The Merriest Knight Read online

  The Pendragon™ fiction line presents the best of modern Arthurian literature, from reprints of long-unavailable classics of the early twentieth century to new works by today's most exciting and inventive fantasists. The titles in the series are selected for their value to both the casual reader and the devoted scholar of the rich, varied story cycle known as the Matter of Britain.

  More Titles from Green Knight

  Percival and the Presence of God

  by Jim Hunter

  Arthur, The Bear of Britain

  by Edward Frankland

  To the Chapel Perilous

  by Naomi Mitchison

  Kinsmen of the Grail

  by Dorothy James Roberts

  The Life of Sir Aglovale de Galis

  by Clemence Housman

  The Doom of Camelot

  edited by James Lowder

  Exiled from Camelot

  by Cherith Baldry

  The Arthurian Companion, Second Edition

  by Phyllis Ann Karr

  The Pagan King

  by Edison Marshall

  Forthcoming

  Legends of the Pendragon

  edited by James Lowder (November 2001)

  The Follies of Sir Harald

  by Phyllis Ann Karr (November 2001)

  Pendragon™ Fiction

  The Merriest Knight

  The Collected Arthurian Tales of Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  Edited by Mike Ashley

  Interior Art by Shane A. Holloway

  The Merriest Knight is published by Green Knight Publishing.

  This collection © 2001 by Green Knight Publishing; all rights reserved.

  Individual stories © 2001 by the Estate of Theodore Goodridge Roberts; all rights reserved. The individual copyright and publication details are found on the acknowledgements page.

  Introduction © 2001 by Mike Ashley; all rights reserved.

  Cover art and interior art © 2001 by Shane A. Holloway; all rights reserved.

  Similarities between characters in this book and persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  PendraGon is a trademark owned by Green Knight Publishing.

  Reproduction of material from within this book for purposes of personal or corporate profit, by photographic, digital, or other methods of electronic storage and retrieval, is prohibited.

  Please address questions and comments concerning this book, as well as requests for notices of new publications, by mail to Green Knight Publishing, 900 Murmansk Street, Suite 5, Oakland, CA 94607.

  Green Knight Publishing

  Publisher: Peter Corless

  Executive Editor: James Lowder

  Consulting Editor: Raymond H. Thompson

  Cover Design: William W. Connors/Moonlight Studio

  Visit our web page at: http://www.greenknight.com

  FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION

  10 987654321

  Green Knight publication GK6210, October 2001.

  ISBN 1-928999-18-2

  Printed in the United States.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  "Author's Introduction" © 2001, previously unpublished. Text courtesy University of New Brunswick, Harriet Irving Library, Archives and Special Collections.

  "A Purfle for a King" © 1950, first published in Blue Book, July 1950.

  "The Quest of the Saracen Beast" © 1950, first published in Blue Book, November 1950.

  "A Fairy's Child" © 2001, previously unpublished. Text courtesy University of New Brunswick, Harriet Irving Library, Archives and Special Collections.

  "The Madness of Sir Tristram" © 1950, first published in Blue Book, December 1950

  "A Quarrel for a Lady" © 1950, first published in Blue Book, February 1950.

  "Sir Dinadan and the Giant Taulurd" © 1951, first published in Blue Book, April 1951.

  "The Goose Girl" © 1951, first published in Blue Book, August 1951.

  "For to Achieve Your Adventure" © 1950, first published in Blue Book, October 1951.

  "Mountain Miracle" © 1951, first published in Blue Book, December 1951.

  "Quest's End" © 2001, previously unpublished. Text courtesy University of New Brunswick, Harriet Irving Library, Archives and Special Collections.

  "Young Wings Unfurling" © 1947, first published in Blue Book, October 1947.

  "Strike Hard! Bite Deep!" © 1947, first published in Blue Book, December 1947.

  "The Merlin Touch" © 1948, first published in Blue Book, April 1948, as "A Quest Must End."

  "Castle Cavanaugh" © 1948, first published in Blue Book, August 1948.

  "Revolt in the Forest" © 1949, first published in Blue Book, September 1949.

  Introduction

  It's a sad fact just how many writers are forgotten within a few years of their death, no matter how popular they were in their day. For every H. Rider Haggard or Arthur Conan Doyle there are hundreds and hundreds of authors like Jacland Marmur, Horace Annesley Vachell, Douglas Newton, Roy Norton, J. S. Fletcher, James Boyd, H. Bedford-Jones, Harold Lamb, Max Pemberton, Richard Marsh . . . oh, I could go on and on. True, some of these may be remembered by specialist collectors, and some of them may have their work resurrected and preserved by specialist small press publishers. But as a general rule I'd be very much surprised if anything like one-tenth of a percent of writers who were well known and popular in their day are still in print today or, if they are in print, remembered by anyone outside of a small circle of devotees.

  This has nothing to do with the quality of their work. It's usually because there's no one left to push and promote their books. Over time memory of them fades and they sink into oblivion. It happened with Charles Dickens, believe it or not, whose works were overlooked within twenty years of his death, until G. K. Chesterton took up the cause. At different times it has happened with Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy and Mary E. Braddon and, more recently, E. F. Benson. I tend to hope that quality will prevail in the end and at some time a good author will be remembered.

  The same applies to Theodore Goodridge Roberts. In his day, he and his elder brother, Charles G. D. Roberts, were extremely popular. They contributed to most of the popular magazines and their books were regularly in print.

  Although Theodore's work was often overshadowed by that of his more famous—and more prolific—brother, it was still much in demand. (Charles was even knighted in 1935.) Both had careers lasting for more than fifty years. Both produced books that were well received and highly collected. Charles' work tended to veer toward nature. Theodore also loved the wide open spaces and backwoods of Canada, and used them as the backdrop for his rousing historical romances and adventure novels, somewhat in the style of James Fenimore Cooper. Yet today Theodore's tales are scarcely known. The renowned Canadian editor and anthologist John Robert Colombo has said: "Roberts has yet to receive any serious consideration as a writer of novels, stories and poems in his native Canada."

  Maybe his time is about to come. Just in the last couple of years a volume of Theodore's best poetry, That Far River, was compiled by Martin Ware and published by Canadian Poetry Press. Now, for the first time, his Arthurian stories are being collected together in one book.

  Theodore was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on July 7th, 1877. His father, George Goodridge Roberts, was the rector of Christ Church Parish Church. Theodore was the youngest surviving child of six—a younger sister, Fanny, died in infancy. His eldest brother, Charles, was already seventeen and had entered the University of New Brunswick, where he would graduate with honors in 1879. Young Theodore reveled in the name of George Edward Theodore Goodridge Roberts, but he later abandoned the first two names and became known colloquially as "Thede" to his friends. />
  The literary talent in the family soon manifested itself in Theodore. He later told Blue Book that he was "rhyming industriously before he could write." The Independent, where his elder brother, William, was the literary editor, bought a set of his verses when he was fourteen. Together with works by his brothers, and his sister Elizabeth, some of Theodore's poems were assembled in Northland Lyrics, published in 1899. It was the first of what would be more than thirty books to carry his name.

  Although he also attended the University of New Brunswick, he was too full of the joys of life. He abandoned study after just a few weeks and headed for New York in November 1897. By April 1898 he was a war correspondent covering the revolution in Cuba for The Independent

  He founded his own Newfoundland Magazine in 1900, which he edited for three years, collecting together features and articles about local life and history, including his stories of the Beothuk Indians, some of which formed the basis for Red Feathers (1907). Norah Story in The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature (1967) refers to Roberts' "gift for describing exotic scenes and his familiarity with the attitudes and speech patterns of the coast-dwellers of Newfoundland." Roberts' work dramatically reflects both the beauty and the savage intensity of the Newfoundland and Labrador territory.

  In 1902, Roberts launched a new magazine, Kit-Bag. It saw only three issues, and Roberts' own serial, "The Red Haggard," appeared there, but remained unfinished. The serial was his first venture into Arthurian territory. It retold the adventures of Bertram de Sallas. Dinadan appears in the story as Bertram's companion and guide.

  Roberts married in November 1903 and needed to boost his income. He had started to sell stories to the magazines, especially Munsey's, and his first solo book, Hemming, the Adventurer was published in 1904. It was followed byBrothers of Peril (1905), a stirring adventure story set in old Newfoundland. Then came Red Feathers (1907), one of his most lasting achievements. It is set long ago, in the early days of the Beothuk Indians, and draws upon their tales and legends. It had a considerable impact and has been reprinted several times, most recently in 1976. Roberts later brought together another collection of Indian tales as Flying Plover, His Stories (1909).

  Books followed at the rate of one or two a year, even though Roberts and his wife were traveling extensively and raising four children. Roberts served in the Canadian army in France and England during the First World War and he used these experiences not only for future stories, but for Thirty Canadian V.C.s (1918). Roberts' most memorable books were those set in the Canadian backwoods, many of them written for young adults. These include Tom Akerley(1923) and Red Pirogue (1924). He also produced the rousing historical novel The Golden Highlander (1929), telling the adventures of Alastair MacIver.

  Throughout these years he continued to contribute poetry to many magazines and later collected some as The Leather Bottle (1934). He also compiled a detailed study of the lives of United Empire loyalists and their descendants,Loyalists (1937). Roberts was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature by the University of New Brunswick in 1931.

  Now and again Roberts' thoughts would return to Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. In 1928, he wrote a humorous story titled "Knight-Sweats," but it was rejected by all the major magazines, even when revised as "After Sir Thomas Mallory." Eventually he reworked parts of it into his regular "Under the Sun" column for the daily paper The Telegraph Journal during January 1930. These stories usually built upon a subject Roberts had been exploring in the column, starting with military glory. Roberts retold the traditional story of King Mark, Sir Palomides, and La Beale Isoud, and developed a new one featuring Sir Driant and Cullumbar. A third story would later be reworked as "A Quarrel for a Lady," the first of the Dinadan stories for Blue Book (February 1950).

  Sir Dinadan may not be the first knight to spring to mind when thinking of the Round Table. He is not in the forefront, as are Sir Lancelot or Sir Gawain or Sir Percival, or even Dinadan's close friend, Sir Tristram. His main appearance in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur is in Book X, where we find him teasing King Mark of Cornwall and Sir Lamorak, and generally causing mischief. His attitude later angered Sir Agravaine and Sir Mordred and he remained their enemy.

  Dinadan was something of a troubadour, though apparently not a good one, as Malory describes Dinadan's ballad about King Mark as "the worst lay that ever harper sang." Generally Dinadan was good-natured and sensible, though his dislike of women meant he was never to win fair lady. He was cautious about entering into a fight until he was certain it was in the right cause, and that he had a good chance of winning. He wasn't one for heroics, but for a more reasoned approach. On more than one occasion he helped Tristram out of problems that Tristram's lack of tact had caused.

  All this made Dinadan the ideal character for Roberts to choose to take a wry and satirical look at the Arthurian world. While there is plenty of action in Roberts' stories, these aren't blood-and-thunder adventure stories. They are clever and sophisticated explorations of the Arthurian world as seen through the eyes of a quick-witted, ingenious, and literary man. In them we see both the fun and the fear of these Dark Ages.

  Roberts explained his fascination with Dinadan in his "Under the Sun" column:

  A cynic, Sir Dinadan! But that was not all. The charm of his character and wit has not received its just recognition. To my mind he was one of the best, and by far the most attractive, of all the knights of the Round Table. He was loved by all good knights, despite his somewhat acrid humor.

  In 1930 Roberts started another short-lived, magazine, Acadie, published in Fredericton. Several Arthurian characters, including Dinadan, appeared in the magazine as filler paragraphs and Roberts even hid behind the name "Kay Pendragon" as one of the writers. At the same time, Roberts was reworking his "Under the Sun" columns for a book, revising the Arthurian stories, but in the end nothing came of this.

  Roberts' work appealed to Donald Kennicott, the editor of Blue Book. Kennicott had edited the magazine since 1929 and worked as an assistant editor for many years previously. Although, like Roberts, he has become forgotten today, Kennicott was well respected in his day and was regarded as one of the great magazine editors. He made Blue Book the leading pulp adventure magazine of the 1930s and 1940s.

  Roberts had sold occasionally to Blue Book over the years and more recently had appeared with several stories recreating the Arthurian world, starting with "Young Wings Unfurling" (October 1947) and including a sequence featuring the young knight Dennys ap Rhys and his adventures with King Torrice and the amnesiac knight dubbed Sir Lorn. All of these stories are included in this book.

  Roberts must then have posed the idea of a further series. Kennicott could see the fun that could be had with the character of Sir Dinadan and encouraged Roberts to develop it. The result was a series of eight stories that appeared inBlue Book over the next two years. In fact, Roberts submitted a ninth story, "Daggers in Her Garters," but by that time Kennicott was no longer editor of Blue Book, having stepped down in January 1952. The publishers changed Blue Book to a more action-oriented men's magazine. More sophisticated stories like Roberts' no longer fitted the format. "Daggers in her Garters" was not published and Roberts chose not to submit the final story, "Quest's End," to the magazine.

  Instead, he reworked the stories to appear as a book and even started a new novel about Dinadan. Alas, time was catching up with Roberts. He died on February 24th, 1953 at Digby, Nova Scotia, aged seventy-five. He was buried in the family plot at Fredericton, New Brunswick.

  Roberts was constantly re-drafting his stories, and not all versions survive. It is difficult, therefore, to be clear what was his preferred version of the Dinadan stories. In preparing the stories for publication I have used the Blue Bookversions as the primary texts and set them out in accord with their internal sequence of events, which does not follow their published sequence. In revising these same stories for potential book publication, Roberts must have made significant changes as he introduced Dinadan in "A
Fairy's Child," though that text conflicts with the opening of "A Purfle for a King" and the events at the start of "The Quest of the Saracen Beast." With minor revision, however, it is possible to fit "A Fairy's Child" into the sequence.

  It is unfortunate that the text for "A Dagger in Her Garters" is lost. From the surviving text of "Quest's End" we know that "A Dagger in Her Garters" saw Dinadan best the knight Sir Breuse Sans Pite and win his wealth, thus enabling him to retire. In the absence of that episode, I have revised the beginning of "Quest's End" slightly for continuity.

  In addition to the Dinadan stories, Roberts wrote several others with Arthurian settings. Three of these—"The Merlin Touch," "Castle Cavanaugh," and "Strike Hard! Bite Deep!"—were really episodes of a short novel, Spur and the Prize. I have added a fourth story, "Young Wings Unfurling," to fit under this generic title to form the main second part of this book.

  Finally, in "Revolt in the Forest," Roberts produced a finale to the Arthurian stories with an episode set at the time of the Norman Conquest, showing the residual power of the legend. This serves as a fitting conclusion to the current collection in the section titled "Legend's End."

  This book could not have been finalized without the help of several people. I must thank John Robert Colombo and Raymond H. Thompson for their help and advice on this project; Mary Flagg, archivist at the University of New Brunswick, for unearthing long-buried documents; and Arthurian devotee Larry Mendelsburg for securing a readable copy of one of the stories. I must pay special thanks to Linda Hansen, Electronic Services Librarian at the University of New Brunswick. Linda has spent two years studying the Roberts papers and was extremely helpful in sharing with me the outcome of her researches and alerting me to the full extent of his Arthurian writings. Without her help, this book would not be as complete as it is.