Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas

Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair: Chapter XVIII. ...

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This is a chapter from William Morris's late romantic prose romance *Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair* (1895), a work in the tradition of medieval chivalric narrative retellings. The chapter depicts a pivotal private audience between Goldilind, a captive queen being kept from her rightful throne, and Earl Geoffrey, the powerful regent who has effectively imprisoned her under the pretense of safekeeping. Goldilind confronts the Earl directly, accusing him of engineering her slow death through cruel jailers, while Geoffrey — genuinely surprised by her mistreatment — insists he intended no harm and promises redress against the chaplain who propositioned her and the keeper who starved and beat her. A secondary thread concerns a mysterious young outlaw named "Jack of the Tofts" who treated Goldilind with honor during a recent escape, and whose life she successfully pleads for when the Earl reveals he may be hanged. The chapter is distinctive for its psychological nuance: Geoffrey is neither villain nor hero but a pragmatic power-holder caught between self-interest and genuine concern, while Goldilind displays unusual directness and moral courage for a romance heroine. The closing image — Goldilind weeping without quite knowing why, "betwixt hope, and rest of body, and love, though that she called not by its right name" — signals the romance plot with Christopher beginning to surface beneath the political one.

Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair: Chapter XVIII. ...

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