Routines

This winter break is not so much a break because I'm doing nothing, but because I can afford to put in only a half-day. Believe me, that matters a lot. An afternoon and part of an evening is a huge chunk of time. Add up over 5 days, include the weekend afternoons, and... yes. Relief.

Basically I'm spending my mornings either reading Le Morte Darthur (I'm managing about 40 pages per day so far at about 25 pages an hour ... notetaking + nightmares for strict modern spellers), doing applications, or taking care of Model UN stuff.

Le Morte Darthur cracks me up. I'd read parts of it in class before (Leslie has too), and Sir Thomas Malory has a quite vibrant way of telling stories. Today I read Balyn's tale, for example. There's a lady that comes to court with a sword tied to her waist. Arthur's eyebrow quirks up, and he says, "That's unbecoming of you." She then reveals that the sword is there until a good knight can pull it out, and she was over at King Royns' place, and his men all failed at it. Ever looking for a great adventure, Arthur tries quite hard and fails to pull the sword from the scabbard. Others try. Then Balyn wanders in and watches from afar, fresh from prison, bristling with muscle. When the lady is leaving, he struts up and pulls her sword out with little effort. She thanks him and asks for the sword back, but he keeps it, causing her to reveal that the sword is terrible, that it will kill someone most dear to him and make him miserable.

So from there hijinx ensue. Balyn has a penchant with beheading people with his sword, starting with the Lady of the Lake. (To be fair, the Lady did ask for his head.) We learn through Merlin why the lady with the undrawable sword wanted the sword back - it's a brother-killing sword, and she wanted to kill her brother for him killing her paramour. More intrigue, more plotting, lots of descriptive tombstones, but I skip to my favorite part.

There's an invisible knight killing people! Balyn is escorting a knight back to King Arthur, when suddenly he is smote with a spear from an invisible man. His damsel ends up carrying the truncheon thereafter. Then shortly after the invisible knight does it again, this time when Balyn and he were about to have an honorable fight. Much perturbed, the damsel and he run across a gentleman who has had his son wounded by an invisible knight. But they find out that the invisible knight will be at a feast being held by King Pellam, couples only. So Balyn brings the damsel.

They go there, and Balyn's looking around, and he sees this invisible knight, a big, dark looking guy. Balyn forbears killing him, because it would make such a scene. Then the invisible knight comes over. "Knyght, why beholdist thou me so? For shame, ete thy mete and do that thou come fore," he asserts, and slaps Balyn across the cheek. Balyn, short-triggered Balyn, immediately cleaves the invisible knight in two, and stabs him with the truncheon that the damsel offers up.

Needless to say, everyone is aghast. King Pellam tries attacking the offender, and he knocks Balyn's sword away. They proceed in a chase through the castle, with Balyn racing in a search for some sort of weapon. Finally he finds this "mervaylous spere strangely wrought" in a gold room and faces off against the king. The king gets stabbed, and with that stroke, the Dolorous Stroke, the entire castle falls down. Most of the people are crushed. King Pellam lies in a stupor for years, until Sir Galahad revives him on the grail quest. All of this is because he dared use the spear that Longius used to pierce Jesus's side on the cross. Whoops.

And of course the brothers end up slaying one another and the long questing arc gets resolved. But I just... love how outrageous the stories can get. And I have 600 pages more of this!

Finally, I should keep a count of how many ladies kill themselves after their lover has died. And what percentage of those kill themselves on their lover's sword. It happens a fair bit. >_<