A To Z Blogging Challenge 2020: Q Is For ... Questing Beast!

Q is for Questing Beast... 

Arthur Rackham. Public Domain.

And I have a confession to make. I first encountered this creature in an episode of Lost In Space. Nothing wrong with that, as I know as an adult. When I was a child, I discovered that the story of Cinderella’s slipper started in ancient Egypt, not in a book or an educational magazine but in a Superboy comic(another comic told me Nero’s full name). When  my Grade 4 teacher, Mr Savage, started to tell us the story, I said, “Oh, yes, I know that!” and finished it. “Why, yes!” said Mr Savage. “How did you know that?” I suddenly found something on the floor to look at... Now? Whatever the source of information is, the information is still the same.

So, the Questing Beast and Lost In Space. An elderly knight in armour, accompanied by his small, gentle dog, arrives on the Space Family Robinson’s planet, searching for the Questing Beast, something he has been doing for a very long time. Then he discovers that the Beast is a female and decides sadly that he really can’t hunt a girl. The Beast, who speaks, realises this hunting makes him happy, so says, “You can’t catch me!” and allows him to happily chase her. 

I rather think this version must have been inspired by The Once And Future King. The first time we meet King Pellinore in that novel, he is fumbling and dropping things in the forest, while his brachet(a type of dog) is tied to a tree because its leash has gotten all tangled up. He tells the Wart(young Arthur) that hunting the Beast is the Burden of the Pellinores. (And yes, she is female.)

This may be so, but it is also Palomides who must hunt it. In Malory, it’s after Pellinore’s death. In White’s novel, it’s when Pellinore gets married. 

So, what is the Beast? It’s a creature with the head of a serpent, body of a leopard, feet of a hart and haunches of a lion. It sounds very much like a heraldic animal to me, but there you are. Interestingly, at least part of it - the spotty bit? - is based on the giraffe, which was known in the Middle Ages as a cameleopard. But I can’t imagine someone chasing a giraffe through the forest! 

The Beast makes a sound like “thirty couple of hounds questing” , which gives it the alternative name of “Beast Glatisant” (Barking Beast). 

Oddly, the first time we hear of it in Malory is not in connection to Pellinore, but when Arthur sees it in the forest while hunting. (Hunting, usually of a white hart - does seem to be the way that he - or one of his best knights - gets to encounter a strange beast) It gallops past, stops for a drink and continues on. Pellinore arrives on foot, having killed his horse chasing old Glatisant, and grabs Arthur’s horse to continue the chase, while Arthur protests that he wants the quest. Pellinore says only he or a close relative can catch it and charges off on Arthur’s horse. 

Arthur and the Beast. Public Domain.

Arthur has recently slept, unwittingly, with his half sister Morgause, begetting Mordred, and I wondered, reading it, whether there was a connection. 

It is good, though, to see one of the few quirky creatures in Arthurian romance because, despite all those visions we get of Arthurian knights slaying dragons and such, there really aren’t too many of them around, and where they do appear, it’s often in visions and dreams, as symbols. Usually, a knight encounters a lion or a serpent, mysterious but actual animals. 

I will be talking about the various creatures which do appear, whether in dreams or as part of the quest, in my Z post, under “Zoology.”  

So, if you had a quest, what critter would you like to pursue?