Knight Notes: The Wizard, Chapters 27-30

This post covers the fight in the Mountains through Able’s audience with Morcaine in Kingsdoom. These are transitional chapters, moving us from the Utgard segment of the WK to the final part of the story.

Chapters 27-30: Redhall, Morcaine and More Magic, Lord Escan, and Morcaine’s Summons

Chapter Summaries

In Chapter 27, Able and Lord Beel’s Embassy has one last fight with the Angrborn before it can return to Celidon. Later Able rides ahead on Cloud to Redhall, and meets the staff. In Chapter 28, Able becomes reacquainted with Morcaine, and then has some time with Disiri. He receives his share of treasure from Utgard, some of which is magical. Able, Pouk, Toug and Wistan continue on to Kingsdoom in Chapter 29, and meet Lord Escan. Wistan fails a test but is forgiven.  Able is enrolled in the tournament, and learns the power of his new helmet in Chapter 30.  Able fails to win any of the events, but he does meet Queen Gaynor.

The Battle of the Mountains

With Setr’s hold broken, Baki is able to summon the Fire Aelf to help Able and the others defeat the giants.

The Three Objects

Able reviews his share of the treasure of Utgard. Uri tells him that one of the items is magical.  There are three things of significance:

• The first is a cup. Its non-magical, but its a clue GW left for readers to put them on the track of the Grail Quest.
• The second is an old helmet. We later learn that it belonged to Arnthor, and that it allows the wearer to see people as they truly are. Baki flees before Able can view her with it on. Borda gave it to Able, perhaps intentionally knowing what he would learn about the  Aelf. In Greek mythology, several gods and heroes make use of a Cap of Darkness or invisibility. Arthur had a helmet called Goshwit, but I can’t locate any description of magic powers. However, I wonder if this the Cap of Knowledge from the Jack the Giant Killer and Tom Thumb stories.
• The final item is golden arm ring in the form of two serpents coming together. I think it serves two purpose. One, I think this is supposed to be Draupnir. Draupnir has been described as looking like a serpent in some sources. Odin placed it on Baldr’s funeral barge after his death. The god Hermod later retrieved it, and it was given to a giantess as a present from the god Frey. This is how it got to Utgard. Like the cup, I think this was put into the WK as a clue for readers to think about Baldr’s place in the story.  The second allusion is to the Goose that Lays the Golden eggs of the Jack tale.  Draupnir had the magical ability to produce new gold rings every eight nights. The golden goose laid golden eggs.

With the arm ring, this is the last of Jack’s treasures to appear. Idnn is the magical self-playing harp, and Beel gave the bag of gold to Svon and Toug.

Robin Hood

More elements of the Robin Hood legend appear in the Redhall chapter.  The first is Qut, who Able fights and disarms. Qut is Friar Tuck. Just flip the name around, Tuq = Tuck. Friar Tuck was a hothead and swordsman in some legends according to Wikipedia, like Qut.

The men of arms at Redhall are versions of the nameless Merry Men of legend. Able trains them in bows, and they “enjoy” and “laughed” at the contestants.  Able later fights one with staves, and is knocked down after being hit in the head.

The man who knocked him down is named as Balye. This may be a reference to Arthur a Bland, who fought Robin with staves in one Child Ballad, and knocked him on his head.

Morcaine

Morcaine is described as “willow tall” and “willow lithe” in her meeting with Able. The English willow was associated with false love in plant symbolism. Morcaine’s desire for Able is primarily physical at this point.

Dame Eluned and Sir Owan

This is an allusion to the story of Owain, or The Lady of the Fountain.  This is related to the story of Yvain, the Lion Knight, which Vil represents in the WK.

Llyr

The name Llyr is mentioned in the spell Able speaks in the Red Room.  In the glossary, Able says people in Skai thought he and Llyr were brothers. MAD identified him in his WKC as the celtic god Lir or Ler, but this may not be the only association.  I think another one may be the Norse god Ullr, which is the closest thing the Norse have to a god of archery. Able was deadly with a bow, which may be why the people of Skai thought he and Ullr were brothers.

The Prodigal Son

All of Jesus’ parables are acted out in the WK.  Wistan fleeing and returning to Able in these chapters is the Prodigal Son. I am not going to point them all out, as I want to give others some incentive to reread the WK for themselves to find stuff.  Wistan talks about how comfortable and wealthy he would be if he worked for Lord Escan, like the prodigal son wanting to enjoy life on his own. Wistan instead decides he wants to be a knight, and “returns” to Able, begging him to accept him, like the prodigal son begged his father to take him back. Able embraces him, like the father in that story.

Bellerophon

The Greek hero Bellerophon makes his appearance in these chapters. He was known for slaying the Chimera, and riding the Pegasus. The “slaying” of the Chimera happens in middle of Chapter 30, when Able views Uri while wearing the magic helmet. Able sees Org, Uri and Gylf in their “true forms.”  These three creatures together represent the hybrid chimera.

A chimera is described as a creature with the parts of a snake/dragon, a fire breathing goat and a lion.  With his helmet on, Uri appears as the amalgamation of matter and flame that a Fire Aelf uses when it comes to Mythgarthr.  Part of the matter that Uri uses is a dead goat.  Gylf looks a bit like a lion, in that he is described as gold colored.  Org was described in The Knight, as a “big thing like a snake shaped like a man.” (Chapter 39). So Org is the serpent part, Uri the fiery goat, and Gylf the lion part of the chimera.

Bellerophon dies when he falls of the Pegasus.  This may be referenced in the River Battle, when Cloud flies away before Able can mount her.

Queen Gaynor

Gaynor’s Arthurian counterpart is Queen Guinevere of course. We don’t learn that much about her. She is younger than Arnthor, and was a friend of Idnn’s.

She is wearing yellow roses when Able meets her, and they may be associated with betrayal or infidelity in the Language of Flowers. Arnthor suspects her of infidelity, but I am not sure if she actually is unfaithful. She and the king have apparently not consummated their marriage due to her repulsion of his half-human anatomy. Once again, the theme of the Hybrid and the Horror of Dehumanization. She later tells Able she would like it if the king put her aside for another queen.

The betrayal signaled by the yellow roses may be towards Able. She releases him from the dungeon, but then apparently changes her mind due to her fear of Arnthor. I think she was the one who ordered that he be put back in. I think Able was being sarcastic when he said he “escaped” after his first release.

She is interested in Able, and offers herself to him as a future wife on the eve of the River Battle. She knows Arnthor will not survive it.

The Broken Bowstring

I suspect Arnthor broke Able’s bowstring using his sorcery, due to his jealousy.

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Knight Notes: So What’s It All About?

In previous posts I’ve identified influences in the WK and some of the themes GW explores.  But what’s the overall purpose?  The WK can be read in various ways, and in varying depths:

• Its a boy meets girl, boy loses girls, boy gets girl back narrative. Able’s pursuit of Disiri is the central thread of the story.
• Its Joseph Campbell “hero’s journey.” Able is a representation of the “Hero with a Thousand Faces“, and this is GW’s version of the mono myth.
• Its GW’s tribute/acknowledgement/homage to some of his and our culture’s prominent literary and cultural influences: Lord Dunsany, Sir Walter Scott, George MacDonald, T.H. White, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Tennyson, Edmund Spenser, Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant comic strip, movies about King Arthur, etc.
• Not only is it his version of the monomyth, but GW also weaves into the WK the actual stories of famous heroes, including Lancelot, Heracles, Odysseus, Theseus, Beowulf, Perseus, Bellerophon, Cadmus, Oedipus, Orpheus, Jack the Giant Killer, Robin Hood, and maybe others.  The name of the world Able visits, Mythgarthr, could arguably be translated as “Myth World”, or a land inhabited by living myths.
• At a deeper level, the WK is a Christian allegory, somewhat like Pilgrim’s Progress, the Divine Comedy or C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Able is a distant echo of Christ who undergoes a process of theosis and serves as an agent of a higher power to set right a broken world. GW uses Greek, Norse and other mythologies, and Arthurian legends, to code the elements of the allegory into his tale.  The events Able experiences and people he meets match up with the events and people from the story of Jesus in the Gospels and other books the New Testament. Please note that the allusions to events in the New Testament in the WK don’t happen in the same chronological order that they do in the Gospel stories.
• At its most mystic level, the WK is a parable of Men and Women, our mutual estrangement, and the hope of reconciliation.  GW alludes to and uses the Divine Comedy, Greek mythology, the Kabbalah, and color symbolism in communicating this theme.
• Finally, there are faint traces of GW’s biography in the WK.  The War with Osterland is partly based on the Korean War, similar to what he did with The Book of the New Sun.

All of the above are true, but the story can be enjoyed by a reader who only perceives the first few levels. Its the “rereading with pleasure” that allowed me to discover the remaining themes.

This is an incredibly dense book, with each character representing mulitple allusions to folklore, mythology and literature.  I don’t expect a reader to agree with everything I propose. But I would encourage a new or young reader of GW to hold the image of a layer cake in their mind when reading his books. There are usually multiple stories or narratives stacked on top of each other, like the different levels of a layer cake.  If you find yourself strongly disagreeing with another reader’s theory of a GW book, consider the possibility that you are both right.

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