The death of Gawain
Jul. 3rd, 2011 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhian_crockettAll I seem to be writing lately is microfiction... and some truly terrible poetry. You can have the microfiction; I'll keep the poetry.
The title is pretty descriptive of what the story is about, but you have to already be aware of the basic story of the Arthurian canon, and that Ragnelle is Gawain's wife. (One of them, anyway, depending on which source you're reading. She's the Loathly Lady of The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle and The Marriage of Sir Gawain. He also marries Lady Florie in a couple of other versions, including Wigalois: The Knight of Fortune's Wheel, but I've never connected with Florie like I do with Ragnelle.)
I'll add a Flattr link to this later, but my experiment with that isn't going well -- partly because I haven't done nearly enough to get traffic here, I know -- and I'm pretty sure no one would use it anyway! Added a Flattr button now!
Ragnelle Accuses Arthur
How can you, who never bowed to any man, have been so lacking in pride? You bowed at last to the inevitable, you thought, but you only bowed to a carrion crow. I saw the look in your eyes when his brothers fell to Lancelot's sword. You saw the end, and you gave him to it. How many men did you give up on Merlin's word alone? That necromancer, that vulture -- he never meant you to rebuild Britain and make it great. He made weaknesses in its foundation, in you, and now he waits to feed on the corpse of a great thing. The heart of that tree is hollow and rotting.
He told you how it would happen, and you did not say no.
Yet a thing only acts according to its nature. I cannot blame him. It is you who turned aside, you who bowed your head, you who washed your hands of it. You let my husband die, and left his body on the forsaken shore as you rode to your own death. The carrion bird asked for the body of my love, but you are the one who delivered it, who could have commanded him with only a flicker of a look.
You gave Britain over as easily.
It's too late to curse you, but Arthur, I will watch you fall.
Ragnelle Accuses Arthur by Rhian Crockett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The title is pretty descriptive of what the story is about, but you have to already be aware of the basic story of the Arthurian canon, and that Ragnelle is Gawain's wife. (One of them, anyway, depending on which source you're reading. She's the Loathly Lady of The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle and The Marriage of Sir Gawain. He also marries Lady Florie in a couple of other versions, including Wigalois: The Knight of Fortune's Wheel, but I've never connected with Florie like I do with Ragnelle.)
Ragnelle Accuses Arthur
How can you, who never bowed to any man, have been so lacking in pride? You bowed at last to the inevitable, you thought, but you only bowed to a carrion crow. I saw the look in your eyes when his brothers fell to Lancelot's sword. You saw the end, and you gave him to it. How many men did you give up on Merlin's word alone? That necromancer, that vulture -- he never meant you to rebuild Britain and make it great. He made weaknesses in its foundation, in you, and now he waits to feed on the corpse of a great thing. The heart of that tree is hollow and rotting.
He told you how it would happen, and you did not say no.
Yet a thing only acts according to its nature. I cannot blame him. It is you who turned aside, you who bowed your head, you who washed your hands of it. You let my husband die, and left his body on the forsaken shore as you rode to your own death. The carrion bird asked for the body of my love, but you are the one who delivered it, who could have commanded him with only a flicker of a look.
You gave Britain over as easily.
It's too late to curse you, but Arthur, I will watch you fall.
Ragnelle Accuses Arthur by Rhian Crockett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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Date: 2011-07-04 07:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-05 11:51 am (UTC)