447: Medieval Knights: Bevis and Butting Heads

🐴So, your step-dad is an evil emperor who's trying to murder you. Bevis of Southampton has had a difficult life. His dad went to the pharmacy (the woods) and never came back (because he was murdered by 10,000 soldiers), he was sold into slavery, and apparently can't go ten minutes without fighting a giant. But, throughout it all, we learn that no matter how difficult life gets... it can still throw a dragon fight your way too, so watch out. 😈 The Creature: Zankallala If there was ever a bite-sized creature you'd want to eat less than the Zankallala, I don't want to meet it. --- 📖 The Book! Myths and Legends has our first book coming out on December 1st! FOR THE KING is a comprehensive retelling of Arthurian legend, focused on humanity and written for the modern age. If you like the podcast, you'll love the book, and preorders are a massive help to us. Check it out here: https://myths.link/preorder 📊 The Survey If you have a minute, we'd love your feedback on the show, and you can enter to win a monthly drawing of free memberships (must be 18 years old to enter to win the membership): https://myths.link/survey 🔗 Links: Disclaimer: https://myths.link/447 Membership: https://www.mythpodcast.com/membership Source: https://myths.link/bevis Myths and Legends YouTube:https://myths.link/youtube 💬 Social: Discord: https://myths.link/discord Instagram: https://myths.link/instagram Bluesky: https://myths.link/bluesky --- 📢 Sponsors Quince: Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to https://quince.com https://quince.com/. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Myths and Legends. BetterHelp: BetterHelp is now in network with more than 125 health plans, with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don’t have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month at https://betterhelp.com/myths

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Quick disclaimer, there's some slightly stronger than usual violence this week. Please see the post on mythpodcast.com if that's of concern to you. This week on Myths and Legends, it is the longest episode of Myths and Legends currently, where we tell part of the story of Bevis of Southampton. We'll see why if your spouse sends you to a pharmacy full of knights threatening your life, you might have some problems at home. And that if you find a get out of jail free card, take it. Because a decade in a pit being attacked by snakes is surprisingly not fun. The creature this time is a mouse-riding, scorpion-and-bee-wearing tiny man that you do not want to eat.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  This is Myths and Legends, episode 447, Bevis and Budding Heads.

• 0:56Speaker 00

  This is a podcast where we tell stories from mythology and folklore. Some are incredibly popular tales you might think you know, but with surprising origins. Others are stories that might be new to you, but are definitely worth a listen. Today, we're telling the story of Bevis of Southampton, one of the most popular English stories during the late Middle Ages. It's set in Southampton, a real place. In the Middle Ages, it was a prosperous port town with walls and a castle. It's an earldom in the story, but as far as I can tell, there was no Earl of Southampton during the Middle Ages. In the story, his wife, well, she feels like there's no Earl of Southampton either, because all he does is pray. If only some nice, handsome, German emperor would come and sweep her off her feet.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  And also, probably sweep her husband's head off his shoulders and definitely do that first.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  The messenger smelled his armpits. Yikes, a week on the road'll do that. Well, at least it was the 10th century, and everyone in Europe and Britain kinda smelled like that. The fire before his bench in the wide room crackled, as the afternoon sun found its way through the dust motes. Creaking, the floor announced the arrival of the Emperor, before his underlings could get the word out. A towering 5'10", a scowl peeked from his beard like a threatening bird. Servants placed a chair in front of the messenger, and the Emperor dropped into it. His eyes seemed to bore into the man. "Well?" "The Lady of Southampton, in England, greets you well by God's son." The messenger stood with a bow.

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  The Emperor looked confused. After the messenger explained who the Lady of Southampton was, where Southampton, England was, and where England was, he was allowed to proceed. "My mistress, the Lady, was a princess in Scotland." The messenger started to say and then sighed, explained what Scotland was, that despite being on the same island, it was not in fact, England, and then continued. "She was married young to an Earl, an old Earl," the messenger said. "But oh, she gave it a try, many, many tries. But after she gave birth to a son, he wanted nothing to do with her.

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  She's looking for a new man, a big, powerful one, who would rather spend time in bed with her than on his knees in prayer. And you say she's beautiful?" The Emperor of Germany, Emperor Devin, gave the messenger his full attention. "How beautiful." "Very," the messenger said with a smile and a nod. With that, it was settled. The Emperor rose and waved a finger in the air in a circular motion, telling everyone to pack up. They were going to England, wherever that is.

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  "Oh, I'm so sick," the Lady cried out, "so, so sick." The Earl, her husband, stumbled over to the bed. "No, it couldn't be. Why? Why would God do this? He prayed like, all the time." She sat up, looking toward him but not looking at him, saying, "God? She had a vision last night, maybe that was from God? She saw a boar, a swine. Its tusks, when ground, would cure this malady. But it must be procured by the hands of one with royal blood." The Earl took his wife's warm and well-perfused hand in his own. "He would go out and find that swine, bringing back the cure. He just hoped he could find it in time."

• 4:58Speaker 00

  She said she actually knew where he could find it. The following afternoon, the Earl rode to a stop. Was this the address? His guard, one of four men he took with him, looked down to the slip of paper that read "The Woods." Glancing around at the trees, the man nodded. Yep. Looking around, the man noticed that the woods were crowded today. A bunch of very armed, very scowly men milled around the trees. Snapping to awareness as Earl Guy, the man's name, rode between them. "Hi, has anyone seen a boar?" Earl Guy called out. "My wife needs a boar." Turning to his guard, he said, "With all the soldiers in this forest, all the boars had to have been spooked.

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  But this was where his wife told him to go, so..." "Your wife? Ha, ha, ha." A voice boomed from the tallest horse in the center of the Germans. "Surrender, traitor, you old fool. You shall be hanged by the throat. Your head you shall lose, your son shall be hanged, and your wife, who is so noble, I choose for my lover." Earl Guy snickered. The Emperor asked why he was laughing, and Earl Guy explained, "Um, not sure if you know who I am, but I'm the Earl 'round these parts. You obviously came over-prepared for a highway robbery, and what you just confessed you'd do to me, well, that's against the law." Earl Guy interlaced his fingers and inhaled sharply.

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  "Tell you what, you're from out of town, you made a mistake. I'm gonna let you off with a warning, a stern one, really. Don't rob people, don't threaten to take their wives as lovers and hang their kids, and we won't have any more problems." The Emperor looked left and right. "I, I know it's you, Earl Guy, I came to kill you and take your wife." At this, Earl Guy laughed again. Well, that was even sillier. His wife was as much his as his life was, and this Emperor didn't have a right to either of them, so... "Yeah, that's what murder is? I'm gonna murder you," the Emperor said. He was a little annoyed that the Earl wasn't getting that. Earl Guy might not have been getting it, but one of his retinue did.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  And he had peeled off the moment he spotted a forest full of German soldiers in the exact place they had been directed to go. Rallying knights, while Earl Guy insisted on his inalienable right to not have his life taken, so QED, the Emperor couldn't do so, a horn sounded from the direction of the castle, when the frustrated Emperor finally drew his sword. He announced for his men to attack. "Well, now you have initiated unjust force," the Earl cried, drawing his own sword. "You've declared war by trying to take another's life, liberty, or property, and thus, by placing us in a state of war, you and your fellow aggressors have forfeited your own lives." He then demonstrated this forfeiture to them by personally beheading 300 attacking soldiers.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Sir Guy, while acknowledging the tension and apparent contradiction of not being able to surrender the right to your own life, but being able to forfeit it by being an aggressor in an unjust war, speared the Emperor through the shoulder, and the man fell from his horse. The result of the Earl's knights flooding the forest after blowing their horns, though, didn't just create a philosophical state of war, but an actual war. Because the hundreds of the Earl's knights were met by thousands of the Emperor's soldiers, and soon, the Earl and his men were overwhelmed. Catching an arrow to his abdomen, while he had a sword raised above his head, the Earl dropped. Struggling to his own feet, the Emperor grinned, and the Earl said he was prepared to give some concessions.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  His life was in his enemy's hands, but he could not give the rights to his son's or his wife's lives. That was theirs. "I'm conquering your earldom. Please, try to understand what's happening here." The Emperor sputtered, and then beheaded Earl Guy. Picking the man's head up off the ground, he limped over to his general, the man overseeing the men who were putting the rest of the Earl's knights to flight. Depositing Earl Guy's head into the general's hands, the Emperor said that that was the message he wanted to send to his sweet love.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  Vile [bleep]. May you be drawn to pieces and torn apart. I think I would be very glad of it, for you have slain my father with much injustice. Mother, I shall swear to you, if I ever bear arms and come of age, all who have slain my father and brought him out of this dear life, I shall repay them. Young Bevis, the son of the late Earl Guy, shouted at his mom as she dropped him off at school, or rather, tried to have his tutors take him away for school for the day. Saber, his uncle and tutor, forced a smile. He was just having a hard time adjusting to the new way of things around here. He would come around, come around to his mother sharing a bed and a name with the man

• 10:11Speaker 00

  with whom she conspired to murder her husband. Saber, the uncle, did not add. The woman took a deep breath. Oof, it was every day with this. You know what? Her new husband was right. They needed to start fresh. Saber, a word, the lady said, pulling the man away from the boy, who stood there still glaring at his mom. Instead of tutoring the boy today, I'd like you to take him to be killed by you. She smiled. Saber was speechless. My lady, what? How could you? She stopped him right there. Trying to delegate more, she was gonna leave that decision with him. However he wanted to do it, whichever way he thought appropriate to murder a seven-year-old, it was his call.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Thanks. Have a wonderful day with Saber. She smiled to Bevis. Saber, to his credit, did not kill Bevis. He told the kid they were gonna take a field trip. Literally, a trip to a field. Part of being a future Earl was learning the roles of everyone in your charge. So, he was gonna be a shepherd. He just needed to change. Saber swapped Bevis's clothes for the rough spun cloth of a shepherd boy, but Bevis stopped him. If Saber just returned with his clothes, it wouldn't be enough. He had to be dead. Saber's face was contorted with distaste. Oh, so, you know. Do you have any pigs? Bevis asked.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Wow, the lady said, studying the bloody stab marks of the shirt. Oh, oh, look, there was a bit of skin still attached. Saber was disgusted, not by the bloody and torn clothes, though that had been a grisly job of dressing up a pig in Bevis's clothes and then, ugh, no. It was by the praise he now received for what the emperor and his lady perceived to be a job well done. Saber went home. Rather than partake in the feast the lady and her new husband were putting on for no reason in particular, he took a seat at the table and buried his face in his hands. At least Bevis was safe. That's when the servants flew through the door. Saber stood, his chair falling and bouncing on the stone floor behind him.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  No. Did she find out? Was she here? His servants, bathed in sweat after their run from the field, looked at each other and said, no. It was so much worse.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Vagrant, fatherless boy, get out of here! The guard at the gate yelled to Bevis. Bevis, holding the chunky fallen branch he was planning to use as a club to bludgeon his stepdad to death, looked to his feet. He, he was a fatherless boy. Look at that kid, the guard at the gate muttered. That kid looks like he's up to no good. Did you see the hate in his eyes when I said all those mean things directly to his face just now? I think he plans to bludgeon someone with that naughty cudgel. Not if I bludgeon him first! John, please, his fellow guard said. You're always looking for a reason to bludgeon someone. That kid can't be older than seven years old. Just chill out.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  I'll chill out when I'm dead, the guard said, took his own baton and stomped on over. He wasn't wrong. Feeling the imminent, obvious threat, Bevis brought his club down on the man's head, and the man dropped. The other guard wasn't a doctor, but that didn't look like an okay amount of brain exposed. So he threw up his hands and stepped to the side as Bevis passed. Saber rushed past the people putting in the cloth blanket over the form of the guard and was nearly to the throne room when he saw him, Bevis. Bevis, what are you doing? Saber asked, startled. Bevis met his eyes.

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  I went through all that to protect you, Saber screeched, and you come right back here? You might not care about yourself, but you've put me and my family in danger. Come, we need to leave now. At least no one saw you. Bevis chuckled nervously. Um, there was one problem with that. It was then that Saber noticed Bevis was facing the wrong direction for an assault on his stepdad, because cries went up from behind Bevis. Someone had bludgeoned the emperor. Go, get out of here, I'll handle this, Saber hissed, and Bevis kept running. The lady appeared as soon as Bevis disappeared into the growing crowd behind Saber. You lied to me, the lady spat.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  Beside herself with rage, she could barely keep her hands from shaking. What do you mean? Saber played innocent. Bevis was here, he likely killed Devon, the lady cried. That's what? No, he couldn't have done that. Saber tried to match her confusion and outrage, but he wasn't that good of an actor. Bevis is totally dead. Except he's not, a voice cried out behind Saber. The man took a deep breath. Seriously. You called for me, mother, and here I am. She moved quickly, so quickly that Saber wasn't ready for it, and neither was Bevis. The medieval text tells us that she grabbed him by the ear.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  It's as if they're really trying to play up the mother-son dynamics. After he dropped the club in surprise, she dragged him into the castle.

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  Everything was out in the open now, and the lady was more exposed than ever. Everyone agreed that beating unarmed people, possibly to death, it was still unclear if Emperor Devon was gonna make it, was bad. They also sympathized with the boy, whose mother had obviously conspired to have his father, their Earl, to whom they pledged loyalty, murdered. The usurper's army killed several of their friends and comrades, and every one of the knights wanted to do worse to the emperor. And none would carry out the lady's command to execute the seven-year-old. Heck, they might have a war anyway if the emperor died. The lady was wary. That sentiment, combined with the precarious position she found herself in with Devon clinging

• 16:52Speaker 00

  to life, she agreed to soften her stance. She would sell the boy into slavery. That might have been better, but only slightly. Still, she poured out money to the few people who would travel down to the docks and sell the kid to a ship traveling to, quote, "heathen lands." I guess I got a high price, because somehow, I'm here, he said to King Ermun. The king, vaguely in the Middle East, vaguely in Armenia. Bevis ate some of their bread. Noticing the royal couple and their courtiers in shock, Bevis sat up straight. Sorry, was that too much info? He felt like a 15-minute-long intro to his life might have been too much intro. The king shook his head.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  No, it wasn't the amount of info, it was the info portion of the info. That was terrible, what Bevis's mother had done to him. Such a good-looking boy. The king turned to his courtiers. Right? Right? He is so good-looking. Wasn't this just an attractive young man? They all nodded that yes, he was very hot. If only he wasn't a Christian, he could marry the king's daughter. Bevis, while the character doesn't seem particularly religious, the society to which this work was addressed very much was. So he had some thoughts on apostasy and people who practiced other religions. Some offensive thoughts we are not going to repeat here, but oddly enough, this only

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  endeared him to King Ermun, who chastised his nobles and courtiers for not having Bevis's strength and bravery when it came to speaking truth the power. That's how Bevis, who couldn't possibly have been older than mid-teens by now, became King Ermun's chamberlain. Everyone loved him. Mostly. A lot of 15-year-olds feel like they are the best at everything always. Bevis kinda was. The trick is to not say that you're better at fighting than all the armed men around you who already don't like you, because you're the second most powerful person in the kingdom at age 15. Anyway, Bevis killed 50 guys on Christmas Day. I suppose the king's favor was easy come, easy go, because when the

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  king learned from the survivors that Bevis had killed the kingdom's knights, without the survivors mentioning that they had in fact started it, King Ermun said that it kinda threw his whole worldview into question, that a beautiful person could break bad so decisively. Better have him executed. Bevis was slated to be beheaded the day after tomorrow. So, I was a sullen, moody teen at times, and I wasn't even sold into slavery and then ambushed half a world away. For most teens, that moodiness is just hormones. For Bevis, it was all the terrible things that happened to him, plus hormones. But he did have a saving grace. That face. It had attracted the attention of the princess,

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  Josian, who pleaded with her father to please just give Bevis an audience. There had to be a rational explanation for all this. Like Bevis, I can also be extremely petty. I'd like to blame that on my teen years, but it's something that I'm still working on. King Ermun said, sure. He would hear Bevis out. Bevis, despite this being his literal get out of jail free card, dug in, crying out that he had nothing to say and would not debase himself to speak to this, quote, "heathen dog." This did not go over well, but the princess wasn't about to give up on Bevis and went herself. And at her appearance in his open cell door, Bevis discovered some other powerful feelings

• 20:25Speaker 00

  that accompany adolescence. It really speaks to Bevis's pure attractiveness, that the princess kissed his dirty dungeon mouth and chin, and he decided that he would do anything at all for her in that moment. Lucky for him, all she asked was that he save his own life and tell her dad what actually happened. King Ermun saw the 40 stab wounds that Bevis took when his guard Julius caesured him, and maybe had some forensic investigators analyze the hoof prints of the horses, the guards rode in the field to confirm the ambush. He was probably really just looking for a reason to pardon this kid, because those eyes, wow. Just, you could get lost in them.

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  A few stories back, we talked about Ortnet, who had everything and did nothing with it except make the world a worse place. Bevis is the opposite. He has nothing but keeps spinning that gold from straw. Look, it's bad to be so angry and traumatized that you don't care whether you live or die. That's not a good place to be in for so many reasons. It was also Bevis's superpower. Telling King Ermun how it was without any filter, he got promoted to Chamberlain. A boar is ravaging the countryside, killing tens of knights at a time and drinking their blood from their shattered skulls. Sure, Bevis will give it a shot. After a day of fighting the boar, he slipped outside its cave and

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  prayed to God and Mary that whoever wins, it would be nice if tomorrow was the last day of the fight because this was getting tedious. The boar's skin might have been like stone, but there were ways around that. The boar charged and, knowing that this moment decided whether it was him or the boar, Bevis, spear out, charged as well. The boar's tusks got about an inch and a half from Bevis's face before they stopped forever. The boar being skewered through his mouth by Bevis's spear, the last act of the boar's jaw was to snap off that spear, leaving just a couple feet of wood. The boar was massive and Bevis couldn't carry it all the way home, but it wasn't hacking the thing's head off, that

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  he found a problem. The thing's skin was like iron, and though he managed to get a sword through it, he got it stuck. As he looked at his few feet of wood and his boar's head's sword that was more of a hammer than a blade at this point, he laughed. At least the monster was already dead, or he would be in real trouble. That was when the king's steward, a man who, like most others in the kingdom, hated Bevis, surrounded the teenager with the 24 knights and 10 foresters. "I'll be taking that boar's head," the servant pointed his sword, "a magnificent blade named Morglai." "Over my dead body," Bevis growled. "Yeah,

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  that's implied with the pointing of the sword. I'm okay with that," the steward replied, and gave the signal for his warriors to attack. An hour later, riddled with more arrows than one could practically survive in any time period, but absolutely in the Middle Ages, Bevis rode from the forest, boar's head bound to the steward's horse, and brandishing the steward's blade, Morglai.

• 24:03Speaker 00

  If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. If you lose dozens of knights ambushing your political rival and then dozens more ambushing him again, maybe stop try, trying that particular tactic. The problem was that Bevis was awesome, fighting, quote, "in the name of the cross." Despite that feeling a bit like an oxymoron, he subdued King Ermun's rivals and, more importantly, his own rivals. For Princess Josian's hand, he personally captured King Bradymond with a bop on the head from his sword handle, and that night, Josian made her intentions known. It was now three years on from when she had saved

• 24:44Speaker 00

  him from execution the first time, and he had not been picking up on her subtle hints of, "Hey, want me to wash you in the bath in my bedroom?" Finally, explicitly stating her desires, Bevis refused. He said that he wasn't worthy of such a woman as her. He, a maybe 18-year-old vagabond, couldn't give her the life that so many kings and princes who sought her hand could. Anger growing, she stated that he obviously was a churl to reject her so immediately. Churl, meaning a combination of impolite and mean, that carries within an additional classist connotations of a person of low birth. I feel like dating

• 25:25Speaker 00

  in your teenage years is when you kind of learn how to be in relationships, how to communicate, how to chill out and listen. Right after Bevis stated that he was of low station and not worthy of her hand, he got mad that she agreed that he was obviously of low station and not worthy of her hand. He said mean things to her and stormed out. After said chilling out period, both were ready to reconcile, and Josian sent him a text reading like, "Hey, sorry I lashed out in anger. Can we talk about this?" The problem was that texts in those days were delivered by servants, and demonstrating the need for end-to-end encryption, and not unlike our current issues with digital communications,

• 26:09Speaker 00

  the carriers, the servants, sold that data to interested parties. Said interested parties, all the guys that wanted Bevis dead but couldn't find a way to do it, took those messages to the king. When he read all of them, that Princess Josian was willing to convert and run away with Bevis, he agreed. Bevis had to die. This might not be the academic name for it, but the "please shoot the messenger" trope exists throughout folklore and literature. I think it's most famous from Hamlet, where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern accompany Hamlet to England with a letter that tells the king to have Hamlet executed. But Hamlet reads it partway, realizes the deception, and alters it, so the king executes

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  his former friends instead. Bevis had never seen Hamlet, though, since it wouldn't be written for another several hundred years. And so he thought nothing of King Ermun, asking him to take a letter with all haste to Bradymond, to just leave right now. Don't even go with his sword, Morglai, or his horse, Arendelle. There was no danger of him reading it either, because while he maybe could read English, there was no indication that he could read Arabic. Bevis followed the orders and left immediately.

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  Enter Terry, Terry with an I. Saber, Bevis's tutor and uncle, who was allowed to live but in exile, in his castle on the Isle of Wight, sat with intense guilt over selling a seven-year-old into slavery. Probably a good and normal reaction to being a party to that. His son, Terry with an I, who was a few years older than Bevis, watched his father go gray early and the lines on his face deepen. He had to do something. Scraping together his own savings, Terry with an I left England and traveled to the Middle East, where he heard that Bevis had gone. That's how, ending up at a table at a café in Damascus, he saw someone who could be Bevis.

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  Over a decade after he had been sold, feeling like a stranger in a strange land and seeing a face that very nearly rang as familiar, Terry with an I went over and introduced himself. Bevis, who knew the man immediately from the kid he remembered tagging along behind Saber, for Bevis's own lessons from his tutor, smiled and asked him to sit at a table where Bevis was taking a break for some tea. From Terry with an I, Bevis learned of his homeland. How Emperor Devon apparently decided to stay in Southampton and make a go at being an English Earl, and that his mother was still in charge. Bevis was surprised, the whole time, that Terry with an I didn't seem to recognize him.

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  And Bevis played at being, oh, just a simple messenger, which wasn't far from the truth at the moment. "I truly don't know why," Bevis told Terry with an I, when the latter finally asked if he knew anyone named Bevis, that Bevis said he had seen a seven-year-old by that description hanged over a decade ago. Maybe he didn't want to put Saber in danger. Maybe he wanted to leave that life behind. Regardless, Terry with an I was quietly devastated. Both the loser's friend and likely his father when Saber returned with the heartbreaking news. At the end of the conversation, Terry with an I gestured at the pack Bevis held and asked what he was delivering. Bevis shrugged.

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  "Didn't know, actually. Just a message from a king to a king. He was instructed not to read it under pain of death, but it didn't matter because he couldn't read Arabic." "Oh, I can read Arabic. Want me to tell you what it says?" Terry with an I asked. "Nah," Bevis replied, finished his tea and rose. "Well, it's been nice talking to you, Gary with an I," Bevis said. "Sorry about your dead friend Travis, or whoever, who is dead. Later." They parted, with Bevis heading to the court of King Bradymond and Terry with an I making for the port, and eventually, England.

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• 33:33Speaker 00

  I quietly love that the story takes that trope, gives Beavis an out, and a way to read the letter and save himself, and Beavis shrugs it off and falls into the trap anyway. Not caring might be Beavis's superpower, but it was also, it seems, his kryptonite. He watched Bradymond's face morph from confusion to delight as he read the letter, and ordered his men not to kill Beavis. They understood this, apparently, as orders to violently subdue him, which they did. And Bradymond said that the command from Ermun was "execution", but Bevis deserved far worse than that. Bevis would starve in Bradymond's dungeons, fighting the snakes for scraps before falling prey to them.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  Bevis managed to snatch a club from one of the guard stations, and none of his jailers wanted to pry it from his hands, so they lowered him down the 20 Fathom, or 120-foot-deep hole, and cut the rope as soon as he touched the ground. They slid the rock over the opening, with them hearing the dull thuds of splintering skulls. 12 stories below, Bevis was fighting off hordes of angry snakes.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  Josian hadn't seen Bevis for weeks. He had left quickly and in secret, and never returned. She rose from the bow before her father. "Oh, yeah." King Ermun scratched his chin. "He said something about, what was it? Hating us? And our land? And someone in particular, whose name eludes me? Oh, my daughter, Josian." Josian gasped. "Yeah." He went back to someplace called, like, Ingbyor, or Angerla- England. England, that's it, yeah. "Said he had a wife of great birth lined up, who would let him win at board games, wasn't super obvious about it like you." King Ermun shrugged. The room was silent.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  King Ermun looked to his messenger in the corner, who had clearly missed the cue, but who jumped when King Ermun cleared his throat. "Oh, I actually think we have a note about Bevis here," Ermun said, showing his daughter the message that read, "Note: Bevis died on the way back to his home country." "Wow. So tragic," King Ermun frowned. "Should've stayed here and married you, his silver medal. Well, that's all over, and we'll take some time to heal from those deep wounds."

• 36:11Speaker 00

  Now that the healing is complete, let's get you wed. It turned out to be fortuitous that they got that very real and very legitimate missive, because King Evor, of Mambront, a vaguely eastern Mediterranean, Middle Eastern place, with the literal French translation of "Sword Mountain", was there with the armies of 12 client kings to "ask" for Josian's hand in marriage. Ermun, not particularly happy about it, noted that Bevis might have allegedly tried to corrupt and convert his daughter, but at least he never threatened to destroy his kingdom and his people under the pretense of "asking" for his daughter's hand. So while Bevis was fighting it out with a big, black adder

• 36:55Speaker 00

  that was literally trying to eat his face, getting half a loaf of hard bread once a week and drinking, let's assume, snake blood to stay alive, Josian married King Evor of Sword Mountain. On the wedding day, King Ermun presented his new son-in-law with two gifts: the sword, Morglai, and the horse, Arendelle, both of which had belonged to Bevis. They warned Evor that Arendelle, the horse, was a wild one, and that he allowed no rider but Bevis. Evor only laughed. He was a king. Obviously, that meant that he was better than Bevis, and the horse would respect this human hierarchy because nobles were legitimately and objectively better than everyone else. That's just science.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  Evor mounted Arendelle in front of his new father-in-law, his troops, and his wife, Josian. In seconds, he was on the ground, struggling to breathe. Josian tried hard to hide her smile.

• 38:04Speaker 00

  Bevis was so bored. The big bad snake had given way to another bigger batter snake, the next generation. Seven years on, that was like, I don't know, 12 generations of snakes at this point? They all came after him with something to prove, and they all ended up ground under his club, circle of life, or rather, circle of death. His eyes had adjusted and adapted to the darkness, with the cracks up by the rock at the opening being akin to fluorescent lights after the first week. He had managed to find an alcove a quarter of the way up that none of the snakes could reach. The worst thing about the pit was the boredom. Second worst was the six-way tie between snakes, stinkiness, hunger, matted hair down

• 38:47Speaker 00

  to his waist, snakes again, and the uncertain bathroom situation. But all these years later, Bevis realized that there was something he hadn't tried yet: the power of prayer. I have not gone to like seminary or anything, but I will say that praying for vengeance feels pretty antithetical to everything about Jesus, but hey, apparently it works, because Bevis did just that. And then yelled abusive, hateful remarks at his jailers for days on end. Now, the jailers had something of a weird situation. They were away from the main palace and took 12-hour shifts watching over the hole. They didn't have any direct reports, and their only job was to watch over that hole

• 39:30Speaker 00

  and send down scraps for the one guy who was currently in there. For seven years, Bevis had been a model torture victim. He had been in agony, but silent agony. Now, both men listened to Bevis insult them constantly. And one night, one guard had enough. Instead of replacing the stone at the entry at the top, the man, worn down by Bevis's constant meanness, armed himself and looped a lantern around his belt. He grabbed a rope and, as it dropped down onto the floor of the cave, Bevis melted into the darkness. Maybe the jailer realized what a colossal mistake he had made when his feet touched the floor.

• 40:13Speaker 00

  That seems to be the case, because when he didn't see Bevis, he immediately turned to grab the rope and climb out. That's when he did see Bevis. Now in his mid-20s, and jacked from a high-protein snake meat diet, Bevis hit the jailer so hard on the neck with his fist that it, quote, "exploded." Quickly dressing in the jailer's armor and outfitting himself with weapons, Bevis froze when he heard something above. It was the other jailer. It was time for them to rotate watches. Bevis had an idea and snuffed out the lantern. What's this doing open? Hey, other jailer? Wow, I'm actually just realizing I don't know your name. We've been at the same job for a decade, but we're like those wolves in a Looney Tunes

• 40:57Speaker 00

  cartoon, who only ever see each other when they're clocking in and out. Um, anyway, why is this open? Uh, hey, Bevis called from the hole. I like got mad at that guy and like totally killed him. Bevis wondered why he was talking like that, but he was committed to it now. Oh, they, they don't like us to do that, the jailer at the top of the hole said. But I get it. Why are you still down there? Oh, like, he wounded me and I can't climb out, that jerk, Bevis said. Yeah, you can get in a lot of trouble for that, but it's okay. I'll help you out, the other jailer replied. And the rope began to jiggle, as his shadow darkened the top of the hole.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  It was a real tragedy, how that second jailer accidentally slid down the rope and onto those sword points. But when it was done, Bevis climbed from the prison. He slipped past the guards in the gatehouse, but not before stealing some of their armor, slew the stable hands and got a horse, and rode directly for the front gate. Open the gate, Bevis has escaped, Bevis commanded the man standing next to presumably like a few giant gears and a normal crank lever that worked the gate. What? Bevis escaped? How? The man, bleary-eyed in the small hours of the morning, asked. Do you really need to know that? Or are you gonna be responsible for him getting away?

• 42:22Speaker 00

  I was tasked with being the first to ride out after him, and if you hold me here any longer, you'll have to answer to the king, Bevis barked. The man did not ask any more questions and opened the gate for Bevis to ride out. For the first time in nearly a decade, Bevis watched the sun rise on an open horizon.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  King Bradymond had, basically, someone like the mountain from Game of Thrones among his knights. A grisly, brutal hulk of a man who could barely find a horse big enough to hold him. And he famously had the horse Trinchaphus, the best in Damascus. The knight was named Grandur and declared that he and he alone would go hunt Bevis. Anyone who tried to get there first knew what he would do to them. So the seven knights that followed did so at a safe distance. Grandur, though, did not stand a chance. Bevis, who had spent years fighting increasingly dangerous serpents in a dark hole, was not going back. So he fought with an abandon that even Grandur lacked.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  The seven knights were stunned to see Bevis, with two slices, take Grandur's hand and then his head. He kicked what remained of Grandur from his horse and took the framed Trinchaphus. The seven knights would not allow this affront to stand. They would avenge their beloved, tough but fair but mostly tough and hardly fair colleague they feared with their life, and spurred on after the stolen horse. Then, the horse walked on water, a leader of the seven knights said, upon returning to Damascus. What? King Bradymond asked. Yeah, we chased him to the ocean where, back to the water, he knew he was doomed,

• 44:20Speaker 00

  but looked up to the sky and started to pray. He said, to paraphrase, "Heaven's king, maker of earth and all things, you made fish as well as man, and fish know nothing of sin. Therefore may I as easily flee to the water on this horse, to the fish that, once again, never sinned, then die here by my enemy's hands." I, Jason, cut it down a bit because there's a lot more here about fish not sinning. Anyway, the knight said that the horse leapt on the water and just took off, galloping across the waves. So, yeah. The ocean is 50 miles from here, King Bradymond said. You really expect me to believe this horse carried him over the sea?

• 45:05Speaker 00

  Yes, because that's what happened, the knights chuckled. Wait, did he actually kill Grandur? Bradymond asked. Oh, that did happen, the knights blinked, along with all the other stuff that also happened. Wow, um, okay, well, we, we did what we could, right? That was a miraculous save that was somehow associated with the sinlessness of fish, so we can't even go after him. Ah, darn. I would hate to be the person he's riding to see, though.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Bevis, after his ride, maybe across the water, maybe just away, looked on the castle in the distance. "I swear an oath, be it lovable or loathsome, by love or fear, here I will have food," Bevis declared to no one in particular, which is a long way of saying that if the people in this castle aren't nice to him, he was going to rob them. He rode toward the castle in the distance. "Oh, hey," the young woman out front, washing a giant pair of pants, said to Bevis. "You probably don't want to go in there." Bevis, still hairy but smelling better after his maybe swim, said, "Why?"

• 46:36Speaker 00

  "Well, I get the feeling that you profess to be a Christian, as most of the guys who come here and look like you generally do. My boss, the lord of the castle, he doesn't like you guys." "Well, I made an oath that I would get food here, no matter what," Bevis clenched his fist in front of him. "Why would you do that? But what if we don't have any food? You'd be breaking an oath for absolutely no reason." "Well, I didn't think of that," Bevis said. "Do you have food?" "Yes." "Well, then it won't be a problem," the kid replied, and rode through the entryway to the castle. She chuckled. Won't be a problem until he met her boss.

• 47:24Speaker 00

  Where did you get that horse? The ground itself seemed to reverberate with those words. It actually did reverberate with the steps of the one who spoke those words, who lumbered from the shadows of his entryway, the entryway that was 35 feet tall, where the lord of the castle just barely cleared the ceiling. "I think I got it from your little brother," Bevis groaned. However this went, he wouldn't be hungry anymore. "He gave his prized horse, Trinchaphus, to you?" The giant stepped out into the sunlight. "Well, gave is a generous term. Think of it more as an inheritance," Bevis said. "Well, that makes even less sense. I'm his only brother.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  By rights, that horse should be mine," the giant said, befuddled in studying the little man. "Maybe a bequethal?" Bevis replied, waiting for the elder giant to get there, but after a pause so pregnant at risk giving birth to yet another and naying back and forth, Bevis just blurted, "Your brother hunted me down, so I killed him and took his horse. Oh, my gosh, can you please fight me so I can either eat or die?" The giant understood that one, lifted his club, and charged.

• 48:47Speaker 00

  So anyway, I says to the dame, I says, "Dame, eat this food." Bevis sat back, sipping at the wine. The patriarch, the highest ranking Christian and leader of the church in Jerusalem, said that that was quite a story. So to get this confession back on track, after he beheaded the giant and made the dame taste the food for poison, he came right here. Bevis smiled. He needed some guidance on what to do next. "Well, I'll tell you what you shouldn't do," the patriarch said. Bevis nodded, because that was also, in fact, guidance. "You shouldn't take a wife unless she's a virgin." "Oh, okay, I feel like that's... Wait, how does that connect to anything?"

• 49:32Speaker 00

  "It doesn't. Just something I say to everyone. Good day." The patriarch rose and sauntered off. And I don't know why, but the story does waste a number of lines on that part. With a full belly and giant money, money won from battles with giants, not big money, Bevis decided to continue on back toward Armenia, toward his love of a married woman, but he didn't know that, Josian, and all the vengeance and murder that awaited him there. You know, all those things God loves and approves of. Maybe he thought about going home to England, but he would need an army to dislodge his stepdad. Now, Bevis didn't take the easy win when Saber's son could have saved him from prison. But spotting a knight before him on the road, someone he actually recognized from his

• 50:16Speaker 00

  time in Armenia, a friend, he flagged the man down. Presumably Bevis had cut his hair, nails, and had a bath, and the friend recognized him, surprised that he was alive. Everyone knew that he had disappeared, had gone back home seven years ago. Bevis said, "Nope, just betrayed by King Ermun, a man he was not going right now to kill." "Oh, good," the knight said. "If Bevis was gonna kill his king, that put him in a bit of a pickle. But since he wasn't, everything was copacetic." I mean, he was probably riding to kill King Evor, right? When Bevis learned who King Evor of Monbrunt was, well, yeah, he was now absolutely riding to kill King Evor.

• 51:12Speaker 00

  "Hey, Palmer," Bevis barked at the man holding the palm frond. His name wasn't Palmer, it was just what he was. He was a pilgrim on his way back from the Holy Land, with a palm as a sign that he undertook the voyage. The man was happy to help and dutifully answered all questions. "It was nice to meet another Christian in these lands." "Yeah, that's thrilling. Um, give me your clothes," Bevis said as he dismounted his horse and started undressing. "What?" "Yeah, we're gonna trade clothes. We're about the same size. I get your stinky pilgrim's rags and you get my time period equivalent of like, a Tom Ford suit and a Ferrari," Bevis gestured to his horse.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  The pilgrim did feel strongly that demanding someone's clothes of them without asking was wrong, and consent was important, but it was a really nice horse and outfit, so he started to get naked. Bevis walked into the city and took a seat by the wall, stretching out his hands. At noon, the queen's servants came out to drop coins in the hands of the Palmers, something she had been doing for years in honor of a man named Bevis. In fact, today was the day she invited all the travelers and pilgrims in for a feast, a feast with one question and one purpose: tidings of Bevis. Word was she sent messengers to England in the early days, but of those who returned,

• 52:36Speaker 00

  none of them had word of Bevis, either his supposed death or marriage. She moved to questioning merchants and travelers, but for seven years, she heard nothing. It was like the man didn't exist. "I've heard of Bevis," Bevis spoke out at the feast. After sucking poultry from his teeth, Josian turned to look at him, and despite his anger at her for moving on, for marrying, he could hardly breathe. He loved her like he did the first day he saw her. The Palmer said that even though he was a lowly traveler here, he had been an earl back in England. He had heard of Bevis in Rome when he was passing through, and he had to know, did she really have Arendelle?

• 53:20Speaker 00

  Stunned that someone had heard his name, let alone knew that Arendelle was his horse, Josian could only nod. "Take me to him." "I must see the horse of Bevis of Hampton," the Palmer said, rising. Them having possession of the horse really overstates things. After King Evor's accident, the horse bolted into the woods. They managed at no small danger to their lives to get one chain on it months later, and it lived in the forest, chained to a tree like a dog chained to a stake, but smarter than a dog, because the horse never got to the point where it looped the chain so many times around the tree that there was like, two inches of chain left and it was confused why the chain suddenly shrank.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  It was just the queen, Bevis, and one of her trusted servants, named Boniface by the stable, and she pointed to the forest where Arendelle was chained, saying it was a bit of a walk. "Won't be necessary," Bevis said, and whistled. A faint neigh came in response, and then a metallic snap. Soon, Arendelle was rushing toward them. Bevis called out for Boniface to get a saddle ready, and when the horse was near, Bevis took it, saddled him, and with a leap, mounted Arendelle. Sitting atop the horse, he could see it on Josian's face. "Bevis," she muttered. He replied with a nod.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  "She cursed him, he cursed her, they kissed a bunch, and then he said he would be leaving. As much as he loved her, he couldn't stand the idea of her sleeping with the king each night for seven years." "Well, yeah, we did that, we're husband and wife," she said, and then looked confused when his face fell in sorrow. "Oh, no, no, no, we slept together, but we didn't sleep together," she said, explaining that after that first demonstration on Arendelle, the one that ended so disastrously and almost killed him, the king was injured in more ways than were known by the public. He couldn't... Well, they never consummated their marriage, even after he recovered.

• 55:25Speaker 00

  She also had a magic ring that apparently protected her virginity, but maybe that was more of a false cause fallacy, because he seemed unable to do so anyway. For someone whose superpower was not caring about anything, Bevis felt like his heart was going to burst at the news. She had stayed true to him. "Well, he physically couldn't, and also you left for years," she said, hands on her hips. He explained the betrayal, and now tears fell from her face. For all her anger, she admitted that she never stopped loving him, not once. Then, "Let's go." He held out his hand from atop Arendelle. She looked off onto the horizon and then sighed. They couldn't.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  We'll see what Josian and Bevis have up their richly embroidered, rough and stinky sleeves, respectively, but that will, once again, be right after this.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  What's that?

• 56:30Speaker 02

  My fresh detector.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Uh, your what?

• 56:33Speaker 02

  There it is.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  What is it detecting?

• 56:35Speaker 02

  Fresh produce, fresh meat.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Apparently, we celebrate.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices when your fresh detector is going off. Head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.

• 56:56Speaker 04

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• 57:29Speaker 05

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• 58:08Speaker 00

  That night, Josian sat for dinner with her husband, King Evor. "My lord," a servant burst in, dragging a Palmer behind him. Evor squinted and shook his head. "What was the meaning of this?" Could the man not see he was having a painfully silent dinner with his wife and the 15 kings that followed him around everywhere? Like, the type where you look at the couple and see that they're both staring off at different angles and maybe politely smiling at each other here or there, but not talking about anything of substance at all? Plus, 15 knights sitting in the background? The 15 knights waved. "Maybe one day, they will be mentioned by name." "My lord, he has news," the servant said. Evor shrugged. "Well?" At least it would give him and his wife a topic of conversation to stave off the idea

• 58:52Speaker 00

  that their marriage was a complete sham. "Are the lands at peace, Palmer?" Evor tossed him a chicken leg, which the Palmer surprisingly caught. As chicken fat dribbled down his beard, the Palmer said, "Yes." Surprisingly, the entire Middle East was at peace. "Well, not the entire Middle East. There was this place called Dabulant." The king gasped. "Dabulant?" "Dabulant," the Palmer nodded at the recognition. "Yes. That place was not doing so well." The king demanded to know what was happening in Dabulant. "Well, the king there is under siege. I don't think he can hold out much longer. He frantically sent messengers out, seeking help.

• 59:36Speaker 00

  The last one died in my arms of, like, 40 arrows in his body." The Palmer shook his head. Evor's chair scraped the floor. "The king of Dabulant? He's my brother. How much time does he have?" The Palmer shook his head. "Well, take the time it took me to walk here, and then the time it takes to ride there, and add, maybe a day?" The king tried to do some quick maths, but punted to a client king. "17 days from when he left, five days from now?" The man called out. "Sure," the Palmer shrugged. It was Bedlam after that. Evor scrambled to his stables to leave immediately, taking 14 of the kings and their men with him. The Palmer was allowed to stay and finish the feast for his good works of telling the

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  king of his brother's peril. One king was left behind: Gercy. He was the oldest. But I don't think it was an ageist thing, because, let's be real, none of these guys were doing the sword fighting out there, no. It's because he was a necromancer. I do wonder if that's a mistranslation of some sort, or like, a different understanding of the word? Because magic in these times was such that magicians and wizards had spirits they commanded who did things for them. So maybe necromancer was a way to describe someone who communed with the dead, because we don't see him raising up zombie thralls or anything. He also wasn't skilled enough to know when he was being drugged. Like we mentioned before, Josian had made exactly one friend, a stable hand known as

• 1:01:05Speaker 00

  Boniface, who knew the plan and his role in it. And he had spent the afternoon gathering herbs in a nearby forest. Gercy, the necromancer, was left behind to protect the queen from... Freedom. But that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy a pleasant drink with a beautiful young woman and... Wait. Why was he waking up on the table in the morning, 36 hours later? He tapped the magic ring, which apparently recorded everything going on around him. And while it would be easy to make a joke about the evil wizard using his ring camera to track everyone around him, whether they consented to being recorded or not, we're gonna take the high road here. He saw, on the ring camera, his head hit the table, and the queen's stand, taking

• 1:01:50Speaker 00

  the hand of... The Palmer, and, oh gross, they were like, full-on kissing. He shook his head and pulled up, I guess, the network he could connect his ring camera to, and saw them running through the desert. Currently. He rubbed his hands together. Yes. They were in prime location. It was only a couple of days out, just enough time for him to go kill the Palmer and bring the queen back to the castle in the two-day delivery window.

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  "They're supposed to be right here," Bevis, Josian, and Boniface heard through the cave wall. "I'm gonna have to mark his death as undeliverable." "None of us understand the references that you're making, and frankly, they seem really ham-fisted," another voice, an underling, said. And a third called out that there was always Ascapard. The voices retreated, and the three young-ish people in this cave dared to breathe. They had been hiding in this cave for two days. Being tired and hungry is a test for any relationship. But it's kind of funny how real the conversation between Bevis and Josian gets when she mentions that, "Hey, it's been over 48 hours since they've eaten, and she's kind of hungry. Could he give her some food?"

• 1:03:12Speaker 00

  He snapped at her that, "No, he couldn't, because he didn't have any. If he would, he wouldn't be as hangry as he is right now." Boniface, sitting there awkwardly while this couple felt out their first fight, said, "Um, there was a forest nearby where they could get something." "Great," Bevis barked, sliding back the stone from the opening of the cave. "I'll go get some food for the princess." "Queen, actually," Josian called back. "But, um, there are wild things in the woods?" Boniface called out. "I'll be fine. I'm an epic hero warrior," Bevis grumbled. He drew Morglai, his named sword that Josian had taken from the castle before they left.

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  And Arundel, his horse, snorted behind Josian and Boniface in the cave. Bevis would be fine. Boniface wouldn't, though. He was mauled sometime in the next 15 minutes by the two lions that charged the cave. When Bevis rushed over, he feared the worst, but exhaled, "Oh, good. Just Boniface." Josian was sitting with the lions at the mouth of the cave. One of them was on his back, purring. It was pretty nice. Apparently, according to the story, her being some combination of queen and virgin meant the lions would not attack her. Please don't test this. Royalty is a made-up thing, and I'm not a zoologist, but I don't think lions care about your relationship history.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Bevis didn't meet the criteria, though. And as soon as they saw the epic hero warrior, lions did what they do to every epic hero warrior, except Yvain, and charged. Now, I've been working on it, but I can be grumpy when I get hungry. That's not an excuse, though. That being said, threatening to stab your partner if they help you out in a fight with two lions is really beyond the purview of a simple, hangry tantrum, and in fact, a major red flag. When Josian watched one of them bite into Bevis's leg and start flinging him around like he was Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, she stepped in and put the lion in a headlock, causing it to immediately calm down, so it wouldn't harm the virgin queen.

• 1:05:21Speaker 00

  Instead of accepting her help, Bevis saw it as an assault on his manliness and said, if she continued, he would stab her as well as the lion. She let go, because if there's one thing we've learned about Bevis so far, it's that, well, he'll do it. It doesn't even matter what it is. He won against the two lions, which, sure, but blood streamed from his leg, the lions had just used as a chew toy. He and Josian buried Boniface, who died so early, before we had been able to establish any pathos that would make us, as the readers, feel anything. Like, at least let me know if he's a day away from retirement, or was supporting his ailing mother or something.

• 1:06:03Speaker 00

  Josian rode the donkey as Bevis winced, with every step of Arundel's horse. At least it looked like Mr. Gercy, the necromancer, had given up. Except, with the rumble of the ground and the third hulking mass of a person who now stood in front of Bevis, it was clear that Gercy hadn't given up. He had just delegated to Ascapard. Ascapard's described as a man so big, there was a foot's distance between his brows, and he wielded a tree as a club. "I am Gercy's champion. My name is Ascapard. Gercy sent me hitherward to bring the queen back and slay you here. You see, I was driven from my town as a child because I was..."

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, did you just say "hitherward?" Bevis squinted and leaned forward. "Yes." "Why?" Ascapard replied. "Well, you could just say 'hither' instead, means the same thing. Or just, 'not at all,' and talk like a normal person." "All right, all right, good talk. Why don't you get yourself 'thitherward' before you end up in a hospital..." "Ward." "I'm sorry, I was just mauled by two lions," Bevis said. Passed out for a few seconds in the saddle, and then gasped awake to Ascapard telling his tale of woe, how he had been bullied when he was a child, cast out of his village because he was too small, so he traveled the land getting large, and also apparently

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  increasing the distance between his eyebrows, somehow he added a lot of bone mass to his body, too. His story did elicit a sniffle from Josian, and a groan from Bevis, who drew Morglai, his sword, and charged. Now, Bevis killed two giants after leaving prison without a meal in days. He killed two lions after being mauled by two lions. Bevis does not quit, ever, period, and he doesn't care whether he lives or dies. That's Viking Berserker levels of danger, and he doesn't need, like, special mushrooms or to cosplay as a bear, because he can turn it on at a moment's notice. Basically, after holding up a shield and shattering Ascapard's previously unmentioned

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  spear, while Arundel charged relentlessly, dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and dodging the tree club, Bevis got close enough to slice Ascapard on the thigh, getting the giant off balance. The ground rumbled again when Ascapard hit it with his full weight, and, in seconds, Bevis had Morglai, the sword, to the giant's throat. But this time was different from the last two executions, because this time, Josian was watching. She cried out for him to wait. Both men looked up at her. Both of them were incredulous. Seriously. Seriously. She had been won over by his heartbreaking backstory of being bullied so much that he

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  focused all that rage into becoming the champion for a necromancer. It was obvious that there was still good in Ascapard to at least one of the three people there. Ascapard, though... Moved to tears that someone other than a murderous necromancer would have faith in him, and then only for him to do more murder, nodded. If Bevis spared his life, he would have undying loyalty to his new master because of that good that Josian saw in him. Two voices crying out for clemency. Bevis sheathed his sword. For the record, he's gonna betray us the first chance he gets, Bevis grumbled, and extended his hand to help Ascapard up. Then here, remember that Ascapard was like 15 feet tall and hundreds of pounds heavier

• 1:09:42Speaker 00

  than him, and that Bevis had been mauled by two lions, so Ascapard could help himself up. Maybe Bevis was right. Maybe Ascapard would betray them the first chance he got and just hadn't gotten the chance yet. But the guy was a delight. Turns out Josian helping him to rewrite the narrative on his own life was like a night and day change. For the group, too, he started paying dividends. They needed to get out of the Middle East because they were still hunted. And, flagging down a merchant ship, Ascapard boarded and explained their situation.

• 1:10:26Speaker 00

  The situation being that he was stealing their ship, and if any of them were keen on trying to stop him, he was hoping to set a new PR for how far he could bat full-grown sailors with this tree cloak of his into the ocean. The men abandoned ship, and though Bevis had never sailed before, Ascapard had, and not only showed him the ropes, but how to use those ropes as well. They landed in Cologne, which is off the Rhine in modern-day Germany. Now, this feels out of the way for me, and I was quickly tired by trying to map out the journey of rivers and canals to get from the Mediterranean to the Rhine River, and I was just sitting at my desk. Ascapard and Josian might have wondered why they were going so far into continental Europe with an Englishman who had never been to continental Europe.

• 1:11:10Speaker 00

  It's because of everyone Bevis knew in the world. The list of the people he could trust was basically the people on the boat, plus two. Well, turns out, plus three. After asking around at ports all across the sea, Bevis learned that one of those people lived in Cologne. It's someone he thought was his uncle, his tutor Saber. But it turned out it was his uncle Bishop Saber. Which, yes, both men are named Saber, so you just have to deal with it and move on. I guess their parents really were not creative.

• 1:11:54Speaker 00

  Josian was baptized because it wouldn't have been a medieval story set in the Middle East if they didn't at least check that box. They tried to baptize Ascapard, going so far as to build a baptismal font special for him, but he thought the priests were trying to drown him, so they just let that go. It was in Cologne that Bevis finally decided it was time to go home. Everything that he was, the anger, the self-loathing, came from there, and it was time to go back and confront it by confronting his evil stepdad and mother. Just kidding, he had a dragon to fight. We're gonna do this quickly because I'm way, way over my word count already, but for people who filled out the survey, the only thing they disliked more than overly long episodes were multi-parters, so here we go.

• 1:12:39Speaker 00

  Basically, two kings down in Italy hated each other. They fought with armies, they fought personally, they died hating each other. And, one more reason to work things out with people, they became dragons. Fighting as dragons, God was kind enough to split them up. One lived in Rome under a bridge, and the other traveled up to Cologne and lived in a nearby cave. Bevis learned of this not because there was a dragon in a nearby cave, which feels like it should be a warning for everyone in case they're thinking of going out for a nice walk and don't want to be eaten by a dragon, but because of his dream. In a legitimately sad vision, Bevis saw the king as he would be. Elderly, stooped, and weeping, his flesh rotting on him from the venom, saying that he gave himself up to his anger, and he was now imprisoned by it.

• 1:13:23Speaker 00

  He didn't want to be the dragon anymore, and he was pleading for someone to come help him. Bevis understood the subtext as, "Come slay me, and the hero would be happy to oblige." He and Ascapard left the next morning for the cave in the lowland. Ascapard left Bevis a non-trivial distance from the dragon's cave because dragons are scary, and Bevis had to approach on his own. I did write the whole dragon scene and cut it. I feel like it's there because, like a billionaire has to own a yacht, a survival bunker compound, and maybe a spaceship now, a medieval hero has to fight a dragon. The dragon ate the horse out from underneath him, not Arendelle, Arendelle had the day

• 1:14:03Speaker 00

  off, melted Bevis's armor while he was wearing it, and forced the hero to take not one but three dives down a well for some much-needed prayer, and I guess to snarf as many sweet rolls and apples from his inventory as possible to heal. He managed to hit the dragon enough times on the head with his sword that he cut it in half. He won. Stumbling back toward town, he interrupted his own funeral and found the approving Bishop Saber. Bevis was finally ready to go home for real this time.

• 1:14:44Speaker 00

  The fact that Bevis didn't stab his stepdad, Emperor Devon threw the throat with a butter knife at first opportunity, probably helped by the fact that they didn't have butter knives at this time in England. Regardless, the fact that the emperor of Germany not only sat across the table from Bevis pleasantly, but did so with all the blood still in his body, really speaks to Bevis's growth as a person. Just that morning, Bevis asked the one of his 100 men whom Uncle Saber, too, had given him, who spoke French, to go introduce himself to the Earl of Southampton, saying that a traveler, a noble in his own right, was passing through and wanted to dine with the illustrious man. That's not to say Bevis didn't want to attack the emperor the moment the man invited him in.

• 1:15:28Speaker 00

  Underneath that suave, charming exterior was that angry kid who knocked the man unconscious the day he was exiled. Bevis resolved to do so much worse before the end. His mother, it seemed, stayed in her quarters, which was better for everyone. Maybe she could have stopped the conversation to going around to the emperor giving Bevis the weapons with which Bevis would overthrow him. "Bevis!" the emperor snapped his fingers. Bevis nearly responded. "That was his name," the emperor laughed. "The son of the late Earl, you know, he sold me his birthright," and then proceeded to squander it across the world. "Last I heard, he died in squalor.

• 1:16:09Speaker 00

  Regardless, his uncle, Saber, who lives in the Isle of Wight not far from here, comes at least once a year and demands it. That birthright accuses me of fraud. You know what they say about men like that? Every accusation is a confession." "My men know the waters well," Bevis, going by Gerard, smirked. "We could pay this, what was his name, Saber, a visit?" "I would compensate you for the trip, surely," Emperor Devon smiled as he sipped his wine, seemingly happy that this man was quick enough that he could ask about an assassination without actually having to ask. "The deal was this.

• 1:16:49Speaker 00

  Payment in arms, and Gerard would ride with his hundred men, dupe Saber, and kill him in his fort." "You should really stay and meet my wife," Emperor Devon said, but Bevis had to politely refuse. "The Saber fellow used to live here, he might have spies." Bevis's first responsibility was to his men and keeping them safe. Next time, he would see her when he returned. With that, Bevis rose and left the hall.

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  His lawful lord, alive, Saber could hardly believe it when he saw his old master's banners, the banners of the true Earl of Southampton, flying at the head of 100 men. "Praised be," he whispered to himself, barely daring to breathe. Hope can be a dangerous thing. In fact, it would have been an awesome idea for the emperor to fly the old banners and lure Saber out in any one of the several years the man had been holed up in the Isle of Wight. But apparently, it never once occurred to him. Years of prayers were answered when, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Saber recognized the eyes of the man staring back at him as the child he thought long

• 1:18:12Speaker 00

  dead. His arms wrapped around the boy, now a man, and he wept.

• 1:18:31Speaker 00

  The Emperor of Germany, the de facto Earl of Southampton, sat at dinner with his lords and his son in attendance. The sound of hooves were welcome because he had been expecting news that would close this long chapter that opened when that first messenger came to his court in Germany all those years ago. The man who rode up nearly to the castle dismounted as the heavy doors swung open. His armor glinted, unscratched, unused. Oh, this had gone better than Devon thought. "I come from the knight you supped yester night," the man declared. "The one you believe to be named Gerard." The emperor set down his goblet and smiled, obviously not catching the implication of that sentence.

• 1:19:15Speaker 00

  "Yes, please, what was the news?" "That knight was actually named Bevis, the very Bevis whose mother you conspired with to usurp his father. He has joined forces with his uncle, Saber, and they are coming for you. His father will be avenged," the messenger said and bolted. The servants and guards all around the room had no idea what was going on. So the messenger was nearly on his horse before the emperor, realizing how badly he had misjudged the entire situation, rose with a knife in his hand. He had lost the opportunity to kill Bevis, but at least he could kill this messenger. I've tried throwing knives. I actually have a few throwing knives. It's not like James Bond or Jason Bourne,

• 1:20:00Speaker 00

  where with a flick of your wrist, you can do it at any distance and speed. There's a very real rotation and distance you have to account for. And if you don't know what you're doing, either the handle bounces off the target or, like in today's story, something far worse happens. Fearing for his life, the emperor was not thinking straight. Or he was and thought nothing of throwing a knife through a room of dinner guests to try to kill this guy of absolutely no consequence. The noble saw him raise the knife up over his head, and they dove away. His own son, who was sitting at the table, looked up from a bite of food at the moment his father released the knife.

• 1:20:43Speaker 00

  It was the last thing he would ever see. The messenger paused long enough to see the son lurch in his seat, utter a quick laugh, and then he spurred his horse away from the shouting guards.

• 1:21:04Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, Josian was nervously entering her bedroom. Well, their bedroom, you see. It was her wedding night. As soon as Bevis left, a suitor came calling after the princess, the king in the area, named Miles, who would not take no for an answer. Well, he wouldn't take no for an answer from Josian. He would absolutely and did take no for an answer from Ascapard, the giant, who presumably sat in Josian's presence, crushing melons with one hand while obviously sizing up the head of the interloper king. Josian was grateful for Ascapard because while he was there,

• 1:21:46Speaker 00

  no one would dare try to force her into a marriage she didn't want. Still, she sent a message for Bevis on the Isle of Wight. She grew uneasy when, just a day after the message left, another one came through, calling Ascapard away to meet Bevis for the final assault on the castle in Southampton. Still, the reputation of her giant protector and her epic hero betrothed had to be enough to protect her, right? The possibility of someone popping your head like an anachronistic water balloon is apparently way less of a deterrent than the imminent threat. And when the king returned curiously soon after Ascapard left

• 1:22:29Speaker 00

  and demanded Josian's hand, the princess had no recourse. The leader of the city wouldn't stand against his own king, and Bishop Saber was a bishop. She had no more allies. The wedding was set for the following week. Wedding nights were not public, but not as private as they are today. With the wedding party escorting the bride and groom to the bedchamber and helping them to get ready, the wedding night certainly wasn't as private as Josian wanted. And like the demand that they marry, she demanded that for her modesty, for love of her, he needed to send his subjects away. As he did so, she entered the room and got ready. He was already mostly undressed

• 1:23:13Speaker 00

  as he stumbled into the room and sat down on the bed, running her fingers along his bare chest as she walked along the bed. She ventured all around the hairy sweaty pecs before coming up to rub his shoulders. King Miles resting back on the bed frame, he relaxed and exhaled a long, contented sigh. It was the last breath that would ever escape his lungs. She had grabbed a towel and prepared it with a riding knot. And while he had been ordering his guests away, she stashed it behind the bed. The moment she saw an opening, she took it, looped the rope around his neck, ran it over the edge of the bedpost for leverage, and practically hung from it herself.

• 1:23:56Speaker 00

  She stayed there until she stopped hearing him flail and scratch against the bed and didn't let go for several more minutes. Shaking, she rose. The death of this king was cold comfort because with the palace full of his men, her own execution would come the following day.

• 1:24:29Speaker 00

  Ascapard saw men making fire and heard talk of the king's death at the hands of the queen? The princess? Josian? Looking out from his island prison, he was starting to think he had been tricked. He had left immediately to go help Bevis, arriving on a barren island with a singular tower whose walls nearly touched the shores. Ascapard thought that the reputation of England was a bit overblown if this was it. He followed the arrows on the signs into the darkness of the tower and heard a door slam behind him. He sat there for about a week, confused as to why his boss would lock him there, but the Bevis works in mysterious ways. It ceased to be a mystery

• 1:25:13Speaker 00

  when, voices carrying over the water, he learned that the king had forced Josian into marriage and that she was now going to be executed. Literally tearing off the wall of the cell, Bevis saw his jailer start and run for a boat, chucking the wall aside and freeing up the boat all in one gesture. Ascapard leapt aboard but didn't sail east back toward the kingdom. No, he was going to the Isle of Wight to tell Bevis to get there now. He only prayed it wasn't too late. He absolutely would have been too late. I mean, they were in Germany, and the execution was slated for the afternoon. But surprisingly to both men and convenient for the story,

• 1:25:55Speaker 00

  Ascapard ran into Bevis and his 100 men on the other side of the lake. They were on their way back from the Isle of Wight, having left immediately upon receiving Josian's letter. Traitor, Bevis drew more glay, but stopped when he saw the visible relief on Ascapard's face. The giant ignored the accusation and told Bevis how King Miles had betrayed him, but now died, and they were going to burn Josian at the stake like right now. Bevis squinted, and he could see a pile of firewood on the far side of the lake. Uh, okay, well, good job, I think. He yelled for his men to ride as fast as they could. His love's life was on the line.

• 1:26:51Speaker 00

  The Emperor of Germany paced. Emperor Devon, back in Southampton. More messengers came in. They had bad news and a bit of gossip. The gossip was that the woman Bevis loved had been forced into marriage to a king in Germany and had killed that king in Germany, and then Bevis stopped her from being killed, and now she was with him on the Isle of Wight. Okay, feels kind of like an unnecessary subplot. The emperor buried his face in his hands. What about my requests around continental Europe for warriors from our allies? Oh, they all said no, the man nodded. What? I mean, I don't know how else to say that. They will not be coming, he said. Why? The messenger said that most of them said things

• 1:27:37Speaker 00

  he didn't care to repeat while the emperor had cutlery at the ready, but pretty much all of them had a prior engagement, some fight on the Isle of Wight against a usurper. Realization flashed in the messenger's eyes. Wait, you know what I think? The emperor thought the same thing, and after a steak knife clattered on the floor in front of the messenger, who took that as his cue to leave, the emperor collapsed into his chair, a writhing ball of anxiety. His wife told him to relax. He had his subjects and parts of what would come to be known as modern day Germany, and she had her father's men in Scotland. They just had to be smart about it.

• 1:28:26Speaker 00

  Horns went up from the castle walls. Bevis ran from the stables to find Saber on those walls alongside the first of their allied knights that had started coming in from around England and the continent. Outside, Emperor Devon's army filled the horizon, nearly 10,000 strong. The problem with ignoring norms, like attacking your enemy before they're ready instead of an honorable pitched battle or something, is that you have to be ready for your enemy to do the exact same thing. Where there should have been maybe a parlay or a discussion of terms and surrender, there was only Bevis, riding his horse Arinda with Morgue Glade glinting in the sunlight, Saber and Ascapard rushing from the fort, with as many of the knights who could get

• 1:29:09Speaker 00

  ready to ride at a moment's notice. Emperor Devon was a "lead from the front" type of emperor, as long as leading from the front meant that he couldn't actually be hurt. When he saw Bevis riding out with a singular purpose, he screeched in terror, ordering his men to close ranks around him, get him to safety. Those men might have thought that if he wanted safety, he shouldn't have started an assault on an enemy castle, but they had very little time to sit with those thoughts, because in a few minutes, they were all dead. Bevis swore as Emperor Devon got farther and farther away, adrift in a sea of helms and mail, and he found that the tide had come in, and he was surrounded. Then, a splash.

• 1:29:51Speaker 00

  Metaphorically, but also literally, as Ascapard crashed into the men, sending some flying, like the King of Scotland, according to the text, and swinging his tree in front of him. He waded through the knights until, up ahead, he caught the terrified Emperor Devon by his horse and chucked both of them back toward the fort. Having a horse land on you is bad. Rolling and having a horse land on you like 14 times in a row, that's considerably worse. Somehow, Emperor Devon was still alive, but his assault on the castle was in as bad a shape as his sternum, femur, and rib cage because it, too, crumbled and failed him.

• 1:30:32Speaker 00

  Seeing their emperor wounded and captured, and the other king still MIA, after Ascapard threw him into the sky and he disappeared into a little star, Team Rocket-style, the attacking forces surrendered. With his own forces flowing in from the continent and England, Bevis had the upper hand and told them he accepted their surrender if they brought him his mother. With 10,000 knights, whose lives depended on her capture, Bevis's mother was brought to him. He didn't even look at her, as his men dragged her into the castle.

• 1:31:21Speaker 00

  The next few days were eventful. Doctors kept Emperor Devon alive long enough to be executed. Devon, his years of violence and betrayal finally coming to fruition, didn't try to bargain, cajole, or threaten Bevis. Emperor Devon had done a terrible thing, and he would answer for his crimes. It was only right. Then he saw the method of execution and tried all of those things and more, until the screams finally overtook his words. Being boiled in lead will do that to a guy? Probably. Frankly, I've never seen that and hope to never see that. Bevis couldn't execute his own mother. Well, Bevis probably could, but he knew the optics of it all.

• 1:32:05Speaker 00

  So, he put her in a high tower with a big window, one in view of the courtyard, where Emperor Devon's flesh violently flashed to steam as he was immersed. No one was surprised, and no one mourned her. When her own body was found on the stones outside her window in the small hours of the next morning. Bevis arrived in the port, where he had been sold into slavery years ago, and rode triumphantly with his uncles, Saber and Saber, his betrothed, Josian, and his page, Ascapard, up to his father's castle. There, Uncle Tudor Saber declared in the earl, Uncle Bishop Saber finally married the couple, and Bevis settled into the life that he was always meant to have.

• 1:32:50Speaker 00

  All it took was a trip around the known world, several giant fights, and some extreme vengeance to get there. The end? Question mark?

• 1:33:17Speaker 00

  But really, this is not the end. It is for us, though, today. Oh, my goodness, I don't know the stats, but this is the longest Myths and Legends episode. There is still another 1,500 lines to the story, which we are not going to do today, but thankfully, it got to a good stopping point ahead of the end. I knew the story before I started, but figured I could cut some subplots, but then ended up liking the subplot so much that I just left all of them in. But really, if you want more Bevis, let me know, because if you didn't notice, the story left a lot of threads hanging, like all the people that wronged him and might still want to kill him. I've been working on this episode for months, though, so it's gonna be a little while. Real quickly, I sent on emails to the winners of the membership for the survey, and would love to hear what you think of the show and everything, and we'll do another membership drawing this month.

• 1:34:02Speaker 00

  The survey is as long as you want it to be, and we super appreciate any help or insight you can provide. Just check out the link in the show notes.

• 1:34:17Speaker 00

  The creature this time is the Zankalala, from the Hausse people in West Africa. The Zankalala is small, only about the size of maybe a melon? It rides a gerboa, a small desert rodent, has scorpions for spurs, a swarm of bees for a hat, and uses a snake as a walking stick. Wherever it goes, it has an entourage of birds that quite literally sing its praises, saying that the lions, the hyenas, and the dodos are all afraid of the Zankalala. The dodos are not the now extinct birds, but something more like ogres. And this is a really important point, because one of the main stories about the Zankalala involves a boy being chased by a dodo, something that would be decidedly not scary if it

• 1:35:02Speaker 00

  were a bird. That being said, on an early picnic date, Carissa and I were harassed by a big goose, so, you know, birds can be kind of scary. Anyway, the boy nearly stumbled over the little Zankalala on the riverbank and, for some reason, trusted the being, when it said that the dodo would not eat him. A silk cotton tree grew up over them both in an instant and filled with birds, who sang the little guy's praise. As the ogre approached, the boy climbed in the tree to hide. Lumbering up, the ogre demanded to know what the Zankalala did with his property, and the Zankalala said essentially, "What property had the ogre given him that he now demanded its return?" Not wanting to play games, the ogre grumbled that if the Zankalala didn't want to give

• 1:35:47Speaker 00

  up the prey, then he would be the prey. Couple things: the Zankalala couldn't have been more than the smallest of snack bites for the ogre, but if you're going to snack, maybe avoid the magical guy with scorpion shoes and a bee hat. The ogre threw up the Zankalala twice, with the story saying that the Zankalala came up out of the dodo's stomach. After a final warning that the next time would not be so nice, the Zankalala made good on his promise, and, instead of coming out of the stomach, blasted through the top of the creature's head. The boy, after he came down from the tree, maybe a little worried that "the ogre won't

• 1:36:27Speaker 00

  eat you," had an implied "but I will," was glad that the Zankalala told him that he may now leave safely, having learned the lesson that "one is stronger than the other." And if a creature who just killed an ogre for you says this to you someday, just nod your head and say, "Wow, that is so, so wise," and go about your day. Alive. Because to me, it seems frightfully obvious that he was, in fact, stronger than the ogre, but I'm not going to tell him that.

• 1:37:05Speaker 00

  That's it for this time. Myths and Legends is by Jason and Carissa Weiser. Our theme song is by Broke for Free, and the Creature of the Week music is by Steve Colmes. There are links to even more of the music we used in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.

• 1:37:28Speaker 07

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• 1:38:06Speaker 07

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything, because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.