#this and big paw baps are the most fun ideas

[wholelottatransbians]

Like thinking about Kumiko's fluffy tail. Specifically, the fact that she can make it bigger and fluffier.

She uses it as a cushion sometimes. And Eri. And Himiko. Camie too, when Himiko is there. And the other MLA kids. Some of the 1-A girls as well. And Inko one time.

...It was very big.

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Fact #55 - Arthur and Gorlagon, pt 1

This week, let’s take a look at a single story instead of a bigger overview of ideas and things. This time, I bring you a story from a 14th century manuscript - and it’s a King Arthur story, too!

There is a tradition you may or may not be aware of that folklorists often refer to as the “werewolf husband.” This is used to refer to a kind of story model that came around in the Middle Ages especially. Many of the stories I mentioned in brief in this post on werewolf knights (and how werewolves were often benevolent in the Middle Ages), but I’m going to get into more detail about one in particular here - King Arthur and King Gorlagon.

A fair warning before we get into this: as you may be aware, there were several medieval stories (though not all of them, despite what people like to think a lot) that are pretty down on women. This is one of those stories.

But the story contains a very fun werewolf, so let’s take a look at it! Since it’s very long, I’m going to be breaking it into two parts, one post for this week and one for (hopefully) next week.

I’ll be quoting from Frank A. Milne’s translation, which can be found here, but is also printed in Charlotte F. Otten’s A Lycanthropy Reader, one of my favorite werewolf folklore books.

Once upon a time, King Arthur was holding a banquet for Pentecost, a Christian holiday. Well, he was so happy he turned right around and kissed his Queen, Guinevere. She didn’t care much for that, because wow, that came out of pretty much nowhere. She asks him why he did that, so he butters her up telling her that she is the sweetest and most amazing thing. In response, she decides that he must know her heart. To which Arthur responds,

Arthur. I doubt not that your heart is well disposed towards me, and I certainly think that your affection is absolutely known to me.

The Queen. You are undoubtedly mistaken, Arthur, for you acknowledge that you have never yet fathomed either the nature or the heart of a woman.

Well, Arthur’s a little hurt at that insinuation, as you might imagine. So he swears up and down and all around that he won’t even eat until he learns the nature and heart of a woman. He sets off on a great journey to find the truth about all this, and he ends up visiting three different kings: Gargol, Torleil, and finally Gorlagon.

But in the courts of the first two kings, Gargol and Torleil, Arthur ends up getting talked into joining them for their banquets, which breaks his vow. So he scoots to the next king and then the next without learning anything at all.

Finally, he reaches Gorlagon, who continually beseeches Arthur to join him for his supper, but Arthur continually refuses, sometimes pretty comically. He keeps his butt firmly on his horse in the middle of a banquet, not eating anything, and keeps insisting that Gorlagon continue his story.

I’m pretty much fast forwarding through the other two kings because Arthur’s situations with them don’t relate to what I consider to be the meat of this story: the werewolf.

When Arthur arrives in the court of Gorlagon, Gorlagon convinces him to let his entourage stop and eat while he offers to tell Arthur a story instead of giving a direct answer...

So when they had seated themselves at table, King Gorlagon said, "Arthur, since you are so eager to hear this business, give ear, and keep in mind what I am about to tell you."

In this tale, we hear about an unnamed king who had a truly amazing garden full of all kinds of herbs, spices, fruits, etc. But he also had a sapling that was planted at the time of his birth, which was the exact same height as him, and to it his fate was tied:

it had been decreed by fate that whoever should cut it down, and striking his head with the slenderer part of it, should say, "Be a wolf and have the understanding of a wolf," he would at once become a wolf, and have the understanding of a wolf. And for this reason the King watched the sapling with great care and with great diligence, for he had no doubt that his safety depended upon it.

Well, the king, as you might imagine, was very concerned with the safety of this tree. He built a wall around it, he posted only his most trusted guards, and he didn’t let anyone but those closest to him anywhere near it. But, long story short, one day his queen and wife got interested in another guy and also observed him - the king - going into this garden so much. So she asked him - but unlike Bisclavret, he didn’t tell her. That made her mad, of course.

and improperly suspecting that he was in the habit of consorting with an adulteress in the garden, cried out, "I call all the gods of heaven to witness that I will never eat with you henceforth until you tell me the reason." And rising suddenly from the table she went to her bedchamber, cunningly feigning sickness, and lay in bed for three days without taking any food.

So she did that.

By the third day, the king gave up because he was worried she might let herself die. He tried to convince her to eat and told her that “the thing she wished to know was a secret which he would never dare to tell anyone.” She convinced him to tell her then, and she swore she’d keep the secret and not tell anyone.

Well, of course, you can imagine how that went.

The queen cut down the sapling while the king was away, hid it in her sleeve, and made to hug him but instead bapped him with it “struck him on the head with it once and again, crying, ‘Be a wolf, be a wolf’ - but she didn’t say the last part.

She said “have the understanding of a man.”

Instantly, the king turned into a wolf and fled, and she sent hounds after him. But the king still had his human mind (again: emphasis that werewolves always retain their human intelligence and that is part of what makes them terrifying).

At this point, our host, Gorlagon, insists...

Arthur, see, you have now learned in part the heart, the nature, and the ways of woman. Dismount now and eat, and afterwards I will relate at greater length what remains. For yours is a weighty question, and there are few who know how to answer it, and when I have told you all you will be but little the wiser.

As he will do time and again. And yes, he does seem very bitter that he married a crappy woman, doesn’t he? I suppose we can’t entirely blame him, but gee, way to pass judgment (he does apparently get over this, though, as he is married once more after this and also, uh, well - we’ll get to the other thing).

Arthur, though, is holding to his vow that he will take no food until he’s learned the truth. Arthur is apparently a good enough guy that he doesn’t take that to be the nature of a woman, so he insists that Gorlagon continue anyway.

So Gorlagon launches back into it: this king, now a wolf with the intelligence of a man - or, as we like to call them, a werewolf - is run out of his own kingdom with hounds on his heels. The queen, meanwhile, sets herself up with her lover and takes control of the kingdom.

So, over the course of two years, the werewolf king goes and finds himself a nice she-wolf and shacks up with her and has two cute adorable smooshy big-pawed fuzzy little wolf puppies with moist boopsnoots. No, I’m not kidding. The king goes and gets some she-wolf action and knocks her up. Kinky.

Now this werewolf decides that he wants revenge...

Now near that wood there was a fortress at which the Queen was very often wont to sojourn with the King. And so this human wolf, looking out for his opportunity, took his shewolf with her cubs one evening, and rushed unexpectedly into the town, and finding the two little boys of whom the aforesaid youth had become the father by his wife, playing by chance under the tower without anyone to guard them, he attacked and slew them, tearing them cruelly limb from limb.

It’s not so good.

After killing the illegitimate children of his cheating wife, the king of course gets himself and his wolf family in trouble for giving in to his rage and vengeance. But the wolves get away clean... this time.

The queen orders for careful watch to be taken for those wolves. But the king, consumed by anger and vengeance (sound familiar for a werewolf?), tries again. He kills some more people, “tearing out their bowels” (again: yes, werewolves are scary, not your cannon fodder) and getting away clean.

But, unfortunately, his pups were found in the woods and hanged. The poor, poor puppies.

And thus abruptly ends my sympathy for any humans in this story.

That, of course, makes the werewolf fly into a complete rage...

overwhelmed with very great grief for the loss of his cubs and maddened by the greatness of his sorrow, made nightly forays against the flocks and herds of that province, and attacked them with such great slaughter that all the inhabitants, placing in ambush a large pack of hounds, met together to hunt and catch him

The werewolf fled from country to country, ravaging everything, until he eventually “began to vent his rage with implacable fury, not only against the beasts but also against human beings.”

By the time he reached the third country, the king of that country - who was young and “of a mild disposition” - decided he would go and track the wolf himself with many huntsmen and hounds...

For so greatly was the wolf held in dread that no one dared to go to rest anywhere around, but everyone kept watch the whole night long against his inroads.

Exciting! Now instead of a super weird medieval story it’s become a classic terrifying werewolf tale!

And next time we’ll conclude the story (with more discussion, of course)! What will happen? Does the wolf get vengeance upon his wife who cursed him and the people who killed his poor sweet wolf puppies (I will never ever get over that he had puppies; I swear I will make a werewolf character have puppies and only find out about it later)? Will Arthur learn anything from this even though Gorlagon keeps telling him that he really won’t? Tune in next time and find out!

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