Questing Beast

In this week's episode, we're looking at something a bit different and looking at a monster from Arthurian legend, the Questing Beast! Who really was King Arthur and how does he relate to this monster? Why is incest involved in this story twice? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

We’re in with another episode this week to make up for the neglect of last week - I hope you all forgive me, I’ve been terribly busy and all over the place. I am prepping for my holiday next week though and for the next two episodes, they’ll be published whilst I’m away automatically, so don't worry your pretty heads about them.                                                                                                        

DESCRIPTION:

Speaking of pretty heads, this monster does not have one. This week, we’re heading over to a mythology I didn’t even know existed and I’m a folklorist. But in theory, we’re staying in Britain, but we’re also going over the Channel to France for an Arthurian legendary monster, the Questing Beast. 

The Questing Beast is described as a hybrid animal in general, and there are two descriptions of the beast. The most popular is that it is an enormous monster, at least the size of a house, made up of bits of different animals. With the body of a leopard, head and neck of a snake, legs and tail of a lion and the feet of a hart, which is a type of deer apparently. It barks incessantly but with the sound of at least 12 dogs and is incredibly loud. 

This monster is, by all accounts, pretty peaceful. There are no reports of it actually attempting to hurt anyone, and generally tries to stay away from humans, albeit its loud barking and ferocious creature makeup. It runs away from any threat and is incredibly difficult to catch by usual human means, and spends most of its life on the run. We also believe that this monster has some kind of enhanced durability, speed and strength due to the animals it's made up of and the general size of the thing.

Unfortunately, we can’t actually tell if this monster was based in the English or French countryside, but we do know that it preferred woodland, due to the extensive tree cover. 

The other description of the Questing Beast was that it was a fluffy, white and small creature, with the head and neck of a sheep, the body of a fox, legs of a dog and the tail of a lion. This one is even less ferocious, but both of these monsters have the same problem - the barking. 

This is caused by a literal litter of their offspring, which are causing a ruckus because they want to be born and realistically, the Questing Beast has been in labour this whole time. Unfortunately, Questing Beast babies have one MO when they are born, to kill their mother either in childbirth or by consuming her. We’re not sure how the Questing Beast got pregnant, as it doesn’t seem to be reported that there are male version of this monster, in fact, it seems that there was only one full sized one ever talked about. 

We also don’t know how to kill it if you were ever to come across it, but the belief is that you could kill it using usual means of human weaponry, and because this is an Arthurian legend, we’re talking swords, shields and arrows. To finish off the list of things we don’t know about this monster, we don’t know what they eat either, but there is an assumption that they eat people - which was never backed up within the folklore and logistically, could a giant snake eat a person - probably, yeah.

ORIGIN:

There is something we do know though, their etymology! The Questing Beast is pretty literal and knowing just the basic bit about King Arthur you would know that he’s on lots of quests - that’s kind of his thing. BUT I’ve tricked you, it actually comes from the other name for this monster, which is in French. Beast Glatisant, with glatisant coming from the root word glapissant which means yelping or barking, relating to the horrible noise this monster makes. 

Now because of the folklore this monster comes from, it makes the history easy and difficult at the same time. Easy in the fact that we can whittle it down to a specific date, but difficult to go into and tricky to figure out what path to go down first, folklore or history.

Let’s look at the folklore side first because if you don’t know anything about Arthurian legend - this might contextualise the monster a bit better. Arthurian legend is all about the myth of King Arthur, first alleged King of the Britons, not the British by the way. He was born a prince and after being raised in secret, he manages to prove himself by pulling a sword from a stone, marries a princess and sets up the Round Table, with a bunch of Knights that he likes, including the wizard Merlin, Galahad, Lancelot and brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin. That’s a Monty Python joke and there may be a few. They have plenty of adventures, including the quest for the holy grail and that’s where the Questing Beast comes in. 

In the legends, Arthur and his half-sister Mordred end up having a fling without knowing they are related, and in turn he has a horrific dream on how Mordred will bring the end of the world. Once he wakes, he sees the Questing Beast outside, drinking from a pool and doesn’t really think much of it. Later, a local King, Pellinore, comes to seek assistance in finding a beast of many animals as it is his family’s quest to hunt the beast and kill it. 

Once he’s gone, Merlin advises Arthur that the Questing Beast was born from the king’s daughter who lusted after her own brother. The princess, desperate for her brother’s sexual attention, slept with a devil to get what she wanted, in turn, the devil made her accuse the brother of rape. The king ordered that the brother be torn apart by dogs as punishment, but before he died, he prophesied that his sister would give birth to an abomination that would make the sounds of a pack of dogs. 

During the hunt for the holy grail, which lasts a really long time, they end up finding the Questing Beast and the Knights chase it into a lake. However, in another interpretation of the story, the Beast kills itself by having its offspring eat it alive and in that one other version where it’s a cute little sheep creature, tear the monster in half as it births them. As soon as they’re delivered, the Knights chase them off and we never hear from the baby Questing Beasts ever again. 

With the story over, I can weave in the historical context - these stories are all from either Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Mallory, written in 1485, The Post Vulgate cycle, which was written anonymously in the 1200’s and Perceval, the Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes from the late 1100’s. So we know that this is all within the Middle Ages and this actually coincides with a literature movement called the Matter of Britain, which is really interesting in comparison to these stories. 

The Matter of Britain was all of the literary material around the legendary kings and heroes of British folklore, including all of the prose revolving around King Arthur but as well as King Lear from Shakespeare’s titular play. These stories were created to form myths for the country as well as merging the British identity with the influence from our invaders, the Normans, Romans and the Vikings as well as our native people, the Celts and Anglo-Saxons. 

You might be thinking too that I mentioned that this was French and British, but I never really talked about how specifically - this is because most of the literature surrounding the Matter of Britain was actually written in France by French authors, but the story was that of an English King - so it sits between both countries and that works with the Norman influence on British culture too. It’s interesting as the idea of British culture HAS come from a mixture of all of these influences, alongside generally being within Europe and an island, so maybe this idea really did work.

But unfortunately, I do have to confirm that King Arthur was most likely a made up character, which is sad to say as a Brit myself - but it’s one that really sticks out in our folklore to others, so I’m happy he’s there as this legendary king who may partake in some shady things. Of course, we also have to think of the influence of Christianity on this story, which would have tied in the morals of this religion on British folklore, which is tricky to do in itself.

The Questing Beast itself represents the sin of incest, violence and chaos - and is in itself an omen of the downfall of Arthur’s kingdom that he saw in the dream after sleeping with Mordred. Some have also interpreted the Beast as a figure of Christ, destroyed by the followers of the old laws or that the children fleeing their dead mother after killing it are churchgoers who chat through service. 

What we think it represents in reality is maybe an extreme case of mistaken identity instead of a fairytale, as usually creatures are based on something that someone has seen and cannot explain. The description of the Questing Beast is the medieval description of a giraffe, with the long neck, patterned body, long tail and hooved feet, and with Europeans not really seeing them often due to their natural habitat, this may have perpetuated into a mythical beast across the continent from reporters in Africa. In fact, we have evidence to back this up, the Arabic word for giraffe is Zaraffa and this word was used in the original French books I mentioned earlier as a descriptive word for the beast alongside docile and graceful like a giraffe is. 

The best mythical comparison I can give to this one is the Chimera, a Greek hybrid monster, made of three animals - the lion, the goat and the snake. Although this monster is considerably worse temper wise, it is similar in looks - and really is the only thing I can compare this to that I can think of. 

There is a lasting impact of Arthurian legend, and that’s that we still argue whether he existed or didn’t, and he’s the subject of so many bits of modern media, as well as having an actual grave somewhere in Surrey. The Questing Beast also left a mark in America of all places, according to some, the animal and the Knights made their way across the pond and as it leapt away from one of the Knights swords, it left its print on the surface of Helicopter Rock in Nevada, where the mark can be seen to this day. Do I think that’s true? Probably not, but there is a mark in the rock you can go see I guess.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, we don’t have many things at all for the Questing Beast itself, but I’ve filled this out with mix-and-match monster content for you.

For art, have a look at the classic art pieces such as Arthur and the Questing Beast by Henry Justice Ford from 1904 or The Questing Beast by Arthur Rackham from 1917 otherwise, there’s some very cool independent art around for this one and a load of D&D bits drawn up of them too.

In movies, we have; The Sword in the Stone, The Once and Future King, Knightriders, Camelot, Monty Python & The Holy Grail, The Angry Red Planet, Godzilla, Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sharktopus, Star Wars, Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams & Upside-Down Magic.

For TV, we have; Merlin, Lost in Space, The Magicians, InCryptid, Doctor Who, Odd Squad, Power Rangers, Ultra Man, Animal Land, Fullmetal Alchemist, Berserk, One Piece, Naruto, Toriko, Beastars, Inuyasha, Digimon, Pokemon, Adventure Time, Elena of Avalor, Gravity Falls, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Family Guy, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, The Simpsons, South Park, Unikitty, Spliced & Phineas & Ferb.

In video games, we have ones such as; Pokemon, Monster Hunter, I was a Teenage Exocolonist, Heroes of Might and Magic, God of War, Fallout, Final Fantasy, Magic: The Gathering, Dragon Quest, Dark Souls, Chimera Beast, Klonoa, Master of the Monster Lair, Lorwolf, No Man’s Sky, Super Mario Bros, Sly 3: Honour Amongst Thieves, Tales of the Abyss and Xillian, Uncle Albert’s Adventures, Warcraft, Viva Pinata, Gauntlet, World of Warcraft, Starbound, Crash Bandicoot, Quest For Glory & Sonic the Hedgehog.

My book recommendation this week is for Arthurian Legends by Rosalind Kerven who has written so many fantastic mythology books and I recommend her all the time and for more, look at Arthurian Myths & Legends: Tales of Heroes, Gods & Monsters by J.K Jackson and Professor Raluca Radulesca for more Arthurian bits.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

There’s a long answer to this, but I think the gist is a no from me. This comes from an invented folklore, let alone the characters within these stories, as well as having a massively hybrid mish-mash of a monster that we’re looking at. 

I will admit that I didn’t even think that Arthurian legends had their own subcategory of mythology - I thought they were just imbued into British and French folklore. So I hope you’ve learnt something like I have in this episode, even if it’s just as simple as that. I’ve never really seen the appeal behind the King Arthur story though, although I guess I do like the idea of a folklore King that was never proven to exist anywhere, but people still believe was a real person. That is the reason I like Sweeney Todd too, who is also a fictional character who did not really live on Fleet Street I’m afraid to say. 

Actually, scrap the Arthurian folklore thing - if there’s anything you learn from this episode it must be that Sweeney Todd isn’t real, I stand by that as my best fact. Maybe I’ll cover him one day..

BUT back to the Questing Beast, the short answer is no I’m afraid. Do I think there’s a weird incest-created beast out there with countless animal parts making up it’s physical being? Nah, and I don’t think you do either if we’re all honest with each other.

But what do you think? Did the Questing Beast emerge from a bit of incest? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

A super interesting and educational episode from this monster I think - I enjoyed covering this one and I’m excited to cover more Arthurian legend stories - although, I’m not sure how many monsters live within them, but I guess we’ll find out together.

Next week, we’re heading over to Ancient Mesopotamia for another legendary bird - but this one is a little bit more godlike. Stay in your houses next Thursday for the incredible Anzu, who we’ve not quite decided is a god or not.

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube, Threads and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk, including some very cool merchandise - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.