The Witch in the Wood Quotes

“The plain of Bedegraine was a forest of pavilions. They looked like old-fashioned bathing tents, and were every colour of the rainbow. ... There were heraldic devices worked or stamped on the sides ... Then there were pennons floating from the tops of the tents, and sheaves of spears leaning against them. The more sporting barons had shields or huge copper basins outside their front doors, and all you had to do was to give a thump on one of these with the butt-end of your spear, for the baron to come out like an angry bee and have a fight with you, almost before the resounding boom had died away. Sir Dinadain, who was a cheerful man, had hung a chamber-pot outside his.”
― T.H. White, The Witch in the Wood

“The King of England painfully climbed the two hundred and eight steps which led to Merlyn's tower room, and knocked on the door. The magician was inside, with Archimides sitting on the back of his chair, busily trying find the square root of minus one. He had forgotten how to do it.
"Merlyn," said the King, panting. "I want to talk to you."
He slammed his book with a bang, leaped to his feet, seized the wand of lignum vitae, and rushed at Arthur as if he were trying to shoo away a stray chicken.
"Go away!" he shouted. "What are you doing here? Why do you mean by it? Aren't you the King of England? Go away and send for me! Get out of my room! I never heard of such a thing! Go away!"
"But I am here."
"No, you're not," retorted the old man resourcefully. And he pushed the King out of the door, slamming it in his face.
"Well!" said Arthur, and he went off sadly down the two hundred and eight stairs.”
― T.H. White, The Witch in the Wood

“It is the tragedy, the Aristotlelian and comprehensive tragedy, of sin coming home to roost. That is why we have to take note of the parentage of Arthur's son Mordred, and to remember, when the times come, that the king had slept with his own sister. He did not know he was doing so, and perhaps it may have been due to her, but it seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough.”
― T.H. White, The Witch in the Wood

“Said by Merlin
There was just such a man when I was young—an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people. But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into storm troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people.”
― T.H. White, The Queen of Air and Darkness

“You are under-rating the Gaelic memory, dear boy. They don’t distinguish between you. The Normans are a Teuton race, like the Saxons whom your father conquered. So far as the ancient Gaels are concerned, they just regard both your races as branches of the same alien people, who have driven them north and west.”
― T.H. White, The Queen of Air and Darkness