Too good to be human?

There was a dog fight happening in Malory Tennyson’s Cloudbank Cabin for Arthurian Studies.

Psycho Motor Dabrowski and Intellectual Dabrowski, the canine writing companions of Little Plump Jo, the current Artisan in Residence, were tumbling from room to room, in the cliché cartoon dog fight cartwheel.

Occasionally they would pause the whirling to get their breath and trade another round of growled insults and paw slaps.

Psycho Motor had reignited the Is Lancelot a Fairy? debate by stating that, in his opinion, he must be. A mere mortal would not have been capable of performing the deeds Lancelot had on his most recent adventure.

Sir Lancelot du Lac and Her Majesty Queen Guinevere had returned after Sir Lancelot had saved her from her abduction by Sir Meliagrance. Queen Guinevere was glowing like a smarming contented cat.And Sir Lancelot had been spotted leaving the court physician’s apartment, hastily ditching a sling in a brazier and pulling on soft gloves to hide a bandaged hand. Apparently neither of them wanted to explain about what they did while they were away.

“I don’t mean he’s a pink haired manga fairy like Mimosa Minipas paints him…” panted Psycho Motor. “I mean he’s a…”

“He is definitely not a fairy!” returned Intellectual. “He has two human parents – King Ban of Benoic and Queen Helen. (Some people call her Elaine; but that is just confusing because of the other Elaines in the stories)”

“No, he’s a changeling! Fairies do that all the time. They are like cuckoos. They swap out human babies for their babies and hope that they can influence the affairs of humans that way. That is why they often choose royal families.

And fairy babies are really beautiful, so most of the foster parents are really happy with the arrangement.”

“Oh Psycho, Psycho, Psycho!” sighed Intellectual. “You have it all back abouts! Yes. Sir Lancelot was fostered as a baby, but not by King Ban and Queen Helen. He was saved from drowning by The Lady of the Lake when King Claudas’ men threw him into the lake after King Ban’s death and the sacking of Benoic.”

“That is not how T.H. White tells it” contributed Sensual Dabrowski, who had come to investigate the fighting.

“No, it isn’t!” agreed Intellectual. “And if you argue that fairy babies are beautiful, then T.H. White’s Lancelot was definitely not a fairy. That is what Malory Tennyson gets so cranky about. He says T.H. White should have known that ‘goodliest does not translate to ugly’. Malory Tennyson did not say that Lancelot was ugly under either of his pen names or that he was a fairy.”

“But it would explain that part at the beginning of T.H. White’s The Ill Made Knight

The boy thought that there was something wrong with him. All through his life—even when he was a great man with the world at his feet—he was to feel this gap: something at the bottom of his heart of which he was aware, and ashamed, but which he did not understand. There is no need for us to try to understand it. We do not have to dabble in a place which he preferred to keep secret.”

“Of course that would explain it!” Imaginational Dabrowski chimed in. “ Just think what it would be like to be a helpless baby lying in your cot. You overhear your parents talking about fairies stealing human babies and taking them to Fairyland and leaving one of their own as a replacement. Great, you think, I would love to live in Fairyland! But when the fairies arrive, they take one look at you and start calling out ‘Ugly Baby Alert!’ and fly away taking their own baby back with them.”

“That would be enough to scar anyone for life!” Emotional Dabrowski contributed.

“Gwen Rowley said he was stolen and raised by fairies,” said Sensual, trying to mediate, “and Cynthia Breeding said he was sort of half fae because his birth was the result of a pagan ritual.”

“What a ridiculous idea,” sneered Intellectual “that would be like Strephon, from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Iolanthe, whose top half would fit through keyholes but his legs would not!”

“But, if he is a fairy, it would explain how he could accomplish all those feats to rescue the Queen from Sir Meliagrance” insisted Psycho Motor. “He would not have to crawl across a swaying sword-width bridge over a fast-flowing river. He could just fly there. And he would not have to climb a perilously high tower. You would have to ask 'Are you real?' And as for breaking iron bars set into the walls of the tower – what ordinary human could do that?”

“Well Sir Lancelot could and did!” growled Intellectual, giving Psycho Motor an extra paw cuff on the side of his head. “And what is more, it was not a handprint of fairy bubbles and foam he left on Her Majesty’s pillow. It was real red blooded human blood from his gashed hand. It is just a good thing for him that they don’t have the forensic tests we have, otherwise they would know it was not just any human person, but exactly which human person was guilty. And he would not have been able to defend the Queen’s honor truthfully by ‘dallying with the truth’ telling the accusers that none of the wounded knights in the room next to hers had slept with the Queen.”

“I am just wondering how our Little Plump Jo is going to write about this episode” said Emotional. “She wants to be accurate in her narration but she is very prudish about how to express it.”

“It depends who her chosen audience is” Intellectual stated. “If she is writing for children she can just omit that part of the story and major on the part about crossing the sword bridge and saving Queen Guinevere. She can omit the part about the night before they set off for the return to Camelot with the tower climbing and iron bar breaking and…”

“I don’t think she wants to just write for children” barked Sensual. “I think she is hoping to write stories for adults that families can enjoy together or maybe stories for children that adults might find amusing as well or … I don’t think she really knows who her target audience is!”

“I just wonder how she is going to translate ‘he took his plaisance and his liking until dawn’.

“She will probably just resort to her usual style – He tore the bars from the window, climbed into the tower room, kissed Queen Guinevere and then they dot, dot, dotted!”