THE SCENE: King Arthur’s battle with some kind of cannibal troll knight is rendered in vivid, lyric, and blood detail in the following passage.
THE TEXT: Screened by the smoke Arthur sped to the spot,
Made the sign of the cross and solemnly swore
Then sidled forward till the fellow was in sight.
How disgusting he was, guzzling and gorging,
Lying there lengthways, loathsome and unlordly,
With the haunch of a human thigh in his hand.
His back and his buttocks and his broad limbs
He toasted by the blaze, and his backside was bare.
Appalling and repellent pieces of flesh
Of beasts and our brothers were braising there together,
And a cook pot was crammed with christened children,
Some spiked on a spit being spun by maidens.
That noble Sovereign; for the sake of his subjects
His heart bled with hurt on the ground where he halted
Then he lifted up his shield and delayed no longer,
Brandished his broad sword by its bright hilt,
Strode straight towards him with a steely spirit
And hailed that hulk with heady words:
“Steel yourself, dog’s son, may the Devil take your soul,
For you shall die this day by dint of my hands.”
The startled glutton glared gruesomely,
Grinned like a greyhound with grisly fangs,
Then groaned and glowered with a menacing grimace,
Growling at the good King who greeted him angrily.
His mane and his fringe were filthily matted
And his face was framed in half a foot of foam.
His face and forehead were flecked all over
Like the features of a frog, so freckled he seemed.
He was bulky as a sea pig with a brawny body,
And each quivering lump of those loathsome lips
Writhed and rolled with the wrath of a wolf’s head.
Then he started up sturdily on two strong legs
And quickly copped hold of a club of pure iron
And would have killed the King cleanly with his keen weapon
But by Christ’s intervention the vile creature failed,
Through Arthur’s crest and coronet and silver clasps
Went crashing from his helmet with one clatter of that club.
The King then cast up his shield to give cover,
And with his stately sword he stretched out and struck,
Fetched him a blow of such force in the forehead,
That the burnished blade bit through to his brain
But he wiped the wound with his foul fingers,
And in a flash threw a fist at the other’s face.
Had the king not been swift in stepping aside
that hit would have ended in a victory for evil.
Then the king countered, followed up fiercely,
Caught him high on the hip with his hard weapon,
Sinking his sword half a foot through the skin
So the hulk’s blood poured hot across the hilt;
Through the bladder and bowels he drove that blow,
Piercing his privates ripping them apart.
Then he raged and roared and with rabid fury
He aimed for Arthur but instead hit the earth,
Sundering the soil by the length of a sword,
So the sovereign almost swooned at the swish of the club.
Yet the king worked quickly, countering cannily,
Swiping with his sword so it slashed through the stomach
And the guts and gore came gushing out together
Till the grass on the ground was gloopy with slime.
He cast his club and caught hold of the king,
Clenched him in a bear hug on the crest of the crag,
Clamped him ever closer crushing his ribs,
Holding him so hard his heart almost burst.
Then those melancholy maidens fell to the floor,
Kneeling and pleading for this knight.
“Let Christ bring him comfort and keep him from sorrow,
And defend him from the fiend who would finish his life.”
But the muscles of the warlock overwhelmed the monarch,
And they writhed and wrestled riotously together,
Weltering and wallowing through the wild bushes,
Tumbling and toppling and tearing at clothes,
Rolling from the ridge in an unruly muddle
With Arthur now over then under then over,
From the height of the hill to where the hard rocks were heaped,
Not slacking though they slugged it out along the shore.
Then Arthur did damage with the dagger he had drawn,
Hammering that hulk right up to the hilt,
But he throttled him so thoroughly in the throes of death,
That he broke three ribs in the royal man’s breast.
– The Alliterative Morte D’Arthur, 15th Century AD
