“The Loathly Lady” - A Short Story by Fiona Mozley - from These Our Monsters The English Heritage Book of New Folktale,Myth and Legend - 2019 - Edited by Katherine Davey

"

“The Loathly Lady” - A Short Story by Fiona Mozley - from These

Our Monsters The English Heritage Book of New Folktale,Myth and Legend - 2019 - Edited by Katherine Davey 

This is the second story from this delightful collection I have read.

The first was Great Pocklands" - A Short Story by Alison Macleod, centering on Charles Darwin's relationship with his young daughter.

Twenty Questions with Fiona Mozley - from the TLS

There are eight stories in the collection, eventually I will read them all.

"‘The Loathly Lady’ – The Arthurian Legends The story of the Loathly Lady and her marriage to King Arthur’s handsome knight Sir Gawain was a great medieval favourite. This retelling is based on a poem called ‘The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell’, written in the mid 15th century. It’s just possibly by Sir Thomas Malory, more famous as the author of the great Arthurian story-cycle Le Morte Darthur (The Death of Arthur)" Charles Kightly 

Today's story The Loathly Lady”  by Fiona Mozle takes us back to the Arthurian years. History, legend and myth all come together in this throughly engaging creation of a legend about Sir , a riddle, and a marriage.  When we encounter Sir Gawain he is on a hunting trip with other knights.

"LYTHE AND LISTENYTHE THE LIF OF A LORD RICHE (was there ever another kind?). While he was alive, there was no one else like him in the world. Royal and courteous, of all the kings, Arthur was the flower, and his knights were chivalrous and brave. King Arthur hunts in Inglewood with the knights of his court. It is a no-place: too far north for the English (though they have given it their name); too far south for the Scots (though they have been here once or twice). Huntsmen spot a hart in a thicket of bracken. Hounds bray, horses gallop. The deer hears the clamour and stands dead still. Clothed in green in a blinking wood, leaves like eyelids, fluttering, flickering. Green like sunshine, green like night. A wood, a hart, the once and future king. They have been here before, they will come here again. He will follow a beast and it will follow him. They will evince, they will evade, they will venture, they will vanquish, they will dance, they will court, they will wrestle, they will sing. Arthur, alone, sees the hart’s mind, and tells his companions he will stalk the deer, and catch it by stealth and not by chase."

I really liked this story a lot  and I don't want to tell to much about it. Sir Gawain is challenged by a strange to him knight much bigger and stronger than himself.  The knight poses him a riddle.  On his honour he  swears to return in a year with a solution to the riddle.  If he cannot, he will submit to death by the stranger's sword.

In just a few pages I was transported way back in time.  The riddle was so fascinating.  

I see this collection as worth acquiring just for these two stories alone.  Plus the cover art is awesome.

Fiona Mozley’s first novel, Elmet, was published in 2017 by John Murray Originals. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Ondaatje Prize and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Dylan Thomas Prize. It won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Polari Prize. Mozley has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the New Statesman, the Guardian, the Financial Times and British Vogue. She was born in East London, raised in York, and has lived in Cambridge and Buenos Aires. She now lives in Edinburgh and has completed a PhD in Medieval Studies

I have added Elmet to my Amazon Wish list and hope to read it soon.

Mel u