The Tryst: a modern folktale
by Benjamin Parsons
Copyright 2011 Benjamin Parsons
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If you mention the name Joseph Lanval in certain Westcountry pubs, you’ll raise a kind of roar of approbation from the patrons of the older generation, and be regaled with reminiscences. Lanval is still remembered and talked about, and many tales circulate to this day of his exploits and adventures, though I suppose he must have died many years ago.
By profession he was a showman, conjurer, tumbler, ringmaster and general entertainer, and when he was a little past middle age took advantage of the vogue then current for historical re-enactments, and devised a sort of medieval fair that would tour the country during the summer, camp in the grounds of ruined castles or abbeys, and woo the crowds with displays of pageantry, jousting, archery and swordplay, along with quantities of traditional cider, toffee apples, ice cream, candyfloss and pasties.
Lanval knew how to delight and amaze the rabble well enough, and these little festivals were perennially popular. He would appear in many a medieval guise, sometimes a knight, sometimes a jester, and often (the childrens’ favourite) as a wizard. Dressed up, he would eat fire, juggle, dance, sing and ride a horse while standing on one leg; and who would not delight to look at his crazy figure, with his long beard tied in ribbons, and his big clear eyes winking and rolling, and his long fingers waving and fluttering?
His most famous stunt, however, was always reserved for the end of the day, as the fantastic tailpiece to send everybody home in awe.
One of Lanval’s troupe was a young man with the unusual name Kaveran, who was something of an attraction in his own right, as he was very handsome in just that rugged, manly way that everybody imagines a lusty knight should be. His principal turn was to dress in chain mail and armour, and put on feats of swordsmanship— and in this skill he was unsurpassed. Really, any latter day King Arthur would have thrilled to recruit Kaveran to his round table, for the sprightly fellow could wield any broadsword, sabre or scimitar to amazing effect; his fencing displays were as exciting as Errol Flynn’s, and any samurai must learn something new by watching Kaveran in full swing.
He was very good friends with Lanval, and indeed there was some suggestion about their behaviour that they were related somehow; perhaps they were uncle and nephew; some said father and son, though they were never heard to address each other so. The two men often performed together, and Lanval’s crowning trick was always achieved with Kaveran’s aid.
The two would engage in a swordfight, the nature of which depended on Lanval’s character for the day: if he was a jester, Kaveran would feign fury at his japes, and Lanval would comically dodge and parry blows; if the older man was playing the knight, the match would proceed with decreasingly chivalrous badinage. However it proceeded, the fight would conclude in the same way. Lanval would somehow lose his sword, and cry, ‘Gramercy!’ dropping to his knees. Kaveran would then appeal to the crowd, whether he should be spared or not. The parents and pensioners would call out for mercy, but the larger contingent of children and teenagers would unflinchingly demand a bloody execution. Kaveran would always obey the majority, and, while his victim kneeled before him with his hands clasped, he would turn his broadsword two or three times aloft and aim to strike off Lanval’s head with all his force: but no sooner would the blade connect with the quivering neck (to the horror of the spectators) than jester’s cap, wizard’s cloak or knight’s mail would drop empty to the ground, and a bird would flutter off into the sky.
This miraculous disappearing trick never failed to astonish everybody, and it was never discovered how a grown man could vanish before the eyes of the multitude, and apparently flutter off in the guise of a bird. Sometimes this bird was a white dove in the best tradition, but often it was a parrot, or a crow, or a even bird of prey like a falcon or a sparrowhawk.
Now it happened that one summer Lanval’s medieval fair arrived at a little market town in Cornwall, pitched in the grounds of a ruined priory, and begat a roaring trade. Well, you must know that it is impossible for a handsome young man like Kaveran to appear in the midst of a small rural community without every eligible young lady in the area knowing about it immediately; and so it happened that a particularly charming girl called Kayna heard the news and decided to investigate this stranger’s charms for herself.
To this end, when her mother asked: ‘Do you want to come along with me to see the fair up at the old priory?’ (expecting the surly rebuff that is customary among pretty young people when asked to accompany their parents anywhere) Kayna leapt up with: ‘Yes, but wait for me, I can’t possibly go looking like this!’
The mother was rather surprised, and pressed: ‘Are you sure you want to come, dear? It’ll be a lot of children and old folks, you know.’
‘Yes,’ returned the girl, running up the stairs, ‘but I hear the main attraction is very attractive indeed!’
So it was that they sallied out to the fair together, which was only half a mile’s walk away through a wood, a pleasant enough excursion on such a sunny day. Once there, they sampled the mock-historical delights, and chatted with their respective acquaintance; but Kayna was disappointed by the twee enthusiasm of the whole event, and asked every one of her girlfriends where this rumoured heartbreaker was; they all replied he would appear at the end for the bird trick.
And so he did at last: Kaveran and Lanval engaged in their usual sword-and-banter fight, and at last the beheading sequence began. Kaveran, armoured and helmeted, disarmed his opponent and called out for the verdict of the crowd. Kayna’s mother laughingly cried out for mercy; Kayna, embarrassed, shushed her, and the blow was struck— Lanval disappeared and a wood pigeon took to the air. Everybody gasped and applauded loudly.
It was then that Kaveran took off his helmet to bow to the crowd, and Kayna, already interested in his manly figure, now glimpsed his face for the first time, and she was in no manner disappointed by what she saw; in fact, she was so far from disappointed that she decided to make a play for him at the first opportunity she could create.
‘Oh! I see now why you were so eager to come,’ tutted her mother then, on noticing her daughter’s admiration. ‘I suppose you’ll be running off with him to join the circus next!’
‘I probably will,’ she replied, ‘but you’ll see if I don’t make him do some running first.’
At this moment, Kayna’s mother, a very respectable widow, was seized and kissed on either cheek by an uncouth stranger, much to her disconsternation. Indeed, she was the more unsettled because she paid a lot of attention to the presentation of her respectability, and such an attack on it was unthinkable. Anybody with a true sense of their own worth cannot be discomposed by the company they are seen with, but a person who shows more quality than they inwardly feel they possess cannot bear to have their image tainted by association.
Before she could escape, this stranger clasped her in his arms, and in an insufferably loud voice cried out: ‘Mary! Mary, well I never, how long has it been?’ —and this apparent stranger, you should know, was none other than Lanval himself, fresh from the execution of his finale, with his long beard plaited into two tails.
‘How long?’ gasped the widow in a fierce whisper, colouring highly. ‘What do you mean? I’ve never met you before in my life!’
‘Ah, now, Mary, you can’t go snubbing your old friends! And think what friends we were, once! Getting on for twenty years ago now, I’d say!’
‘You really are mistaken!’ admonished the widow. ‘Now please go away!’
‘What? Now that I’ve caught you again, Mary, I’m not going to let you flutter off! I’ve somebody you should meet!’
Kayna was extremely am
used by this interlude, and was about to attempt some spry remark about old lovers, fully intending to wheedle whether this bearded buffoon was one of her mother’s pre-marital admirers, when Lanval turned his attention from mother to daughter, with a marked change of tone.
‘Who’s this? Who’s this?’ he gasped, his large eyes round and gawping.
The widow flustered even more, and made to usher her daughter away, but Lanval intercepted her, and rushed up to Kayna, stroking his beard-fronds with his long slim fingers. Kayna was as discomposed as her mother had been by the man’s intense scrutiny; indeed she found his large searching eyes so probing and impertinent that she was about to turn her back on him and depart, but it happened that, just then, Kaveran made his way through the crowd and joined the group, clapping Lanval on the shoulder. At this intervention Kayna found it unthinkable to leave.
The two young people