Questing Beast
Encyclopedia
Monster
A monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...
from Arthurian legend. It is the subject of quests undertaken by famous knights such as King Pellinore
Pellinore
King Pellinore is the king of Listenoise or of "the Isles" , according to the Arthurian legend. Son of King Pellam and brother of Kings Pelles and Alain, he is most famous for his endless hunt of the Questing Beast, which he is tracking when King Arthur first meets him...
, Sir Palamedes
Palamedes (Arthurian legend)
Palamedes is a Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is a Saracen pagan who converts to Christianity later in his life, and his unrequited love for Iseult brings him into frequent conflict with Tristan...
, and Sir Percival
Percival
Percival or Perceval is one of King Arthur's legendary Knights of the Round Table. In Welsh literature his story is allotted to the historical Peredur...
.
The strange creature has the head and neck of a serpent
Serpent (symbolism)
Serpent in Latin means: Rory Collins :&, in turn, from the Biblical Hebrew word of: "saraf" with root letters of: which refers to something burning-as, the pain of poisonous snake's bite was likened to internal burning.This word is commonly used in a specifically mythic or religious context,...
, the body of a leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
, the haunches of a lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
and the feet of a hart
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
. Its name comes from the great noise it emits from its belly, a barking like "thirty couple hounds questing". 'Glatisant' is related to the French word glapissant, 'yelping' or 'barking', especially of small dogs or foxes.
The questing beast is a variant of the mythological giraffe
Giraffe
The giraffe is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all extant land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant...
.
Early accounts
The first accounts of the beast are in the PerlesvausPerlesvaus
Perlesvaus, also called Li Hauz Livres du Graal , is an Old French Arthurian romance dating to the first decade of the 13th century...
and the Post-Vulgate
Post-Vulgate Cycle
The Post-Vulgate Cycle is one of the major Old French prose cycles of Arthurian literature. It is essentially a rehandling of the earlier Vulgate Cycle , with much left out and much added, including characters and scenes from the Prose Tristan.The Post-Vulgate, written probably between 1230 and...
Suite du Merlin. The Post-Vulgate's account, which is taken up in Thomas Malory
Thomas Malory
Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The antiquary John Leland as well as John Bale believed him to be Welsh, but most modern scholars, beginning with G. L...
's Le Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...
, has the Questing Beast appear to King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
after he has had an affair with his sister Morgause
Morgause
Morgause , known in earlier works as Gwyar or Anna, is the sister or half-sister of King Arthur in the Arthurian legend. In her earliest appearance she is Arthur's full sister by Uther Pendragon and Igraine; Gwyar is her name and she is the mother of Gwalchmei...
and begotten Mordred
Mordred
Mordred or Modred is a character in the Arthurian legend, known as a notorious traitor who fought King Arthur at the Battle of Camlann, where he was killed and Arthur fatally wounded. Tradition varies on his relationship to Arthur, but he is best known today as Arthur's illegitimate son by his...
(they did not know that they were related when the incestuous act occurred).
Arthur sees the beast drinking from a pool just after he wakes from a disturbing dream that foretells Mordred's destruction of the realm (no noise of hounds from the belly is emitted while it is drinking); he is then approached by King Pellinore who confides that it is his family quest to hunt the beast. Merlin
Merlin
Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...
reveals the Questing Beast had been borne of a human woman, a princess who lusted after her own brother. She slept with a devil who had promised to make the boy love her; but the devil manipulated her into accusing her brother of rape. Their father had him torn apart by dogs as punishment. Before he died, however, he prophesied that his sister would give birth to an abomination which would make the same sounds as the pack of dogs that was about to kill him.
The beast has been taken as a symbol of the incest, violence, and chaos that eventually destroys Arthur's kingdom.
Other appearances
The Perlesvaus offers an entirely different depiction of the Questing Beast than the best known one, given above. There, it is described as pure white, smaller than a foxFox
Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...
, and beautiful to look at. The noise from its belly is the sound of its offspring who tear the creature apart from the inside; the author takes the beast as a symbol of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
, destroyed by the followers of the Old Law, the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
Gerbert de Montreuil
Gerbert de Montreuil
Gerbert de Montreuil was a 13th-century French poet from the north of France.He wrote Le Roman de la violette or Gérard de Nevers, one of the most outstanding medieval poems, famous for its vivid narrative and faithful depiction of contemporary customs. The poem underwent countless adaptations and...
provides a similar vision of the Questing Beast in his Continuation of Perceval, the Story of the Grail
Perceval, the Story of the Grail
Perceval, the Story of the Grail is the unfinished fifth romance of Chrétien de Troyes. Probably written between 1181 and 1191, it is dedicated to Chrétien's patron Philip, Count of Flanders...
, though he says it is "wondrously large" and interprets the noise and subsequent gruesome death by its own offspring as a symbol of impious churchgoers who disturb the sanctity of Mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
by talking.
Later in the Post-Vulgate, the Prose Tristan
Prose Tristan
The Prose Tristan is an adaptation of the Tristan and Iseult story into a long prose romance, and the first to tie the subject entirely into the arc of the Arthurian legend...
and the sections of Malory based on those works, the Saracen
Saracen
Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
knight Sir Palamedes hunts the Questing Beast. It is a futile venture, much like his love for Sir Tristan
Tristan
Tristan is one of the main characters of the Tristan and Iseult story, a Cornish hero and one of the Knights of the Round Table featuring in the Matter of Britain...
's paramour Iseult
Iseult
Iseult is the name of several characters in the Arthurian story of Tristan and Iseult. The most prominent is Iseult of Ireland, wife of Mark of Cornwall and adulterous lover of Sir Tristan. Her mother, the Queen of Ireland, is also named Iseult...
, offering him nothing but hardship. In the Post-Vulgate, his conversion to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
allows him relief from his endless worldly pursuits, and he finally slays the creature during the Grail Quest
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
after he, Percival and Galahad
Galahad
Sir Galahad |Round Table]] and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, he is perhaps the knightly...
have chased it into a lake.
The Questing Beast appears in many later works as well, including stories written in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
Modern versions
T. H. White
Terence Hanbury White was an English author best known for his sequence of Arthurian novels, The Once and Future King, first published together in 1958.-Biography:...
re-envisions the Questing Beast's role in his novel The Once and Future King
The Once and Future King
The Once and Future King is an Arthurian fantasy novel written by T. H. White. It was first published in 1958 and is mostly a composite of earlier works written in a period between 1938 and 1941....
. As King Pellinore describes it, the hunt of the beast has always been the burden of the Pellinores, and all Pellinores are in fact trained for the hunt from birth (a training which does not seem to extend much beyond finding the beast's fewmets; Pellinore, as described by White, is more of a comic character than a great hunter or knight). Having searched fruitlessly all his life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
for the beast, Pellinore is convinced by his friend Sir Grummore Grummursum to drop his quest. However, when it turns out later that the beast had been pining away for lack of attention, King Pellinore nurses it back to health and resumes his Sisyphean
Sisyphus
In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity...
hunt. Later, it falls in love with Sir Palomides, who has disguised himself and Grummore as a beast in order to raise Pellinore's spirits when he is pining for Elaine, whom he left behind when he, Palomides, and Grummore stepped into a magic barge which bore them to the Orkney Islands. White explains that this is why it is Palomides who is seen pursuing the beast later in Malory's work.
The Questing Beast also makes an appearance in Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde is a British novelist. Fforde's first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001. Fforde is mainly known for his Thursday Next novels, although he has written several books in the loosely connected Nursery Crime series and begun two more independent series: The Last Dragonslayer...
's Thursday Next series, in Lost in a Good Book
Lost in a Good Book
Lost in a Good Book is an alternate history, fantasy novel by Jasper Fforde. It won the IMBA 2004 Dilys Award.-Plot introduction:It is the second book by Jasper Fforde and the sequel to the adventures of literary detective Thursday Next in The Eyre Affair...
(2002) and The Well of Lost Plots
The Well of Lost Plots
The Well of Lost Plots is the third book by Jasper Fforde and the continuation of the adventures of literary detective Thursday Next from The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book...
(2003), along with King Pellinore. They are used here largely as devices subsidiary to a comic-drama plot.
The Questing Beast appears in "Le Morte d'Arthur", the last episode of season one of the British television series Merlin
Merlin (TV series)
Merlin is a British fantasy-adventure television programme by Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Julian Murphy and Johnny Capps. It began broadcasting on BBC One on 20 September 2008. The show is based on the Arthurian legends of the wizard Merlin and his relationship with Prince Arthur but differs from...
. It is described as a product of the old magic, the magic of life and death, as a creature of nightmare: "One bite, you die." Its form in the series was pretty much the famous one, featuring the body of a leopard with the head of a snake.