sir kay – Lee Duigon

Here are a couple of my friends at Arthur’s court. They let you take pictures now.

From September 4, 2015

I read somewhere that an author can sell more books if he’s had an interesting life. I have decided that makes sense. Herewith is my enhanced biography, full of stuff you never knew about me.

I was born at an undisclosed location, and it was not until recently that I learned my true origins, which I am not at liberty to disclose. To know that I walked the earth would be a mortal disappointment to a certain powerful government.

I was a Navy Seal when they were still known as Walruses. You could look it up. In 1968 we kidnapped Mao Tse-tung, but the White House made us give him back. This incident made me cynical, so I quit government service and went on to visit countries that are not supposed to exist, but do.

For two years I advised the Steward of Gondor, and if he’d taken my advice, they would’ve all saved themselves a lot of trouble. I have been a vacuum cleaner salesman in Narnia, not one of my more lucrative enterprises, and an estate manager for Lord Greystoke, aka Tarzan of the Apes, in the country just north of Opar–places you won’t find on any map.

I have learned the name of him who comes when you whistle for him, O my lad, and I have visited most of the royal courts mentioned in The Mabinogion. At the court of Arthur, Kay threatened to expose me as a mountebank. Unwilling to change history by damaging Sir Kay, I wandered until I drifted into the country of Obann. There I heard the Bell of King Ozias sound from the summit of Bell Mountain. I return to Obann as often as I can.

I haven’t mentioned any of this stuff in interviews. John Carter says he’ll feed me to the Green Martians if I do.

Is there a dangerous wild cat stalking the moors of Cornwall, Bodmin Moor in particular, preying on livestock–and the odd hiker?

Here in New Jersey we have the Jersey Devil, but over there they’ve got the Beast of Bodmin, said to be a large cat like a leopard: although maybe it’s something much more exotic than a leopard. Something prehistoric, even.

The authorities looked into it and in 1995 reported that there was no evidence that such a creature existed anywhere in Britain. Almost immediately a boy found a leopard skull in Cornwall, in a river. Examination confirmed that it was indeed a leopard skull–that had once been part of an imported leopard-skin rug.

But wait, there’s more!

Have they all forgotten the great medieval legend of Palug’s Cat ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cath_Palug )? Yeah, I’ll bet they have! According to old Welsh and French sources, this was a great big cat that lived on the Welsh island of Anglesey and ate knights for breakfast until King Arthur’s foster-brother, Sir Kay, came along and killed it.

Now, what ever made those people tell that story, eight hundred to a thousand years ago?

Meanwhile, please feel free to hike on Bodmin Moor at night, all alone. Just whistle a happy tune and tell yourself, “There ain’t no Beast of Bodmin, there ain’t no beast of Bodmin…”

And everything will be all right.