#Erec and Enide

[gawrkin]

The people who are with Arthur in Avalon or are in a Cave alongside him:

(Disclaimer: Not including Morgan, the other fairies and/or Merlin)

La Bataille Loquifer: Gawain, Ywain, Percival and Guinevere (Guest Star: Roland from the Charlemagne series)

Lanzelet: Lout (Loholt)

Craig-y-Ddinas: Ywain, Kay, Bedivere, Gawain, Percival, Geraint/Erec, Tristan, Culhwch, Yder and Calogrenant (Source: The Welsh Fairy Book, by Willaim Jenkyn Thomas)

Sewingshields Folklore: Guinevere

Tally:

Queen Guinevere: 2

Sir Gawain: 2

Sir Ywain: 2

Sir Percival: 2

Sir Loholt: 1

Sir Kay: 1

Sir Bedivere: 1

Sir Geraint/Erec: 1

Sir Yder/Edern ap Nudd: 1

Sir Tristan: 1

Sir Culhwch: 1

Sir Calogrenant: 1

In the end, Arthur won't be alone...

Of course, none of the later French characters - Lancelot, Bors, Galahad, Palamedes, Dinadan, etc. - made it to Avalon or the Enchanted Cave. It's the older tradition characters who have a chance.

[queer-ragnelle]

Hi L!!!!! Thoughts on (my legal wife) Guinevere and her wife, Enid, pls. 😊

THEY ARE EVERYTHING !!!!!!!!

THEY LOVE EACH OTHER!!!!!!!

I'M INCOHERENT THEY'RE JUST SO SWEET RAHHH WOMEN!!!!

[evedaser]

alright finished erec and enide. it may be harder for me to consolidate my thoughts as i’ve been reading it in much less of an obsessive haze than i did the others thus far. i also simply liked it less, but i’ll get to that. this is going to be much more pessimistic than all the others as well because im sitting in a government service office rn so im not exactly filled with excitement or anything

- i know this is the earliest of chrétien’s romances, so rather than being repetitive it’s actually establishing his patterns, but god this man. this man. every time anyone writes of a knight, they are always THE best and THE noblest. there can only be so many best and noblest knights my guy 😭 at least he does kind of acknowledge the others whom he favours and to an extent how they compare, mentioning them as equal or second to each other, or within the same class and quality.

- i opened this thinking erec was going to be such a wifeguy. the introduction to the edition im reading did rightly state the central problem of the story — that erec loves enide so greatly his knightly duties and glory begin to suffer — but he spends the entire second part of the story treating her like shit. having read how devoted he is to her from the first part, it’s hard to believe, it feels like you’re always waiting for him to drop the act and explain whatever kind of test he’s putting her through, but that part is all from enide’s perspective and no explanation ever comes, it’s so perplexing and frankly a bit disturbing.

- speaking of which i think i need to find a modern retelling of this i couldn’t stand the treatment of enide throughout this goddamn story. i love her, she’s a wonderful character and the most central a woman has been so far in the small selection of stories i have read. she’s never idle in her interactions, she’s quite strong willed and is deeply devoted, loyal, and caring for erec, for her family, and for all who rightly endear themselves to her. it’s just nice to have a character who is a normal and good person

- on a better note, the sparrow hawk competition was fucking fantastic. it was fun, interesting, and with quite a compelling antagonist as far as these things go. he was fun to hate, like a disney villain or a high school movie bully, and the length of the fight strang along the tension quite well instead of erec just instantly winning.

ok onto the bullshit

- love a man who has a good relationship with his father 🔥

- knights really do follow fucking pokémon logic. if you make eye contact you MUST do battle. what happened to “hello, how are you”. poor enide being subjected to this ridiculous culture 💀💀 some of those knights he fought were such assholes though lmao

- the thing with the giants was crrraaazyyyy someone teach these people some fucking first aid. enide didn’t even check his pulse or his breathing she just gave up!!

- FORCED MARRIAGE PLOT?????

- PERCEIVED ZOMBIE PLOT??????????

- not even gonna comment on the last part (with the joy of the court) tbh it was fun and erec was actually nice to his wife and that’s all i got for you

- on a whump note, i did appreciate that this one actually let erec be tangibly damaged by his wounds and gave him time to recover, i liked the inclusion of how weak he was. apart from erec, h o l y s h i t some of the injuries in that book. oh my god some of the injuries and deaths had me genuinely staring slack jawed at the page wdym he cut people in half or speared through their eye until their brain fell out the back what?? huh??? excuse me????

[joemerl]

Weird amount of anti-dwarfism(?) in this story.

Move over, Mordred, we've found the true Big Bad of Arthuriana.

[castle-calypse]

Have y’all heard of the tale of Erec and Enide by Chretien de Troyes? I came across it in the book Legends of Chivalry: Medieval Myths.

Very very basic recap: Erec wants to fight a big knight he saw so he follows him and stays with a poor old man who has a daughter. She’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen (obviously). Erec has to fight the big knight so he can marry her. He does and wins and marries her (nice).

But the last paragraph about this story is making me giggle so much:

“But such was Erec’s love that he lost interest in all other things, even forsaking the acts of chivalry for which he was famed. He no longer went in search of adventure or even fought in tournaments. Most days, in fact, the couple did not leave their bed until noon. Erec’s reputation was soon in tatters and people began to mock the once-proud knight behind his back, spreading rumors that he had become nothing more than a coward.”

Bro fucked off to become a wife guy. And then everyone talked shit about him. That’s so fucking funny to me I love it so much.

[dullyn]

the entire beginning of Erec and Enide being that King Arthur wants to kill a special stag (and will also have to kiss the most beautiful maiden) is so funny because it devolves so heavily from that.

the story does stick to the the common set up of most arthurian romances in that Knight X goes on a quest and somehow ends up on three sub-quests as well, running into Knights Y and Z somewhere along the way (then there’s always like minimum two maidens involved). it’s just amusing that such an adventure started with Arthur wanting to go on a hunt.

the common set up does make me happy though because i just think it’s neat that such a repeated narrative can yield so many different stories that are all so entertaining, along with being adapted so many times that there are then even more stories. plus it itches my brain in a nice way because the stories are like Ol’ Reliable.

also shoutout to Yder, son of Nut.

[oceansatedogs]

Passages from Erec and Enide I really like

[rjalker]

[ID: The meme of Padme and Anakin talking in a field, with Anakin now albeled, "Erec", and Padme labeled "Me". Erec first says calmly: "Enide, no matter what happens, no matter what you see, you must not turn back to speak to me, and must stay moving forward and never stopping for anything." Me responds, smiling, "Because you're going through an enchanted wood and that will activate a curse, right?" Erec, now staring ominously, says, "I'm now threatening to kill Enide for warning me that someone was about to attack me from a direction I couldn't see." Me says, "Oh, you're just an abusive asshole, aren't you?" End ID.]

[faggotryandtransjesterism]

whenever erec wakes up on his funeral bier and kills the count and everyone starts running and screaming about the corpse i picture it like a scooby doo chase scene. wibbldey wobbldey hijinks music and people running one direction and then immediately going the opposite way and erec is just like hey has anyone seen my horse-

[vooruitmariek]

March to Camelot #1: hunt

Sir Erec and Queen Guinevere in the woods

[chiropteracupola]

What a hard-hearted young man, hard-hearted you must be / You must have had a heart of any stone / For to say that you would murder that fair and pretty maid / When she doted the ground that you walked on.

[geraint and enid for @mortiscausa’s ’march to camelot,’ for the prompt ‘power’]

[queer-ragnelle]

Erec and Enide by Chrétien de Troyes | More quotes at Arthuriana Daily

[evedaser]

first page of erec and enide (yes i’m reading more chrétien)

arthur: i want to do this thing

gawain: my lord this thing is stupid

arthur: i know, fuck off

[joemerl]

Such an elegant, noble rationale for the married king to mack on another man's fiancée.

GOD DEMANDS that he makes out with another man's fiancée!

[pgwodewose]

Today I read Erex Saga, the Norse version of Erec and Enid, which gives us a version of Erec/Geraint who, as I said before on Discord, I didn't want to reach through the page and throttle. I recommend it. It's a good short read, only 30 pages long.

With them in mind, I drew them thus.

[dullyn]

gawain can murder erec as a treat