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“When they had been riding for some time, they came to a ford…On the trees round the ford there were hanging rusty helms and melancholy shields – sixty—four of them, with their bends and chevrons and luces hauriant and merles and eagles displayed and lions passant guardant looking desolate and abandoned. The leather of their guiges was green and mildewy. It looked like a gamekeeper’s gallows.
In the middle of the glade, on the chief tree, there hung an enormous copper basin, triumphing over the beaten shields.
Lancelot knew what he had to do with this basin, and he did it. He put his helm in position, rode through the dripping leaves to the basin, and beat on it with the butt of his spear until the bottom fell out. Then he and the lady stood still in the forest, which was as if it had been shocked silent by the hideous noise.
Nobody came.
‘His castle is beyond,’ said the lady.”
T.H. White. “The Ill-Made Knight.” The Once And Future King. Harper Collins, MCMXL
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2. |
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Broceliande!
in the perilous beauty of silence and menacing shade,
Thou art set on the shores of the sea down the haze of horizons untraveiled, unscanned.
Untroubled, untouched with the woes of this world are the moon-marshalled hosts that invade Broceliande.
Only at dusk, when lavender clouds in the orient twilight disband,
Vanishing where all the blue afternoon they have drifted in solemn parade,
Sometimes a whisper comes down on the wind from the valleys of Fairyland——
Sometimes an echo most mournful and faint like the horn of a huntsman strayed,
Faint and forlorn, half drowned in the murmur of foliage fitfully fanned,
Breathes in a burden of nameless regret till I startle, disturbed and affrayed:
Broceliande—
Broceliande—
Broceliande...
-Alan Seeger, MCMXVII
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3. |
Ride For Ruin
05:25
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“Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world’s ending! Death! Death! Death!”
-Éomer Éadig
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4. |
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There was soon no knight left who had not felt the power of Lancelot’s strokes.
With a terrible noise the gates flew open.
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5. |
Half-Sick of Shadows
06:24
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“But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often thro’ the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, came from Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead
Came two young lovers lately wed;
'I am half sick of shadows,' said
The Lady of Shalott…”
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson. “The Lady of Shalott,” MDCCCXXXII
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6. |
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In a cemetery outside the wall, Lancelot found many graves with names of knights written upon them: their helmets he saw on the battlements of a surrounding wall. In the centre of the cemetery there was on a tomb a large slab of metal adorned with precious stones.
On it was written:
“Only he who conquers Doloreuse Garde will be able to lift this slab, and he will find his name beneath it.
Lancelot lifted the slab and read: “Here will repose Lancelot of the Lake.”
The Vulgate Version of The Arthurian Romances, Volume III: Le Liver De Lancelot Del Lac. Trans. H. Oskar Sommer. The Carnegie Institution of Washington, MCMX
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7. |
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Having conquered the Castel Doloreuse, Lancelot was led to a chapel in which was a door leading to a cave. As he entered, the earth quaked and a dreadful noise filled the air. Beyond two copper knights was an evil smelling well of blackness from which ghastly noises rose. On its opposite side, an ugly monster with an axe barred further progress. Lancelot rushed forward with tremendous force, dashing his shield to pieces on the monster’s face. After strangling the monster, Lancelot pushed it into the well. Deeper in the cave, a maiden of copper held the keys to an enchanted coffer. When he took the keys and opened the perilous chest a whirlwind rose forth as if all the devils had been freed.
The evil enchantment was lifted. When he returned, the grim helmets and tombs in the churchyard had vanished. The people hailed Launcelot as their deliverer, and the castle was henceforth called La Joieuse Garde.
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8. |
Gardens of Delight
03:21
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“Fenice was in the tower all that year and full two months of the next, until summer came again. When the trees bring forth their flowers and leaves, and the little birds rejoice, singing gaily their litanies.
When she saw the door open, and the sun come streaming in, as she had not seen it for many a day, her heart beat high with joy; she said that now there was nothing lacking, since she could leave her dungeon-tower, and that she wished for no other lodging-place. She passed out through the door into the garden, with its pleasures and delights…”
- Chretien De Troyes, Cligès, MCLXXVI
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9. |
Bifröst Ascend
01:51
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From their feet a rainbow bridge stretches with blinding radiance across the valley to the castle which now glows in the light of the setting sun:
The bridge leads you homeward,
light yet firm to your feet:
now tread undaunted its terrorless path!
Follow me, Lady! Let us dwell now in Walhall!
-Wotan
Das Rheingold, Der Ring des Nibelungen, MDCCCLXXIV.
(Adapted from: Vashti Bunyan - “Rainbow River.” Just Another Diamond Day. Philips, UK, MCMLXX)
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10. |
So Short a Season
04:54
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Brangien came in upon them; she saw them gazing at each other in silence as though ravished and apart; she saw before them the pitcher standing there; she snatched it up and cast it into the shuddering sea and cried aloud:
“Cursed be the day I was born and cursed the day that first I trod this deck. Iseult, my friend, and Tristan, you, you have drunk not love alone, but love and death together.”
And Tristan said: “Well then, come Death.”
-M. Joseph Bédie, “Le Roman de Tristan et Iseult," MCM, trans. Hilaire Belloc, MCMXLV
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11. |
Molly Enthroned
04:02
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“And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed into the West, until at last on a night of rain he smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dreams, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King. Allen & Unwin, MCMLV
(Adapted from: Morrowdim - “Taur Aerlinn an Gwanath.” Wandering Songs, 2019. Howard Shore - “A Far Green Country.” The Return of the King, 2003.)
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