Magic

1. Magic Boar's Head

   See under Magic Mantle below.

   
   

2. Magic Chessboard

   Gwenbaus made this for his princess. Lancelot later brought it to Guenevere.
   
   The chessboard had pieces of gold and silver. When anyone began to move the pieces of one side, the opposing pieces would move automatically and soon checkmate the mortal player. The board was to retain this property until the death of the most graceful and best beloved knight, who alone would never be checkmated by it.
   
   Guenevere, although an expert at chess, lost when she played on this board. Lancelot, however, won, so that the board was finally awarded to him. A precursor to computer chess...

   
   

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   See also
   Chessboard | The Legend of King Arthur
   Forest Perilous | The Legend of King Arthur
   
   
   

3. Magic Dance

   An enchantment in the Forest of No Return, created by Guinebal (Lancelot's uncle) in the Vulgate Cycle.
   
   Guinebal fell in love with the Lady of the Forest of No Return. Seeing that she enjoyed watching some locals engaged in dancing, Guinebal bewitched the area so that the people danced eternally. Passers-by were snared into the festivities. The enchantment was ended by Lancelot.
   
   A similar episode occurs in Raoul de Houdenc's Meraugis de Portlesguez, and Meraugis is caught in the enchantment.

   
   

4. Magic Gold Horn

   See under Magic Mantle below.

   
   

5. Magic Mantle

   Child Ballad number 29, The Boy and the Mantle, tells of these items:

   1. A magic mantle which will wrinkle up, change color, or both if any untrue woman wears it. The only woman at Arthur's court who can wear it is Sir Craddocke's wife, and even on her it begins to wrinkle at the toe, until she makes Full Confession: she had kissed Craddocke's mouth once before they were married.
      
      (The logical extension of this - that the mantle might have misbehaved on any woman, though she was utterly faithful to one man, if they had had relations before the knot was officially tied - does not seem to have occurred either to the balladeer or to the people in his song.)

   2. A boar's head that could only be carved by the knife of a man who was not a cuckold.

   3. A horn of red gold from which no cuckold could drink without spilling.

   Of these items, the mantle definitely has pride of place. Child traces the story through French, German, Scandinavian, and other versions dating well back into the Middle Ages. It would have been nice if one of the items had been designed to test the man's faithfulness.

   This sounds almost like another attempt of Morgan le Fay's to convince Arthur of Guenevere's unfaithfulness, and perhaps the drinking horn of the ballad tradition is connected with Malory's tale of the drinking horn Morgan made, from which no faithless wife could drink without spilling.