Subject:
Re: : [EK] medieval humor
Date:
Tue, 20 Jan 98 18:06:14 +0000
From:
turnms01@holmes.ipfw.edu
To:
Timothy A Whitcomb
CC:
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terpsichore@serv2.fwi.com
King Maynard and King Myron are brothers and rivals. They
hate each other and use any excuse to show the other up, yet they still
have dinner together every so often, [if only to outdo the other].
One evening, after a particularly nasty meal in which both
kings so outdid themselves in outdoing the other, King Maynard stormed
from the table and out of the castle. Outside, on the other side of the
moat, Maynard cried out in a loud voice, "Brother, this day I curse you
with the Curse of the Yellow Fingers!" For you see, Maynard was a
sorcerer as well as a king.
Myron, considering himself outdone, cried for his knights
to run across the drawbridge and hack his brother to pieces. But just as
they were in the middle of the drawbridge, out of the moat, slithering and
snaking, creeping and crawling, came long, bony, spidery-yellow fingers,
each with a razor-sharp nail on the end, and they did battle with the
knights of King Myron and slew every last one.
This annoyed the king quite a bit, and, to tell the truth,
he was also afraid, for he had never been cursed before. So he called
forth his heralds, who sounded on their long horns several motes that
rang in the hills, summoning forth the knights-errant who were under his
fealty. They came one by one or en masse, as they were in diverse lands
and of diverse customs, and all came across the drawbridge to enter the
castle, wherein they were met withal by long, bony, spidery-yellow fingers
that came out of the moat slithering and snaking, creeping and crawling,
attacking one and all with their razor-sharp nails, slashing them limb
from limb.
This also dismayed King Myron, and, to tell the truth, he
was more than a little afraid, and also very put out, that these
monstrosities should always get the best of him. So he summoned forth all
the squires and men-at-arms to do battle with the fell yellow fingers, but
they too were torn to bits by the long, bony, spidery-yellow fingers that
slithered and snaked, crept and crawled, slashed and ripped.
Next the heralds were commanded to do battle, for the king
was running out of staff, and then the cooks, swineherds, jesters,
courtiers, and all met their end at the tips of razor-sharp nails.
Myron was downright hysterical at this point, and
something of a coward, for he as yet had not done battle with the long,
bony spidery-yellow fingers that inhabited the moat directly beneath the
drawbridge. He dashed from room to room, screaming and raving, looking
for someone else to send out to his death, and at last he found a page of
but eight years old, hiding underneath a tapestry in an antechamber in the
basement of the castle. Myron was livid, and picked the boy up and threw
him out the gate onto the drawbridge to watch the little imp meet his end,
when nothing happened. No slithering, no snaking, no creeping or
crawling, and certainly no razor-sharp nails to slice thru a tender boy of
eight.
Finally, the king threw back his head and laughed a great
laugh that rang in the hills, crying "At last the curse is lifted!" and
thus emboldened, King Myron set his feet upon the drawbridge in defiance
and victory, where, slithering and snaking, creeping and crawling, the
long bony spidery-yellow fingers came out of the moat and slashed and slew
him with razor-sharp nails and he died.
Of course, the moral to this story is this: Let your
pages do the walking thru the yellow fingers.
-Faremanne de Vere