Knight Theobald's Castle

I often told my children a tale of a knight named Theobald as a bedtime story. They loved this adventure and encouraged me to build his small castle in LEGO. Here it is. For those who are interested in the tale, they can find it later in this description.

 

In the kingdom of Aquilatan a brave knight named Theobald lived in a small castle. This castle being not much more than a tower had just enough place for himself, and the family of his squire Walter. Theobald was not a rich knight. He was even one of the poorest knights of the whole kingdom. But owning possesses was not important for him. Because of his helpful and friendly nature, he was widely known, appreciated, and loved by all villagers around. And based on his wisdom and prudence, he was a very welcome and often seen guest of the king himself. Each time after visiting the king’s place, he went out in the forest for a walk. Being in nature cleared his thoughts and this walk turned into a habit.

By chance, he met the king’s daughter in the forest, and they started to exchange on their interests. As they enjoyed being together, they started to meet on purpose. And the friendship became affection and finally true love.

One day when Theobald again was a guest on the king’s table, they discussed one of the biggest problems in the kingdom. A dragon which repeatedly attacked villages in the middle of the night worried the villagers. Years ago, dragons came from the north and spread over the southern kingdoms. But fighting these beautiful but also frightening creatures never was a good idea. And so, they riddled about how to overcome this danger.

Theobald was invited to stay for dinner. While sitting together with the king he took all his courage and confessed his love for the princess. Thoughtful the king rested shortly but finally said: “As a father I could not wish for a better man for my daughter. But as being the king, I cannot give her to you. The future of the kingdom has to remain first and a marriage of the princess with one of the poorest knights in my country is not acceptable.”

The princess, who had witnessed the conversation, left the hall crying. Also Theobald went home soon, deeply sad. Half the night he lay awake in his bed, unable to find sleep until an idea came up his mind.

After an extensive breakfast, he told his squire Walter to request every carpenter in the surrounding villages to come to his castle for the next three days. All women were asked to collect as many goose feathers as possible and farmers should lend their horses for one week.

In the meantime, Theobald went to the blacksmith to obtain nails and fetched logs from the nearby forest.

Just after he returned, many people arrived on the castle. All of them were happy to help as Theobald had done so many favours to them before.

At the end of the third day the work was finished. Theobald thanked all the helpers and prepared the horses.

Together with the construction, he packed a lot of foods and a sack full of salt. And although he did not want to take Walter on this dangerous trip, his squire insisted to come with him.

And so, they started their trip through forests, over fields and steams up to the mountains until they arrived on a huge cave.

Theobald knew that he reached the cave of the dreaded dragon they had talked about. He left Walter hidden with the horses and crept all alone to the dragon's cave. Once there, he heard deep and loud breath. So, he could be sure that the dragon currently was sleeping. With Walter’s help he transported the food in front of the cave and sprinkled generously with salt. Quickly they hid again and just waited for what was happening.

Shortly after, the dragon awaked by the scent of the delicious food. He came out of the cave and immediately ate up everything. Only a short time later, the dragon flew away. Theobald and Walter quickly went into the cave. What they saw exceeded their wildest dreams. The cave was filled up completely with gold and precious jewels. Walter immediately began to fill those into the empty food sacks. Meanwhile, Theobald assembled a huge bed with the materials they had brought with them. Finally, Theobald and Walter laid the big mattress filled with feathers on top. They packed the treasure and went on their way home. After some time, Walter asked how Theobald could know about any gold in the dragon’s cave, why the dragon flew away for such a long time and why he assembled a bed? Theobald replied with a big smile: "It is widely known that dragons love and collect glittering things like magpies. And what would glitter more than gold and jewels? Furthermore, this dragon seems to sleep very badly as he attacked the villages during the nights when he normally should be sleeping. But why would he sleep badly? I thought he might have gathered such an amount of gold and jewels here in the mountains that he prefers to stay nearby it. By doing so, he only has an extremely uncomfortable stony ground near to sleep on instead of a warm comfortable place in the forest. To calm down the dragons’ anger when he realizes that some of his treasure is missing, we give him something on return. And what would be better than a soft and warm sleeping place within his beloved glittering cave? And that he will fly away – well – you know what happens if you take a lot of salt… you get very thirsty. But there is no spring or sea around this area. So, I knew he would fly away and since he ate that much it was very likely that he will take a longer rest before flying back.”

During their way home, the dragon returned to his cave. Of course, he recognized that some of his treasure was missing but he also noticed that there was something new. At first uncertain for what this is good for, he remembered having seen something like this before in the villages of the humans. During his nightly attacks, the humans slept within those rectangular boxes. Thus, he tried it once and laid on top. It felt so good, so comfortable, and soft that he slept for three days and three nights.

When Walter and Theobald arrived at home, Theobald lost no time. First, he brought back the lent horses and gave a generous part of the treasure to all the villagers who have helped him. The remaining he brought to the king. When he arrived at Aquilatan, Theobald spread the sack in front of the king without saying anything. The king looked at him confused, whereupon Theobald said with a smile: "This was a fair exchange with the dragon". And so it was. The king was happy and proud to accept the marriage between Theobald and the princess. And the people in Aquilatan did not have to fear the dragon anymore since he slept very well every night since then, and only chased some deer in the forest during day light.