On legendry.
Lately, I’ve run across complaints that modern depictions of the Knights of the Round Table are too “anime” - giving them all sorts of goofy powers, and sending them on weird, over-the-top adventures.
Allow me to point out that the following are all actual things that appear in the older tales about the Knights:
- Sir Kay is said to have had the power to grow to giant size, hold his breath for nine days, and radiate supernatural heat from his hands.
- Sir Bedivere openly practiced sorcery, and suffered from an accordingly sinister reputation; on more than one occasion, he was saved from being hanged as a witch only by King Arthur’s testimonly to his good character.
- Sir Galahad possessed supernatural strength and speed by virtue of his moral and sexual purity - making him a rare example of a male character with virginity-fueled super powers.
- Sir Balin once wielded the Lance of Longinus, and blew up an entire kingdom with a single blow. He also fought an evil knight with the power of invisibility.
- Sir Marrock was a freaking werewolf.
Conclusion: modern depctions of the Knights of the Round Table aren’t anime enough.
I made this post two years ago, and while it’s never really taken off, it’s still getting a small burst of additional notes every couple of months. I wonder how folks keep finding it?
Anyway, the original post is hardly exhaustive - here are a few more fun examples:
- Sir Gawain (you know, the guy involved in that whole mess with the Green Knight) is described as literally solar-powered in some tales, being three times as strong at high noon as he is at daybreak.
- Sir Owain’s best friend and partner in battle is a talking lion. While his tales do include a sort of “origin story” explaining how he met the lion, the fact that it can talk isn’t remarked upon - it’s just a thing.
- Sir Gwrhyr is able to speak every language, including those of animals, and in some versions can transform into various animals as well.
- Though Lancelot isn’t usually described as having any specific supernatural powers or tools, he’s constantly described as “perfect” by everyone who sees him - you can practically see the bishie sparkles.
(Speaking of Lancelot, it’s interesting to note that in the earlier stories, his illicit romance with Guinevere is actually part of a love triangle involving another knight named Galehaut - and the focus of that love triangle isn’t Guinevere, but Lancelot himself! Galehaut has been quietly edited out of more modern retellings for sadly obvious reasons.)
whats up nerds i found a novelized historical slash fic about lancelot and galehaut written by two medieval scholars here it is youre welcome
Some more examples, from probably the oldest Arthurian text there is (c. 1100):
-Hen Beddestyr, who could outrun horses
-Hen Was the Swift, who could outrun any four-footed creature
-Sgilti Light Foot, who could run over treetops and over reeds without bending them
-Drem ap Dremidydd, who from Cornwall ‘could see a gnat rise with the sun’ in Scotland (presumably this is an example and he had really good eyesight, but possibly his special power was just that he was really good at seeing a specific gnat)
-Menw ap Teirwaedd, who was a magician and could cast invisibility on his entire party (possibly only effective against pagans) and placate animals (specifically by magic)
-Osla Big Knife, who may not have been magic himself but if he laid his knife across a river in its sheath it would form a bridge large enough to carry all of the armies of Britain
-Gilla Stag Shank, who could leap three hundred acres at once ‘and who was the chief leaper of Ireland’ (good for you, dude)
-Sol, who could stand all day on one foot
-Gwadyn Osol, who could flatten mountains by standing on them
-Gwadyn Oddeith, whose soles got really hot and threw off sparks whenever he hit something hard (a bit less useful than Gwadyn Osol)
-Sugyn ap Sugynedydd, ‘who could suck up a sea on which there were three hundred ships until it was nothing but a dry strand’
-Cacamwri (possibly just a servant rather than an actual warrior), who was really good at destroying barns
-Gwefyl ap Gwastad, who when he was sad could stretch his upper lip over his head and hide under it
-Uchdryd Cross Beard, who could throw his beard over ‘fifty rafters in Arthur’s hall’
-Clust ap Clustveinydd, who ‘were he buried seven fathoms in the earth he would hear an ant stirring from its bed in the morning fifty miles away’
-Medyr ap Medyredydd, who could hit a wren in Ireland from where he was in Cornwall ‘through both legs’ (unclear if these are the wren’s legs or his)
-Gwiawn Cat Eye, ‘who could cut a corner from a gnat’s eye without harming the eye’
-Special mention to people who may not have had superpowers of any kind: Sanddef Angel Face, (so beautiful that no one attacked him at Camlann because they assumed he must be an angel), Morfran ap Tegid, (so ugly that no one attacked him at Camlann because they assumed he must be a demon), Canhastyr Hundred Hands (supposedly has a magic collar), Cors Hundred Claws (supposedly has a magic leash) (I assume they got along very well), Llwch Windy Hand and Samson Dry Lip (no explanation of these last four epithets so perhaps they don’t actually have any supernatural powers), and Gwydden the Difficult, who was probably just a dick
(I’ve included only highlights; I should point out that this list is eight pages long in the Penguin edition I have on hand. And for fairness’s sake I should probably also add that this list is not to be taken seriously since the story it’s included in is probably a parody, though it is also where Kay’s powers mentioned in the original post originate from, and Gwrhyr’s, who as far as I know only appears in this story.)
(Another delightful note is that Kay uses his magic heat powers in this story to keep the rain off his stuff and start fires ‘when his companions were cold’)
Lancelot was frequently said to have a fairly standard set of basic bitch saintly powers like the laying on of hands to heal, supernatural constitution, and various effects of “purity.” Also his mom was a Lady of the Lake so he often has Fey powers too.
An ancient character often associated with him in modern tales (though the connection is tenuous) is Llwch Llenlleawg (Lake Striking Hand) had vaguely defined hand powers.
Malagant is often a straight up sorcerer-knight evil overlord.
Good old Gwynevere, in the French chivalric cycles, has Leondegrance for a father, but her earliest father is Gografan Gawr, a giant, and she was occasionally depicted as being a warrior queen and enchantress of amazing stature, and sometimes fair to the point it sounds like albinism. Her height, like many Celtic heroes, seemed to involve magical size-changing (see early depictions of many of the knights, Arthur himself, Irish myths of Finn McCool, ect.)
And my favorite anime-as-hell Arthurian figure is an obscure one, a blood-thirsty, irrascable savage named Mandog Rough Grey (translated from a Welsh original I can’t recall at the moment), who was literally a man-dog, one of the cynocephalid race seen often in medieval lore (the most famous one is St. Christopher, likely due to a simple misunderstanding of the Latin word for “Canaanite” as a “canine-like.”)
