Libeaus Desconus
Libeaus Desconus is a 14th-century Middle English version of the popular "Fair Unknown" story, running to about around 2,200 lines, attributed to Thomas Chestre.
The story matter displays strong parallels to that of ; both versions describe the adventures of Gingalain, the son of King Arthur's knight Gawain and a fay who raises him ignorant of his parentage and his name.
As a young man, he visits Arthur's court to be knighted, and receives his nickname; in this case Sir Libeaus Desconus, before setting forth on a series of adventures which consolidate his new position in society.
Other versions of the story include the Middle High German romance Wigalois (c. 1204–1210) by Wirnt von Gravenberc and the 14th-century Italian epic Carduino.
When Arthur grants Libeaus the quest, the maiden is angered that a young novice has been chosen, yet the king refuses to budge.
Libeaus is furnished with arms and horse by famed Knights of the Round; e.g., Gawain gives him a chevron (or griffin[n]) crested shield.
On the third day, they approach the "Chapel Adventurous", whose path is guarded at the "Point Perilous"[g] by the knight Syr William Delaraunche,[f] who will demand that Libeaus fight or else relinquishes his arms.
[v] Libeaus offers Elene as his candidate, and if she fails to win the pageant, he would be committed to fight Geffron in combat, possibly to meet the fate of past losers who had their struck-off heads stuck "upon a shafte" for display.
The dwarf recognizes from the sound of the horn, it must be led by Sir Otis de Lile[x] who had served the Lady of Snowdon but had fled in the time of peril.
There arrive a pair of greyhounds pursuing a hind, and afterwards Sir Otis, who courteously asks that his hound be returned, but Libeaus refuses to rescind a gift he had given.
Sir Otis claims he would have fought Libeaus on the spot if he were armed, but in fact, returns with a whole band of comrades, only to be nearly annihilated single-handedly.
1029–1268[48][49]) After many adventures in Ireland and Wales,[z] Libeaus arrives at the beautiful Isle of Gold (Ile d'Or)[50] a city of castles and palaces.
[h] Libeaus decides to succor her, and single combat ensues: after killing each other's horses and fighting on foot, they call a truce to refresh their thirst.
Lambert informs Libeaus that the Lady of Synadowne is being held captive by two "clerks of necromancy" (or "clerics" who practice black magic) (‘nigermansye’):[ac] Lambert informs Libeaus that these two clerks, brothers named Mabon and Irayne (Jrayne) have created a magical palace which no nobleman dares enter, and they say that they will kill the lady unless she transfers all of her right (birthright) to Mabon.
[ad] Going deeper into the palace, searching for someone to fight with, he passes magnificent columns and stained glass windows and sits down on the raised platform at the far end of the space.
While Libeaus contemplates his situation, a window appears in one of the walls, and a winged serpent (Middle English: worm) with a woman's face crawls through.
[84] While this also goes to the question of Chestre's sources broached above, the links and differences between them are a complex issue,[85][86] and one cannot simply assume a lost twelfth-century work from which they all originate.
[89] Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval, le Conte du Graal (c. 1180–1190)[90] and its Welsh version Peredur in the Mabinogion[91] are named as parallels, moreover, Percival has been held to be the original template upon which the Fair Unknown stories were crafted, according to Schofield.
While admitting there are traces of Perceval material in the "Fair Unknown" romances, an equal or even more viable scenario is that these embellishments were merely later added.
This story of Erec and Enide has itself been considered a successful reworking of material from which the tales of the Fair Unknown derive, in particular creating a heroine 'who is more complex and interesting than any of her counterparts in Le Bel Inconnu.
[101] There is evidence that Arthurian tales were often reworked,[102] and that characters not originally associated with King Arthur in the eleventh and twelfth centuries were absorbed into his epic.
[104] Following a number of adventures in which the eponymous hero demonstrates his martial prowess, Ipomadon puts on the garb of a fool and goes to the court of the uncle of the lady he loves, the King of Sicily, where he agrees to stay only if he is granted the "fyrste battayle".
[105] Shortly after he arrives, a maiden appears, "apon a palfreye white as mylke",[106] seeking a champion to free her lady from oppression.
The upbringing-in-the-wild motif is evident not only in tales of the Fair Unknown and in Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, le Conte du Graal but in the Breton lay Tyolet.
[107] Like Perceval and Libeaus Desconus, Tyolet arrives at King Arthur's court as a young man who has spent all his childhood living alone in the forest with his mother.
Unlike Chrétien's Perceval, but like Libeaus Desconus, an animal in this story is transformed into a human, in this case a stag which changes into an armed knight, a "knight-beast".
[108] The Breton lays that we have from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, on the evidence of the opening passages in Tyolet and others, describing their transmission, are possibly derived from stories that are considerably older, although the desire of medieval authors to "seek to ensure a measure of authenticity for their tales" should be remembered.
[110] Instances of animals transforming into human beings occur also in the twelfth-century Breton lays of Marie de France, in particular "Bisclavret" and "Yonec".
R. S. Loomis notes the similarities between the early life of Perceval and the enfances of Finn mac Cumhail, as found in the twelfth-century narrative The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn (Macgnímartha Finn),[111] and makes a similar comparison with the boyhood of Sir Gawain's son Gingalais, who arrives at King Arthur's court to become the Fair Unknown.
