Sir Gareth, the Kitchen Knight (Campfire Story)

One spring, on the feast of Pentecost, a young man came walking into the great hall at Camelot, leaning on the shoulders of two companions as if he were too weak to stand on his own. He was tall and broad, with the biggest, finest hands anyone had ever seen.

He knelt before King Arthur. 'My lord,' he said, 'I ask you for three gifts. The first I will ask today. The other two I will ask a year from now.'

'Ask,' said Arthur.

'Give me food and drink for one year,' said the young man. 'That is all.'

The knights laughed. A strong young man like that, asking for nothing but dinner? Arthur did not laugh. He asked the young man's name, but the stranger would not tell it. So Arthur sent him to the steward of the castle, Sir Kay, and told him to treat the stranger well.

SIR KAY did not treat him well at all. 'Look at him,' Kay sneered. 'He asks for food, not horses or armor. He must be a peasant's son. I'll put him in the kitchen with the scullery boys. And since he has such fine, soft hands, I'll call him Beaumains. That means Pretty Hands!' SIR KAY!

So for a whole year, the stranger worked in the kitchen. He scrubbed the pots. He turned the roasting spits. He hauled water and carried firewood and slept by the kitchen hearth with the dogs. SIR KAY mocked him every day. And Beaumains never once complained. He did every job he was given, and he did it well.

The next Pentecost, a lady named LYNETTE rode into Camelot. 'My sister, the Lady Lyonesse, is trapped in her castle,' she cried, 'by the cruel Red Knight of the Red Lands. Is there no knight here brave enough to save her?'

Before anyone else could move, Beaumains stepped out of the kitchen, still wearing his greasy apron. 'My lord,' he said to Arthur, 'here are my other two gifts. Let me go on this quest. And let Sir Lancelot make me a knight when I have proved myself.'

Arthur granted both. But LYNETTE was furious. 'A kitchen boy?' she said. 'You insult me! I asked for a knight, and you give me a boy who smells of onions!' LYNETTE!

All along the road, LYNETTE rode ahead of him and would not let him ride beside her. 'Ride downwind, kitchen boy,' she said. 'You stink of grease.' And when they came to a black knight guarding a bridge, she said, 'Now you'll run back to your pots.'

Beaumains did not run. CLANG! CLANG! He fought the Black Knight and beat him. Then a Green Knight. CLANG! Then a Red Knight, and then a Blue Knight. CLANG! CLANG! Each time he won, and each time he showed mercy to the knight he had beaten, and sent him to Camelot to serve King Arthur.

And each time, LYNETTE only said, 'You were lucky. Kitchen boys are always lucky.'

Beaumains answered her politely every time. 'Lady, say what you like. I will not leave you until I have done what I came to do.'

At last they reached the castle of Lady Lyonesse. Before it, the Red Knight of the Red Lands was waiting, a giant of a man in blood-red armor. They fought from morning until noon, and from noon until evening. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! Twice Beaumains was knocked to the ground. Twice he got up again. And as the sun went down, the Red Knight finally fell and cried for mercy, and Beaumains granted it.

That was when LYNETTE climbed down from her horse and knelt in the dust before him. 'Forgive me,' she said. 'I have said every cruel thing I could think of, and you never once answered with a cruel word. No kitchen boy could have done what you did. Who are you?'

Only then did he tell her. He was Gareth of Orkney, the son of a king, and the youngest brother of Sir Gawain, King Arthur's own nephew. He had come to Camelot in disguise because he wanted to win his place by his deeds, not by his name.

When the news reached Camelot, the whole court was astonished. SIR KAY most of all. Sir Lancelot made Gareth a knight, as he had promised, and Gareth took his seat at the Round Table. And for the rest of his life, Sir Gareth was known as one of the kindest and most courteous knights in all the land, the knight who had once scrubbed the pots, and never thought himself too good to do it again.

Storyteller tips: give SIR KAY and LYNETTE to opposite sides of the campfire and let them out-sneer each other. Make Gareth's replies calm and steady every time.

Talk it over afterward: why did Gareth hide his name? How is doing a humble job well like the Scout Law's "helpful" and "courteous"?