladies used to happen kind of a lot. Gawaine didn't even realize he'd hit her at first. I guess she ran up behind him, straight into his backswing? But when he saw her body lying there, well man, that took the wind out of his sails I can tell you.
"Oh, bad on you, Gawaine," said Gaheris. "Boo, Gawaine. Boo. You just know that's going to come back to haunt you. You better be nice to people from now on, starting with this guy."
"Yeah," said Gawaine. "Wow. Sorry, dude. I mean, from the way Malory describes it she appears to have run straight into my sword mid-chop, which one might interpret as a lot of things, the wife heroically taking the blow for her husband even, but we're all going to call it misadventure. So, bad on me, I guess. I'll give you mercy after all."
"You just killed my wife!" The knight was stunned. "I don't actually want your mercy any more. First you kill my hart, then you kill my wife,