Prince Arthur and Sir Guyon captured the wicked woman
Acrasia. These two men would often go on adventures with each other and one day
they saw a Knight on a horse. Sir Guyon attacks the Knight and gets knocked off
his horse for the first time ever. To his surprise, it is a woman underneath
the Knight’s armor, Princess Britomart. They learn that she is searching for
Artegall, a Knight that she saw an image of in a magic mirror. Princess
Britomart also carried a magical spear, so it was impossible to defeat her.
Britomart then joins Arthur and Guyon on their adventures.
The trio rides into a forest and sees a woman on a pony
being chased by a man. Arthur and Guyon ride off to save the woman and
Britomart continues to ride through the forest and when she exits it she sees
six Knights fighting just a single Knight. Britomart saves the Knight being
attacked and while they are all talking afterwards she learns that they six
Knights were ordered by a lady from the nearby castle to bring her any man
traveling without a lady. If a traveler does have a lady, he is supposed to
give her up or fight for her, which is what the Knight that had just been saved
was doing. Britomart then attacks the six Knights and defeats them with her
magical spear, which gets her invited into the castle to claim the lady.
The Lady of Delight is the lady of this castle and does not
yet know that Britomart is woman. The Lady of Delight is determined to get
Britomart, who she thinks is a man, to stay in her castle. Once asleep, the
Lady attacks Britomart with her Knights, but the Knight that Britomart had
previously saved came to her rescue and defeated the Lady of Delight and her
Knights. Britomart and the Knight she saved then left the castle together.
While the two are on their journey, Britomart tells the
Knight that she is in search of Sir Artegall and he tells her everything that
he knows about Artegall. We are then given more detail about the magic mirror
that Britomart saw Artegall in and we learn that his image appeared after she
asked who her husband would be.
We are then given another flashback to after Britomart
looked into the magic mirror. She was stricken with grief and depression
because she wanted to see the image of Artegall again. Britomart’s nurse takes
her to find Merlin, the magician who created the mirror. Merlin then tells the
ladies about the future of Britomart, in which she will fight battles with
Artegall and help him win the crown of his homeland.
Still in the flashback, Britomart and the nurse decide to
disguise themselves in armor and go in search of Artegall. The women then steal
some armor during the night as well as a spear and these are the items that
Britomart still wears. They escaped on their horses and then began their
journey for the search of Artegall.
One day (not sure if we’re still in a flashback) Britomart
approached a castle, which belonged to Churl Malbecco, and asked him for entry.
He would not let her, or anyone else in. Britomart and her nurse then go to a
shed meant for animals to stay, but they find other Knights there. After a
short skirmish, they all agree to go burn down the castle of Churl Malbecco. He
lets them in and invites them to dinner and then Britomart and her nurse leave
the next morning along with one of the Knights.
After leaving the castle they see a giant chasing a boy. They
chase off the giant and then enter the woods to search for it, but never find
it. The Knight then begins to cry and explains that his wife has been captured
and is in a dungeon. Britomart says that she will help him and they go to the
castle where the wife is located. The castle is shrouded in fire but Britomart
walks straight through it with he shield. Britomart then goes into the castle
and begins to search for the wife, but can’t find her.
While Britomart is in the castle lots of strange things
happen, from extreme wind to trumpet sounds. Then a huge amount of people enter
the castle from a strange room, all with strange names such as Spite, Cruelty,
Fear, and Hope. After they paraded around the castle a little bit they all
retreated back to the room they came from.
After the door closed, Britomart then went over and tried to
enter the room that everyone had come from. She waited until midnight the next
day and the door opened once again and saw an empty room except a lady chained
to a pillar and the enchanter that had captured her. Britomart then gets the
enchanter to reverse his charms on the lady. Britomart takes the lady out of
the castle to see her husband but both her husband and Britomart’s nurse are
gone. We then learn that the Knight and the nurse thought Britomart was dead so
they left to search for help.
Strange Meetings
Britomart and the wife start searching for the Knight and the
nurse. On their journey they see two knights riding towards them escorted by
two very evil women. One of the Knights with the two women was at the shed when
Britomart fought and defeated them all. They all get into a fight and
eventually the Knight and the nurse show up to help. For some reason the Knight
gets mad at the nurse and almost kills her, but doesn’t.
The story then fast-forwards to a tournament with knights
competing, where one of the competitors is Sir Artegall. Britomart also
competes in the games and it is determined that she should be awarded the
fairest lady for her valor.
Next they tried to decide which competitor has the fairest
lady, which then gets awarded the golden girdle. The knight Blandamour is
awarded this because he has the evil Snowy Lady who is faking to be Lady
Florimell. All the knights begin to skirmish again over nonsense and Britomart
takes the wife to go find Artegall, who she did not know that she just fought.
The story then switches to the knight, whose wife is with
Britomart and the nurse. On their journey they happen upon a house that has
blacksmiths working in it. They sleep in the house for a while and then venture
onward.
Then the knight sees another knight and approaches him. The
other knight is Artegall but he does not know this. Artegall explains that he
was just disgraced by another knight at a tournament, who he does not know is
Britomart. They two men agree to travel together and I’m assuming the nurse is
still with them. A while later they see two knights, who happen to be Britomart
and the knight’s wife. They begin to fight and Britomart’s helmet gets knocked
off and Artegall sees that the knight he was envious of is actually a woman.
They all realize who each other is and the knight that had
been traveling with Artegall asks where his wife went. Britomart does not know
but vows to help find her. They all journey together and Britomart and Artegall
begin to fall in love. We never learn if
they find the wife or not and story just ends, so we assume they lived happily
ever after.
Jeremy, I am SO GLAD you chose this unit. I could not believe my good luck in finding this prose version of Spenser's amazing poem. I see from your notes that the flashback aspects of it are kind of confusing, so I will try to add some notes to this one before people get here next week. I wanted to give people who already know the standard King-Arthur-type literature something unfamiliar and new to read, and it seemed like Britomart would be perfect! :-)
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