Le Lai de Rampal

One day a knight was wandering by a stream and as the water rushed over the curved stones so did a string of notes flow from his flute in an unbound and undirected manner. He was afflicted by melancholy, for he had ridden through a marsh where the sedge had shrivelled to such lifeless mouldering tangles that his tender sensibility had been affected sorely.

King Arthur beside had given him naught but a handful of groats wherewith to maintain his steed. One of his secrets most profound was the hairbrush with which he groomed his propre mount like a stable-boy, and another of his secrets most profound was the twice-daily surreptitious journey which he and his horse undertook to partake of the fodder of the richer knights. His parentage had died and could not further his glory; his lofty provenance, for French, availed him little in the honours of the court; for his sword he could but afford a silver-plated stick and (for he had tried this) that could not even skewer an ortolan; nor could he find the tongue of the simpering lasses of Caernarvon intelligible enough for courtly exchanges.

So the knight drowned his sorrows in the finest wine of Burgund, and tootled a disconsolate improvisory tune on the instrument besides, and his faithful steed followed (for the knight had the foresight to carry the equestrian provender). All of a nonce he saw under the bridge the fine glimmer and sheen of maidenly tresses, suspended over the rippling water's surface as the sun burst through the hawthorns and willows beyond the bridge at the banks. "'Tis a fairy!" exclaimed the knight in Anglo-Norman, as he started forward; then he paused, "Perchance a fairy wicked, for she lives aneath the bridge where dwelleth sombritee." But the hair sparkled again, alluringly, as the fresh and unassuming trees waved their leaves and the harmless water lightly trickled. "Nay! Where the sun fears not to shine her rays, surely a goodlie knight need not fear to followe."

He hied him to the bridge along the towpath, the steed following in distress as his provender strayed ever further away, at a run, and vaulted over the low wall and slid down the mud to the embankment. "Milady, here I have hastened and here I am arrived . . ." said he, but never said more mot, for he found only a glittering spider's web which clung softly to his face and tore in shreds to drift on the river wind.

[Another slight story departing from the Lai de Lanval. Written today; I might edit it.]