A Camelot Christmas

by Adrian Brookes.

On Christmas morn in Camelot, as dawn was waking pale,
There echoed from far dark domains a fraught and fearsome wail—
A noble quest! To arms I’d sprung and bid my loyal steed
Make thunder of his mighty hooves and prove the prince of speed,
When Cook cried out, ‘Oh stay, sire, pray, for we’re reduced to soup!
Old goose got wind of his sad plight and now he’s flown the coop.’
‘Save thy sobs, thou sweltered swain,’ said I as I swept by,
‘Thyself restore our merry meats, for I must do or die.’

And lo! By fate a cave I spied, red-lit from fiery eyes
That blazed with wrath as I strode in t’effect my enterprise.
It was the Tyrranoctarus! Fount of all fiendish fears,
That conjured choirs on wayward winds to sing in sleeping ears—
With velvet verse of silvered psalm it lured a maiden fair,
Who woke from her enchanted dream deep in its ghastly lair.
But whence the wail—and who the maid clutched in that devil’s grip?
’Twas Princess Lahdidah! Oh, fie! My caution I let slip,
As ‘Grrrrrrr,’ quoth Tyrranoctarus, its melody forgot,
With fangs a-glint and lyric-lips once more all froth and snot—
Its malice it bent down on me, struck out in my amaze,
And, caught unwisely unawares, I staggered in a daze.
But Lahdidah was not done yet; her flung rock smote its snout
And chanced my steel to slice its throat and bleed the blighter out.

And so that night at festive feast we gorged upon our game,
Content that our brave escapade had spared dear Cook his shame,
For faced with knightly valour in reply to virtue’s call,
Tyrranoctarus turned out to be a big turkey after all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adrian Brookes grew up in the English West Midlands but has lived most of his life in Australia. A former journalist and English teacher, he writes short fiction and songs.