The Swan Knight

I've been pretty good about running while I've been here, and that has more to do with the beautiful routes and adequate weather (hovering around 40 F in the mornings and humidity enough for lovely, mystical, adventure-inviting fog). The University Parks in the north are beautiful and quiet, and lead on to miles of cow pastures if I feel up for a long run. I also really like running along the Thames. If I wake up early enough I can run alongside the rowers. But so far my favorite route is the loop around Christ Church Meadows. Its only about a mile, but the meadow is beautiful, and the path dips down by the Thames on one side, and Christ Church is always in the background, making a breathtaking skyline. In the early morning, the fog rolls across the meadow (which, unfortunately, is fenced in by an old, black wrought-iron fence things with evil-looking spikes on the top). There are pheasants wattling across the path, and sometimes deer, and big white geese by the edge of the river. It really is something to hear spring songbirds in what I would consider the dead of winter.

For the first couple mornings, I would arrive just when the gates opened, and run in perfect solitude, two or three loops. But you can't expect to enjoy such beauty in solitude forever. Not even at 7:00 in the morning, when most people are sleeping. Near the end of my first loop on the third day, I drew level with a scrubby looking man sitting on a bench by the Thames, surrounded by a flock of the most beautiful swans I had ever seen. At first I thought they were white geese, like I'd seen before, but they were too big, and conducted themselves with too much stateliness to be geese. The man himself was not so stately, and  quite obviously belonged to that class of "vagrants" we had been so strongly cautioned to avoid at our orientation. Like the disease-infested pigeons, we were told that the homeless were "not to be encouraged" either with donations or even conversation. I had not had any trouble adhering to this advice until now, since most of the homeless people in Oxford use unforgivable tactics to inspire generosity, such as displaying dejected children or abused dogs with ropes around their necks, pleading "a pence for the children, mum? a pence for my dog?" Some of the regular beggars keep their pity-inducing dogs or children on display on the same corner for long hours in the cold and the rain, sometimes even as close as two blocks from the local shelter.  This sort of animal and child abuse makes it easy to merely to cross the street with downcast eyes without feeling too guilty.

But the swan man was a little different. He had two big bags of white bread on either side of the bench next to him. There was also a pack of cigarettes, and a brown bottle of surmisable contents. But there was no collection tin. I slowed to a walk as I came by, since the swans were obstructing the path. He looked up from feeding the swans. "Ello love, a'right then?" he asked. His face lit up, and although he stayed on the bench, something in his aura seemed to stretch towards me eagerly, like the graceful swans' necks towards the white bread.
"Hello sir" I said, edging around the swans.
"Alright then? Going to have a hard day, love?" he pressed, from his bench.
"Ummm, maybe, I have a paper due, I ..."
"Aw, well, that's too bad. Would you like a sit, then? Offer you a fag?"he held out a stump of a lightly smoking cigarette.
"Ah, no thanks. I don't smoke. I should, er, keep running though."
"Awwww well good luck to you mum! I hope it goes a'right for yer."
"Thank you" I said, taken aback."Err... you too!" I kept running, a little out of sorts, and looking over my shoulder.

The swan man has been on the same bench, surrounded by swans every time I've been to the meadows since. It doesn't matter what time of day I go (in fact, I've stopped going in the early mornings, you'll be glad to know, Mom). And every time I go, I have the exact same interaction with the swan man. He exchanges a few words with everyone who passes. Some ignore him, and some tip their hats as they walk. It is hard to know whether someone like him is harmless or not, but I decided to find out, since he seemed so starved for conversation. I went around tea time yesterday, in the bright sunlight, when I knew the meadow lane would be full of people strolling. I found him in his usual spot, but instead of running on as usual, I stopped and asked if I could feed the swans with him. He handed me a stack of bread and immediately started to talk to me. Conversation to him seemed to be like water to a man in the desert. He asked me if I was a student. I told him I was visiting for a semester from the States. He told me he thought that was very nice, and wondered what I was studying. History. Oh really? He had studied history when he was at school. What kind of history? Medieval. I didn't say! That was just the kind of history he had done too. Well you can imagine I didn't find it very encouraging to be talking to a homeless person and discover that he and I shared a career-defining interest. In any case, it seemed likely that he was making it all up. He certainly didn't look as though he'd been through a medieval studies course at Oxford.

He asked me what I was reading. I told him romances. Keats? No, medieval romance - the epics. I don't know why I bothered, it was like speaking lange d'oil to a modern french person. He kept squinting as though he were trying to remember things about his medieval history classes, or, more likely, like he was trying to invent a history for himself on the spot. He even claimed that he had read romances too, when he was a boy at school. Ahh, how interesting, I told him. I began to throw larger pieces to the swans, so I could finish the bread more quickly and be on my way. He noticed, and his face fell, and I got the impression of a dog's perked ears falling in dejection. "Now, I wonder, mum" he began, in an obvious attempt to keep me talking, "if you've read the romance about the swan knight."
"Ahh, no I only just started to read them. I haven't gotten to the swan one yet." I said, dusting the crumbs off my hands.
"Ah, well, you'll 'ave to read it then. There's this knight, and his brother's a swan, see, and he pulls him around in a boat saving ladies and whatnot, only he doesn't have a name, ee's just the Swan Knight. Ee's the reason why I like the swans so much."
"Ah ha. Well, its been nice talking to you."
"Ah, yes, love, and you too, have a lovely day." And he meant it.

Well, I thought, at least I tried, but homeless people are, in fact, frequently crazy, as much as I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even thought I had no trouble coming to this conclusion, I still could not restrain myself at my tutorial this morning. Just as my tutor was leaving, I asked him if there was a romance having to do with swans.
"Swans?" he asked, arranging his sweater vest, "Ah, you mean the epic of the Swan Knight. Have you read it?"
"Er... no, I haven't."
"It's supposedly connected with Godfrey of Bouillon, of the first crusade. They made all these tales up to attach to their biographies... supernatural genealogies adds a mythological flair to one's reputation, and so on."
"Oh." I said, "But was there something about his brother being a swan, and a boat that was pulled by a swan...?" My tutor raised an eyebrow and asked,
"Well yes, of course. Are you quite sure you haven't read this one before, Miss Senecal?"

Well, obviously I hadn't.