If you haven’t read Le Morte d’Arthur you really must, because Thomas Mallory was a fascinating dude and his stories–many of which inspired the versions of Arthurian legends we’re familiar with today–are just completely bonkers.
Lancelot has a habit of finding himself in the wrong lady’s boudoir. One day he randomly wanders into a pavilion, sees a bed, and decides to sleep in it, because Lancelot is to sleeping in random beds as Gawain is to dares from strange men. Turns out the bed belongs to a lady, because this happens:
THEN within an hour there came the knight to whom the pavilion ought, and he weened that his leman had lain in that bed, and so he laid him down beside Sir Launcelot, and took him in his arms and began to kiss him. And when Sir Launcelot felt a rough beard kissing him, he started out of the bed lightly, and the other knight after him, and either of them gat their swords in their hands, and out at the pavilion door went the knight of the pavilion, and Sir Launcelot followed him, and there by a little slake Sir Launcelot wounded him sore, nigh unto the death. (Source)
Why did Lancelot not assume that the random bed in the middle of the forest belonged to somebody? Why did the other knight not notice that his lady was a dude for so long? Does Lancelot have narcolepsy? Perhaps he should consider bringing a sleeping bag on his next solitary forest adventure. For real, he is always snoozing in the worst possible place.
Source. I may do a whole post on Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations of Morte D’Arthur, because they are also hilariously weird and full of penises.
