The Faerie Footman and the Drinking Horn

This week: when noblemen ruin perfectly good vis sources for no reason.

The recording used in this episode was released into the public domain through LibriVox. Thanks again to all the LibriVoxians!

Once upon a time a knight was riding in the country beyond Gloucester and came to a forest abounding and boars stags and every kind of wild beasts. Now in a grove of this forest there was a little mount rising in a point to the height of a man on which knights and other hunters we reused to ascend when fatigued with heat and thirst to seek some relief. The nature of the place – for it is a fairy place – is such the whoever ascends the mound must leave his companions and go quite alone. As a knight rode in the wood and came nigh this very knoll he met with a woodcutter and questioned him about it.

He must go to there alone the woodcutter told him and say as of speaking to some other person “I thirst”. Immediately there would appear a cup bearer in a rich crimson dress with a shining face, bearing in his stretched out hand a large horn adorned with gold and gems, such as was the custom among the most ancient English. The cup was full of nectar of an unknown but most delicious flavor, and when it was drunk, all inweariness fled from those who drank of it, so that they became ready to toil anew, instead of being tired from having toiled. Moreover when the nectar was drunk the cup bearer offered a towel to the drinker to wipe his mouth with and then having done this, he waited neither for a silver penny for his services nor for any question to be asked. The knight laughed to himself when he heard this. Who, thought he, would be fool enough, having within his grasp such a drinking horn, ever to let it go again from him?

Later that very same day as he rode back, hot and tired and thirsty from his hunting, he bethought him of the fairy knoll and the fairy horn. Sending away his followers he repaired thither and alone and did as the woodcutter had told him. He ascended the little hill and said in a bold voice: “I thirst!” Instantly there appeared, as the woodcutter had foretold, a cup bearer in a crimson dress bearing in his hand a drinking horn. The horn was virtually beset with precious gems and the knight was filled with envy at the sight of it.

No sooner had he seized upon it and tasted of its delicious nectar than he determined to make off with the horn. So having gotten the horn and drunk of it every drop, instead of returning it to the cupbearer – as in good manners he should have done – he stepped down from the knoll and rudely made off with it in his hand.

But learn what fate overtook this knight. The good Earl of Gloucester, standing on the ferry knoll when he heard of the wicked knight had destroyed the kind custom of the horn, attacked the robber in his stronghold and forthright slew him, and carried off the horn. But, alas, the Earl did not return it to the fairy cupbearer, but gave it to his master and Lord ,King Henry the Elder. Since then you may stand all day at the fairy knoll and many times cry “I thirst!” but you may not taste of the fairy horn.

Thanks to Ruth Logano for the reading.

One of the limits of magic, in Ars Magica, is that magicians become fatigued while casting spells and cannot use magic to repair their own fatigue. The best they can do is use magic to shift their fatigue to other, nearby people. This drinking horn, however, appears to cure fatigue, at least when used in the correct ritual context. Can magi duplicate this effect?

Can Magi start the custom again and then build their covenant around this hill, so when they become fatigued (for example during a siege) they just run to the hill, shout that they are thirsty, have a drink and begin combat anew?

Which King Henry this story refers to isn’t clear. With regard to the Earl of Gloucester, in the Ars Magica period the Earldom of Gloucester has had a bit of churn. Its holder from 1184 was Isabel of Gloucester (the daughter of the previous Earl). She married and the position of earl was given to her husband. Then she was widowed and remarried: it was given to her second husband. He died, and she held it in her own right for about a year, then King John gave it to her nephew after her death.

Gilbert de Clare is the Earl of Gloucester in 1220. He’s also the Earl of Hartford so I’m not sure how much time he spends in his Gloucester demesnes. He’s of interests with regard to the Cornish material that we’ve been developing on this podcast. His wife (who is another Isabel) went on to marry Richard Plantagenet, the Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans.

De Clare was an odd one. He was on the side of Prince Louie of France when he nipped over in 1215, claimed the English crown, and then headed back to France claiming that he had never claimed the English crown. During that war de Clare was captured by William Marshall, who was fighting on behalf of King John. Indeed William Marshall is the reason we now call field marshals that: the rank is named after him. De Clare must have been a pretty cunning one, because the Isabel I just mentioned is William Marshall’s daughter. He became part of the extended cluster of William Marshall’s sons and sons-in-law which controlled the Welsh border. These were the Marcher Lords who could, in their own areas, defy the King.

If the whole story is moved into the Ars Magica period, presumably is held by King Henry III in one of his treasuries. Storyguides wishing to use the Fair Maid of Brittany material about Corfe Castle in “Tales of Mythic Europe” may find it convenient for the horn to be stored there: your saga may vary .