23 DECEMBER 2021

THE KNIGHTS WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL · PART IV

‘Feast and be merry!’ King Arthur had declared. ‘ Have no fear! It is true, no wonderous deed had yet reared its head - but I’ve faith one should find us, if we do not look too hard! By God’s grace, some wonder shall come to us here in this hall!’
Not least, he thought, the great and golden wonders of the gifts which were coming from the Tower, and which would be liberally distributed to all who shared his Table this Christmas Day!
But as he smiled on the table, on the hall and all his gathered guests, Sir Kay came to his side, and whispered in his ear; and his face changed all at once from cheer to consternation...

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Welcome to the 2021 Christmas Special! In this set of episodes, we return once again to the Christmas Court of King Arthur at Camelot. The Christmas Specials tell of the custom of King Arthur's Christmas Feast, where those in attendance must bring stories of marvellous wonders and great deeds, and often, marvels and deeds come to the very hall itself!

Motto

The motto in the illustration for this episode reads Amor est pretiosior auro, which translates as 'Love is more precious than gold.'

The Resourceful Burglers

The conclusion of our cycle of Christmas stories adapts a tale known as The Resourceful Burglers, and found in Dolopathos (Concerning the King and the Seven Sages) by the Cistercian monk Johannes de Alta Silva, an early European version of The Seven Sages. It traced its origins back further to the ancient world: the Greek hisorian Heretodus heard a version of the tale in Egypt.

Not originally a Christmas story or an Arthurian one, it tells the tale of two Spendthrift Knights, father and son, who steal from their Sovereign's treasure tower to fund the lavish lifestyle expected of a high-rising knight and member of the aristocracy. Noticing some of the parallels with the themes and context of the Sir Cleges tale, we hit upon the idea of turning The Resourceful Burglers into a kind of sequel to Sir Cleges, casting the father and son from that story in the same roles, and playing upon the generational aspects of those stories.

After adding the story of the Eagle & the Wren to the cycle, I was pleased to note further parallels between the trickster Wren and the cunning of the 'Resourceful' burgler. From here it was easy to draw an explicit comparison between the mistreatment of the father's body and the body or effigy of the Wren. The further icing on the cake was hearing 'The Hunting of the Wren' song by Lankum, performed by Finnegan Tui, and successfully licensing the use of the song on the podcast.

The effect of the over-all story is to set up conflicting moral themes and currents, as the story about the ostensibly 'virtuous' Sir Cleges introduces and reveals the troubling and potentially hypocritical pressures of the chivalric demand for 'liberality', which becomes the pursuit of status which his son falls victim to in our telling of The Resourceful Burglers; meanwhile, a comparison can also be drawn between the trickster-like behaviour of the Wren and the knightly thieves, who use their wiles to try and play the system dominated by more powerful and wealthy players.

Though King Arthur's court is cloaked in the language of festive generosity and 'gift-giving', his true status as imperial monarch, who gains this 'treasure' through taxation, tribute and outright plunder, is never lost on us: as Arthur pursues the 'traitor' or 'wren' in the midst of his own court, and Merlin advises increasingly dark and cruel methods of exposing him, the mask slips. - Rick

The moral ambiguity is compounded by spiritual and theological ones, as the son, acknowledging his morally compromised life, is able to hold only to his love for his father as a moral compass, explicity dividing his remaining time on Earth between the emissaries of God and the Devil in exchange for the chance to redeem his father. The prayer before the altar and the supernatural gifting of the white and black armour is another original twist given to the tale here, and not present in the original story. As King Arthur contemplates the thief's 'success', he dwells in the end on the meaning of the Christ story: the birth of the Saviour as a torch of hope that fell into a damned world. The words which he speaks are taken from the Wisdom of Solomon and from a12th Century prayer for Grace:

14 For while gentle silence enveloped all things,
and night in its swift course was now half gone,
15 thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne,
into the midst of the land that was doomed,
a stern warrior

16 carrying the sharp sword of thy authentic command,
and stood and filled all things with death,
and touched heaven while standing on the earth.

Wisdom 18:14-16

For Grace

O Lord Jesus,
grant us your grace and give us time for repentance.
We want to keep your commandments and do your bidding,
choose the better part and no longer follow evil.
Give us your strength to do this,
O loving Savior,
for your own name’s sake. Amen.

- from Prayers of the Middle Ages, edited by J. Manning Potts, 1954.

The spiritual mix of light and dark continues here, as the words Arthur uses apparently to invoke the light of Christ are actually taken from passages in which God sent the Angel of Death amongst the Egyptians to take their firstborn. In the end, the son rides away into the night, into the moral and spiritual limbo it represents, leaving us with Finnegan Tui's haunting rendition of Lankum's 'The Hunting of the Wren' to contemplate.

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SOURCE MATERIAL

Texts
"The Resourceful Burglers" in Medieval Tales and Stories: 108 Prose Narratives of the Middle Ages, Selected and Trans. Stanley Appelbaum (New York, 200), pp. 26-31

Research Sources
"Seven Sages of Greece." on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Nov. 2021. Web. 12 Dec. 2021.

EPISODE CREDITS

Stories interpreted and performed by Rick Scott.
Sound editing, audio design and original illustrations by Rick Scott.
Lore & Legend Series Theme composed and performed by Robert Bentall.
Original incidental music and chords also by Robert Bentall.

Podcast hosting by Anchor. Video and audiogram creation using Headliner.

AUDIO CREDITS

“Hunting The Wren” performed by Finnegan Tui

Written by Ian Lynch, John Murphy, Radie Peat, Cormac Dermody, Darragh Lynch

Published by Beggars Music Limited

Courtesy of Finnegan Tui

Finnegan Tui
https://www.instagram.com/finnegantui

https://www.tiktok.com/@finnegantui

https://twitter.com/FinneganTui

https://www.youtube.com/c/FinneganTui

https://www.facebook.com/FinneganTui

Lankum

http://lankumdublin.com/

https://lankum.bandcamp.com/

https://twitter.com/LankumDublin

Beggar Group Ltd.

https://www.beggars.com/

'Christmas Day' by Derek Fiechter on Album: Winter Wonderland

'Winter Festival' by Brandon & Derek Fiechter on Album: Christmas Land

'The Black Knight' by Brandon & Derek Fiechter on Album: Medieval Times

'Kitchen Hearth' by Brandon Fiechter on Album: Medieval Times

'The Dark Wanderer' by Brandon Fiechter on Album: Winter Whisperers

'King of the Pixies' by Brandon & Derek Fiechter on Album: Treefolk

Brandon & Derek Feichter Music on:

Bandcamp: https://dbfiechter.bandcamp.com/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/01Er12nK5rrnHx8usFPJAs?si=nPVsmjcvRvWoymTBQXZPLw

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjMZjGhrFq_4llVS_x2XJ_w

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'The Tree of Gold (Broceliande Forest)' by Caleb Henessey on Album: Pendragon

'The Empty Seat at the Round Table' by Caleb Henessey on Album: Pendragon

Caleb Hennessy Compositions on:

Bandcamp: https://calebhennessy.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calebhennessyscompositions

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/slavetofreedom216/videos

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Additional incidental music, background ambience and sound effects by multiple authors sourced from Freesound.org.

See below for the full list of audio files and attribution credits for the 2021 Halloween Special Episodes:

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11896206_1155901677757253_74058739797073

RICK SCOTT
STORYTELLER

THE KNIGHTS WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS

LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE ON YOUR PLATFORM

SOURCE MATERIAL

Texts "The Resourceful Burglers" in Medieval Tales and Stories: 108 Prose Narratives of the Middle Ages, Selected and Trans. Stanley Appelbaum (New York, 200), pp. 26-31 Research Sources "Seven Sages of Greece." on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Nov. 2021. Web. 12 Dec. 2021.

EPISODE CREDITS

​

Stories interpreted and performed by Rick Scott. Sound editing, audio design and original illustrations by Rick Scott. Lore & Legend Series Theme composed and performed by Robert Bentall. Original incidental music and chords also by Robert Bentall.

Podcast hosting by Anchor. Video and audiogram creation using Headliner.

​

|

|

Additional incidental music, background ambience and sound effects by multiple authors sourced from Freesound.org.

​

See below for the full list of audio files and attribution credits for the 2021 Halloween Special Episodes:

​

Texts
"The Resourceful Burglers" in Medieval Tales and Stories: 108 Prose Narratives of the Middle Ages, Selected and Trans. Stanley Appelbaum (New York, 200), pp. 26-31

Research Sources
"Seven Sages of Greece." on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Nov. 2021. Web. 12 Dec. 2021.

Stories interpreted and performed by Rick Scott.
Sound editing, audio design and original illustrations by Rick Scott.
Lore & Legend Series Theme composed and performed by Robert Bentall.
Original incidental music and chords also by Robert Bentall.