Gorlagon
10:41 Sep 02 2014
Times Read: 409
Gorlagon
King Arthur is challenged by his queen to discover the nature and ways of a woman. This is a daunting quest for any knight, but Arthur accepts the challenge and sets out alone. He rides to the castle of a neighboring king named Gargol. This king, he finds, can not help him, but directs him to another location, the castle of his brother, King Torleil. However, the second king is of no more help than the last, so following even more directions, Arthur is forced to continue his quest to the stronhold of a Third royal brother, King Gorlagon. Here, at last, the king tells him a tale that will answer at least a part of his quest, although Gorlagon warns him that the answers he receives will only marginally satisfy him.
The story concerns a king in a foreign land who had a garden that grew a magic sapling. Whoever cut this sapling, struck his head three times with it, and repeated a certain formula, would become a wolf. The kings wife discovered the secret of the sapling, cut it down, and use it to transform her husband in to a beast, which she then drove from the court. Claiming that the king was dead, she then married the youngest son of a Pagan king and ruled the country with him. The transformed king fled in to the forest, where he lived, met a she - wolf, and soon raised a family of his own. However, he still harbored great resentment toward his former wife.
Eventually, he, his wolf wife, and their young entered a nearby town and attacked a number of people including two princes, who were the sons of his former wife and her new husband. The wolves were driven off by the citizens of the town, but returned to attack two nobles, both local counts and cousins of the queen, during which some of their young were captured and subsequently killed
Driven mad with grief at the loss of his offspring, the werewolf now attack the flocks and herds of farmers until he was run across the border in to the another province, where he was not welcome. Eventually, he went to live in a large stretch of forest, far away from his original home. There, overhearing a conversation between two peasants, he learned that the king of that area planned to hunt him down and kill him. He therefore decided to regain his human form once more, and in order to bring his plan about, he waylaid the king while he was out riding. As with the Bisclavret story, he ingratiated himself with the monarch and persuaded the king not to slay him; he gradually became a royal favorite much admired by the court. However, he did not get on so well with the kings wife, who was secretly conducting an affair with one of the servants. When her husband was away, she mistreated the wolf and stirred up its resentment . As she was engaged in love making, the beast pounced and inflicted grievous wounds on the servant in question. Taking advantage of the situation, the queen had her own son locked away in a dungeon and declared that the wolf had eaten him, while in a wild state, even though the brave servant had tried to defend him. The wolf however, managed to entice the king to follow him down to the dungeon where the boy was discovered alive and unharmed. The servant eventually confessed what had truly happened, and was flogged for his crimes, the queen was publicly torn limb from limb by horses
Following this dreadful occurrence the king voiced his suspicions that the wolf appeared to be so intelligent that it might indeed be a man, in a other guise. In response to this suggestion, the wolf licked his hand and the monarch knew it was true. the king decided that he would follow wherever the wolf would lead him, and find out the source of this apparently enchantment. the werewolf led him back to its native contry where they discovered that the whole land was languishing underthe most fearful tyranny in the absence of its true ruler. Making a quick decision , the king invaded and won a great victory, deposing the tyrant and his wife. The wolf then took them to the garden where the magic sapling had grown, and he forced the defeated wife to bring another such sorcerous growth in order to restore the werewolf to human shape.
After King Gorlagon tells Arthur the story, Arthur is very taken with it. However, he has a question to ask the strange king. He espied an eerie and somber looking woman who sat all alone, in a corner of the castle holding a bloody head upon a platter, which she kissed whenever Gorlagon kissed his wife. Arthur wished to know who she was. The monarch explains that this is the unfaithful queen who turned the king in to a wolf, for he was that werewolf, and he spared her life, on the condition that she would always carry the head of her former lover with her in order to be reminded of her wickedness.
The End
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