Right and so we turn back the clock to just as Gawaine, Tor, and Pellinore are setting out.  Sir Tor is after the white hunting dog, the brachet.

Before he’s gone very far, he nearly runs over a dwarf standing the road with a club.  Malory doesn’t specify that this is Peter from Book II, Chapter VII, but I choose to believe it is.  Peter wallops Tor’s horse as he’s riding by, knocking the horse down and Tor with it.

“What the hell?” demands Tor, as he gets up.

“Yeah, there’s a joust over there,” says Peter, and points to some pavilions set back from the road.

“I don’t get it,” says Tor.  He helps his horse back up and remounts.

“Sorry, I’ll explain.  I hit you with a club because there’s a joust over there.”  Seeing Tor’s incomprehension, Peter elaborates further.  “The knights at the joust are looking for opponents, and I told them I’d waylay any knights who came by and get them to joust.”

“Hmm, I do love a good joust,” says Tor.  “But no, I’m on a quest, so, that’s happening, I can’t really take a joust break…”

“This isn’t optional,” says Peter.  “You want I should blow my horn?”

“Why, what happens if you blow your horn?”

Peter blows his horn, and a knight rides up, all dressed for jousting, and starts trying to dehorse Tor.  They joust a bit, Tor wins.

“Okay, fair enough, good joust,” says the knight.  “You should joust my partner, the other one, though.”

“Your partner?” asks Tor, and maybe would ask more except that the other knight, the first one’s partner, has ridden up behind and engaged in a dishonorable backstab-joust, or tried to.  Tor is too quick for him, they joust some, the other knight is wounded, and Tor smacks him around until he surrenders.

“Great,” says Peter.

“Are we done here?” ask the knights.  “You beat us, which is all we wanted.”

“Yeah, no,” says Tor.  “You guys are basically bandits, I can’t help but notice.  I want you to head back to Camelot and surrender.”

“Okay,” say the knights.  “When we get there who should we say sent us?”

“Don’t say Sir Tor,” says Tor.  “No, no, say the knight who went hunting the knight who had the white hound.  They’ll know what that means.  It’ll be our little joke!”

The knights, whose names are Sir Felot of Langduk and Sir Petipase of Winchelsea, which are terrible knight names, two of the worst so far, shrug and nod.

And Peter says, “listen, I don’t want to work for these two any more, and I can’t go back to Camelot after what happened without some kind of triumph, so, Sir Tor, can I come with you?”

“Sure thing,” says Tor.  “No reason not to.”

“Cool,” says Peter.  “Also, I have deduced from what you said to those to bozos that you’re after the knight with the white hound?  I know where he is; he came by here before.”

“Great!” says Tor.  “This quest has been super easy so far.  Lead on!”

So the two knights go back to Camelot and Tor and Peter ride off (Peter confiscates Felot’s horse).  Peter leads Tor through the woods to a nice little spot next to a convent, with a couple of big tents set up.  One tent has a white shield, and the other a red one.

Discussion Question: Are those names really worse than “Brian of the Forest?”