Who Is The Philosopher's Tale?

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vanhoe was written by Sir Walter Scott and follows the story of warriors and travelers in 12th century England. The story tries to stay true to the time period and for this reason it is important to have some historical background. A major point in understanding the novel is the hatred between the Saxons and the Normans. This hatred dates back to the year 1066 in the Battle of Hastings. In the battle William the Conqueror a Normans from France invaded the British Isles, home of the Saxons. During the battle the Saxon leader, King Harold, was killed by an arrow shot in his eye. The french Normans than invaded and conquered the Saxon land. Now a few decades later King Richard the Lionheart has been kidnapped on his invasion in to the holy lands …show more content…
These knight were highly regarded as the best in the lands. Once a challenger he would point to one of the tournaments knights to challenge him. If the challenging knight pointed with the blunt end of his joust the two knights would use blunt jousts and neither knight would be in any true danger of harm. But pointing with the tip of the joust meant the knight were going to use the pointed end of the joust to fight this was much more dangerous. So the story continues throughout the day of each knight attempting to defeat any of the tournaments knights but no one can match there skill. But the most predictable of events happens. If you had to guess what happens next what would you say? I would say that a great but mysterious knight that no one had ever heard off came to challenge these knights of the tournament. This knight would off course challenge the strongest of the tournaments knights and off course point with the pointed end of the joust. The strongest knight of the tournament is Front-de-Boeuf who of course seems to be the villain of all villains in Ivanhoe. His name literally translates to Ox face. Now that we have the predictable evil villain and the even more predictable underdog hero to challenge this villain what could happen next but this hero who calls himself the Disheartened knight miraculously is able to defeat all the knights of the tournament. This knight wins the first day of the tournament and turns out to be Ivanhoe. I also neglected to mention this Disheartened knight defeated Brain de Bois-Guilbert who had bragged before how he could defeat Ivanhoe

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