Blaunchard

Sir Launfal was the steward of King Arthur's court at Caerleon, a knight of such extravagant generosity that he had given away all his own wealth and fallen into poverty and debt. King Arthur, the legendary king of Britain whose Round Table was the centre of chivalry in the realm, had married Guinevere, a queen whose promiscuity was known to every knight at court. Launfal alone spoke against the match, and Guinevere punished him by withholding the customary wedding gift. Humiliated and stripped of his position, Launfal retreated to his home town, where he borrowed a horse from the mayor's daughter and rode into the forest to escape the mockery of his neighbours. There, in the shade of a tree, he was approached by two maidens who served Tryamour, the daughter of the King of Olyroun and the fairy realm. Tryamour offered Launfal her love and three gifts: an invisible servant named Gyfre, a purse that produced gold coins without end, and a horse called Blaunchard, whose coat was as white as flowers and whose trappings were finer than any mortal smith could forge.

Launfal returned to Caerleon upon Blaunchard, and the horse's beauty was so striking that no one who saw it could doubt that its rider enjoyed supernatural favour. Word of Launfal's restored fortune and prowess spread through Britain, and soon a challenge arrived from Sir Valentyne, a giant knight of Lombardy who dared any champion to meet him in single combat. Launfal sailed to Lombardy with no retinue but Gyfre and no mount but Blaunchard. In the tournament field, their spears shattered and Valentyne knocked Launfal's helmet from his head, but Gyfre, though unseen, leaped onto Blaunchard and restored the helmet before the knights met again. When Valentyne struck Launfal's shield from his arm, Gyfre caught it before it touched the ground and returned it to his master. On the third charge, Launfal struck with such force that both Valentyne and his horse fell dead, and the Lombard knights fled the field. Blaunchard had carried its rider through a battle that no mortal horse could have endured.

The most famous episode of Blaunchard's story is not a victory but a vanishing. When Queen Guinevere propositioned Launfal and he refused her, she accused him of insulting her before the court. In his defence, Launfal boasted that his fairy lady's ugliest handmaiden was more beautiful than the queen, thereby breaking his vow of secrecy. In that instant, Tryamour's gifts were revoked. The ever-full purse emptied, the invisible servant Gyfre departed, and Blaunchard vanished from Launfal's stable as though it had never been. The knight was left in rags, alone, and the horse that had borne him to victory was gone.

At Launfal's trial, when he was given a year and a fortnight to produce his lady as proof of his boast, the court gathered to watch his humiliation. But Tryamour arrived in a procession of maidens more beautiful than mortal women, and she vindicated Launfal before the assembled knights. As punishment for her false accusation, Tryamour breathed upon Guinevere and struck her blind. Then Gyfre, now visible, brought Blaunchard out of the forest, and Launfal mounted his flower-white steed for the last time. Together with Tryamour and her ladies, they rode away from Arthur's court to the Isle of Olyroun, the fairy kingdom from which the horse had come. Once every year, on a certain day, Launfal is said to return to Britain to joust in tournament, and those who listen on the right night may hear Blaunchard's neighing upon the wind.