The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
Children's literature
"I should have a great delight in fighting you," answered Le Beau
Disconus, "for you say a grievous thing, that there is no woman so
fair as your lady. I have in this town one fairer, and therefore I
shall take your gerfalcon and give it to Arthur the king."
"Gentle knight," said Giffroun, "how shall we prove which of the two be
fairer?"
"Here in Kardevyle city," said Le Beau Disconus, "they shall both be
set in the market-place where all men may look on them. If my lady be
not esteemed so fair as yours, I will fight with you to win the
gerfalcon."
"All this I grant," said Sir Giffroun. "This day shall it be done."
And he held up his glove for a proof.
Sir Le Beau Disconus rode to his lodging, and bade maid Elene put on
her seemliest robes. Then he set her on a dappled palfrey, and they
rode forth to the market-place. Presently came also Sir Giffroun
riding, with his lady and two squires. And the lady was so lovely
that no man could describe her. All, young and old, judged that she
was fairer than Elene; she was as sweet as a rose in an arbour, and
Elene seemed but a laundry-maid beside her.
Then said Sir Giffroun, "Sir Le Beau Disconus, you have lost the
gerfalcon."
"Nay," said Le Beau Disconus, "we will joust for it. If you bear me
down, take my head and the falcon; and if I bear you down, the falcon
shall go with me."
They rode to the lists, and many people with them. At the first course
each smote the other on the shield, so that their lances were broken;
and the sound of their onset was as thunder. Sir Giffroun called for a
lance that would not break. "This young knight is as firm in his
saddle as a stone in the castle wall," quoth he. "But were he as bold
a warrior as Alexander or Arthur, Launcelot or Percevale, I will shake
him out over his horse's crupper."
Together they charged again. Le Beau Disconus smote Giffroun's shield
from his arm at the shock: never yet had man been seen to joust so
stoutly. Giffroun, like a madman, struck furiously back at him, but Le
Beau Disconus sat so firm that Giffroun was thrown, horse and all, and
broke his leg.
All men said that Giffroun had lost the white gerfalcon; and they bore
him into the town upon his shield. But Le Beau Disconus sent the white
gerfalcon to King Arthur for a gift, and the king sent him a hundred
pounds' weight of florins. And thereafter he feasted forty days in
Kardevyle.
At the end of this feasting, Le Beau Disconus and maid Elene took
their leave of Kardevyle, and rode towards Synadown. As they were
riding, they heard horns blowing hard under a hill, and the noise of
hounds giving tongue in the vale. "To tell truth," said the dwarf
Teondelayn, "I know that horn well. One Sir Otes de Lyle blows it; he
served my lady some while, but in great peril fled into Wirral."
As they rode talking, a little hound came running across their way;
never man saw hound so gay; it was of all colours of flowers that
bloom between May and midsummer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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