I moved to a new place recently, so I have been hitting the local consignment shops pretty hard in search of new furnishings. Thankfully, the major furniture purchases are all behind me and now all that’s left to acquire are the pictures, lamps, and other decorative bits and bobs that round a place out.^* To that end, this afternoon I dropped into Estate Gallery Consignments^** and stumbled across this on a back shelf:

I snapped it up because I vaguely recognized the scene as Arthurian,^*** though I don’t know how exactly, as I didn’t see the name “Geraint” (which is clear as day now) until I got home. Turns out the tile depicts a scene from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, Geraint slaying Dorm. It’s part of a 12-tile set that illustrates the full cycle, designed by John Moyr Smith around 1875 for the Minton Tile Company.^**** I’m assuming mine’s a fake, but either way, I’m glad to have stumbled across it, as I’d never known till today that the Victorians sometimes tiled their washrooms with scenes of dudes with swords hacking up other dudes–Arthurian dudes or otherwise.

1. * I’m still searching for a rug that will really tie the room together. [↩]
2. ** Who I’d link to if they had a webpage. If you live in Atlanta and want to visit them, go to that part of Chamblee where all the antique stores are stacked on top of each other five deep. [↩]
3. *** And the price as $8, well within my knickknack budget. [↩]
4. **** The same tile company that tiled part of the White House. [↩]

Sorry, God of Love, today we don’t need your advice. We’re going straight to the horse’s mouth. And other animal’s mouths, as well.

We’ve spoken before about how awesome medieval bestiary lore is, but I fear I’ve given the impression that it’s all self-castrating beavers and Christ signification.^* It is both of those things, of course, but there’s so much more! Seeing that today is the Feast of St. Valentine, I thought you all might be interested to learn that bestiaries have an awful lot to say^** about love–well, one bestiary in particular does, at least, the aptly named Bestiaire d’Amour–that is, The Bestiary of Love.

Written in the first quarter of the 14th century, Richard Fournival’s Bestiary of Love takes the form of a male lover’s argument with his female counterpart in which he explains how the various important facts about animals apply equally well to people in love. It was a popular enough text that it survives (in part) in a fair number of manuscripts and spawned a couple continuations and even a Response written as if from the lady, disputing all those things her male counterpart said about the animals.^*** The Bodleian has a particularly lovely copy (MS Douce 308), so let’s peek between the pages and see what the animals have to teach us about love.

First up, there’s my usual obsession, The Monkey.^****
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1. * How many times can I link the same post before people start to get annoyed? Have to ask the SEO folks if I’m optimizing my eyeball retention synergies right. [↩]
2. ** And not a bit of it bestiality-related. Sorry if that disappoints, but this is a family friendly blog when Reynard’s♣ not mucking it up.
   ♣ Oh, precious little funny man, against the invasions of Reynard, you are entirely impotent–and I mean that sexually, as well. It is a double entendre, which is what we French call it when a thing means one thing and another that is sexual. Like when I say to your wife that I wish to come by and give her a gift, and the gift is my penis, which she is happy about because of your impotence. And then I take the jewelry you gave her as gifts and sell it to the pawn broker. And then I use the money at the whorehouse. See, so many entendres Reynard possesses! But I digress. Carry on, impotent ignorant, unwashed Blogger. [↩]
3. *** You can read both in Jeanette Beer’s Beasts of Love: Richard de Fournival’s Bestiaire d’amour and the Response, available for an absurd price from Amazon. I don’t have a copy on hand,† so today I’ll be limiting the discussion to the male half.
   † Though if someone wants to send me one through my Amazon Wishlist, ♣♣ maybe a sequel post will materialize that gives the female side of the story.
   ♣♣ Yes, yes, very clever Blogger of the Unclean Feminine Undergarments. No one will think poorly of you for your blatant plea for financial compensation hidden in a footnote. [↩]
4. **** Alas, the flash off the gold leaf makes the hunter hard to make out. This is a problem with a lot of the images to come, so just bear with. [↩]

Greetings once more, gentle readers,

Mayhap thou remembrest me? It be’st I, Sir Ten-to-Three, formerly Baby New Year 1023, the same soul who didst some months past gain some small pittance of coin from yon King of This Blog, long mayest he reignest, by listing the posts of his majesty’s that once werest posted on the holiday of Christmas, once upon a time. Today, I maketh a return engagement in order that you may be revisited by the posts that formerly marked the Feast of St. Valentine.

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Guess which big-budget summer blockbuster starring Robert Downey, Jr., the creators of FMJ watched before pitching the show. (Remember, The Sherlock Holmeses both came out in December.)

But the most recent inbox volley brought an offer I don’t mind taking them up on, an ad for a new show called Full Metal Jousting that’s debuting Sunday week on the History Channel.^**

What I learned from their free preview, which you can see by clicking the only slightly intrusive javascript widget above, is as follows:
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1. * I have to delete those before my erratic co-blogger sees them. I shudder to think what he’d get up to with the money. Thankfully, he hasn’t figured out PayPal just yet.♣  
   ♣ I would not be so sure about that, porcine sodomite–and while we are on the subject, you should surely lose some weight so that you could fit your pale, quivering fleshy bits into a fine Medieval War Axe Pinstripe Mens Vests such as can be found currently at Buy.com for only $39.98 with free shipping, a savings of over 49% off a price they clearly fabricated by multiplying the desired sales price by 2. [↩]
2. ** You know, the Alien, Hitler, and Alien Hitler network. [↩]