Let's Get Crazy (and not listen to people who actually might have good advice...)

Compared with what we have read so far (which have all been super great stories, but have also been kinda short for the most part), there is something to be said for how long and detailed Erec and Enide is (thus far, of course), and how much action has already been packed into it. Some of the other stories we have read just sort of have things happen and don’t really explain them, which is fine. Here, however, we get so much detail in how everything comes about.

One of my favorite earlier parts is when King Arthur is deciding to revive the weird old custom of going on the hunt for the white stag (and then, of course, the winner getting the right to have some action with the prettiest lady in town), and Sir Gawain is like, “dude… bro… this is a really bad idea. Let me specifically lay out the details of why this is a bad idea and you should not go ahead with it.” And King Arthur listens to his logic and then is just like, “you have a point… but imma do it anyways, but I’m the king.” (In my head, he’s also maybe shouting YOLO and has on some pretty douchey sunglasses.) Besides the obvious hilarity of the king flat-out refusing god advice, this bit is also pretty funny considering the fact that Sir Gawain ends up being wrong, and that there actually is one woman who is clearly the prettiest girl around.

Enide’s introduction is also pretty damn hilarious. I appreciate that, rather than just saying, “this girl was pretty,” we get can entire paragraph going into all the various details of her beauty, and how she is like some gift from nature or whatever. We get details on her eyes, her forehead, her face, and everything. We even hear about how impressed Nature is with its own efforts. This does a good job of sort of establishing that Enide’s beauty is not just in Erec’s head. He may be enamored with her (so much so that he doesn’t even really notice her blushing), but she has clearly been created to be basically the prettiest thing to walk the earth… like ever.

I think her reaction to being presented to Erec later on speaks volumes, and says a lot about what women were supposed to be during that period. She is keeping quiet, but inside is overjoyed to be potentially a queen. The ease with which they enter into their romance is pretty intriguing.