Warning: This work has been rated 16+.
It had been such a lovely morning. The sun was shining, the air was clear of pollution, the water was a bit murky and suspect, but that was nothing unusual, besides which, the Grail would take care of that, and they had plenty of food and supplies... until their ass fell into the river and got washed away, food, supplies, and all. And then, rather than try and retrieve the poor beast of burden or at least stop for a drink, Joseph of Arimathea had pressed on saying only, "The Lord will provide," in his ever-mystical and mysterious trademark Grailkeeper voice.
They would have been fine, however, had they pressed on until reaching an outpost of civilization, but no. Sometime around noon, the elderly Grailkeeper began experiencing a faltering of his constitution and so decided upon a break for water near a limpid puddle of suspect coloration surrounded by rather brightly red stones — arsenic, Gideon had suspected at the time and so warned Joseph of Arimathea, but all he said in reply was that "The Grail shall make all things pure."
And the Grail did, only the water wasn't so much water as an impure, liquefied suspension of mercury and arsenic — arsenic and mercury which the Grail purified straight-up and which its Keeper guzzled like a dehydrated camel at an oasis. Consequently, and almost immediately, Joseph of Arimathea keeled straight over, and Gideon had to drag him to the nearest shelter, a system of cold, dank caves far, far away from the now-purely toxic pool of elements.
Which brought us to the present where Gideon was now carving the last words of a dying, wheezing Joseph of Arimathea, late Grailkeeper, whose words were incredibly difficult to decipher through all the choking and hacking and generally labored breathing. But Gideon had managed -- and managed quite well if he might believe so himself — and had transcribed so far, "Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea. He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail in the Castle..." and now all he was waiting for now was the completion of the sentence.
Joseph of Arimathea coughed, cleared his throat, coughed again. "The Castle... Castle of... uuggggggh..."
Gideon paused in his carving. "Uuggggggh?" That was not a word he was familiar with, much less capable of spelling. Not for the first time, he cursed the barbaric Brits with their war paints and lack of written language for making his job that much more difficult. "How is that spelled, sir?"
No answer.
"Sir?" Gideon looked over his shoulder and almost broke his chisel. There, lying contorted on the cavern floor, blood coating his face and throat and black-nailed hands, was Joseph of Arimathea, late Grailkeeper, and lately dead.
Gideon swore in the ungodly fashion. Now he'd never know how to spell the name properly.
With a sigh, the ever-dedicated follower turned back to the wall and guessed that he would just have to guess. And guess he did, but wrongly for, centuries later, when a band of knights and their great king came by and tried to decipher the name of the location, their attempts summoned instead the dreaded Black Beast of Arrrggghhh.
But by then, Gideon was long past caring.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
139,427 Literary Works • 672,561 Reviews
I found this story to be a good story. Alot of details on what happened during this particular situation. It made me feel emotion. He didnt finish the message which means that it will all be a secret.
Hahaaa! I love Monty Phyton and it can't be an easy thing to rise to his delusional level of comedy and craziness but I think you managed pretty well ^^ You've written some truly hilarious scenes but I agree with Ranger... Where's the randomness, that's what makes Monty Phyton so original. He makes ordinary things extraordinary! You're writing style and structure and all is really good though and I really have got very little to complain about. This was simply great!
This line here is my very favorite, it feels very Monty Phyton-ish
- Joseph of Arimathea coughed, cleared his throat, coughed again. "The Castle... Castle of... uuggggggh..." -
5/5 icky, sticky spiders to you!
Good Luck & Keep Writing
// Demoness
not sure what ranger's talking about, I found a ton of python like touches. randomness and subtly odd flow well together here, I really enjoyed the further descriptions to another description like "made rockier by its rocky composition". Points like this really help bring out both the humor and the quality of voice heard here in the piece.
I found that the -- points could just as easily be replaced by commas, a more structurally sound move but nothing serious. I'm not much a fan for fanfic (in fact I outright despise the idea of it) but the main point is that this doesn't rely on jokes or references or characters from the Grail to be enjoyed, oh certainly you gain much more satisfaction if you've seen the film, but the fact it stands alone is what sets it apart from most fanfic.
Also really liked the pov of gideon, makes it even funnier knowing what happens.
well done.
So I saw the words 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and would have fallen off my chair, but I was too busy scrambling for the mouse.
It actually took me a while to realize that this was about the 'Arrrggghhh' engraving, but that's just because I'm rusty on my Monty-Python-ology.
But on to the review! This was simply wonderful - the writing style was absolutely perfect, with the rambling and the repetitive complaining nature (I could just hear the movie narrator reading the whole thing), and make no mistake. I absolutely applaud that. It's hard to achieve. However, I did notice...
Where was the randomness?
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there are random and ridiculous things all over the place; the Killer Rabbit, the French taunting, the coconuts... but here, the most random thing I found was arsenic.
However, this was the only problem I could find in this piece, even when I looked back for some more (not even any grammatical errors, yay!). And in your defense, it is rather difficult to imitate true Monty Python-ness. (That's two incorrect suffix usages.) I know I couldn't do it.
And by the way, I loved the blunt ending. After the descriptive and pleasantly rambling story, it gave a nice little start, like "Oh! Well, that's that, then."
Hiya!
Look's like your post got enough nit-picks but I just had to let you know I really enjoyed your piece. A friend of mine had me watch Monty Python's Holy Grail and he (my friend) is addicted to it. It was well written from totally the right "monty-python" type approach. Thanks!
~Dakota Knight
LOL
LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
Ok, so I LOVE Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And this, just made it SO much better
The only things I found wrong were the parts I pointed out above and that so many of your sentences were SO LONG. They were run-on sentences I believe and I do think you could replace a couple of their commas with periods.
But otherwise.... LOL! That was SO well written and hilarious!
Keep writing,
Alzora
FINALLY!!
I finally read this all the way through. Why did that take so long? It wasn't difficult! At all! *down on self*
Also, D:. PEOPLE SHOULD BE REVIEWING THIS. *is hypocritical* **sort of**
Anyway. If you think this sort of thing is funny, then I'm pretty sure your comedic timing was absolutely perfect. I, however, am still confuzzled. (For some strange reason, I want to change am to are. Even though I know it breaks the rules and isn't right. O.o
^
I wrote all that, like.... at least four days ago. Then I had to go do something, my sister logged me off.... geh.
Anyway. (Gah, I use that a lot.) I... didn't even crack a smile. I'm smile. I is not German at all. *re-reads*
Pretty sure that should be "bright" instead. :p
Maybe "an" would be better than "the"?
Overall, this was good--well duh, you wrote it. Anyway. Nice piece.... I don't really get it, but nice piece. (I wouldn't care, either. In response to Gideon. But you maybe knew that. I think I'm more tired than I realized.)
....this review was very strange.
Oh. My. Goodness.
Seriously, you had me rolling at "made rockily so by its rocky composition".
Certainly answered the classic question of just how Joseph of Arimathea did manage to write out his last words. Turns out he wasn't the one dictating. Bloody, freakin' brilliant.
In an attempt to be constructive:
This... felt weak. It was just sort of there, not really feeling like it actually connected to the last bit. Perhaps ramble on a little more about the results of poor spelling and who woulda thunk that, coincidence of coincidences and God does provide and all that, there would be a monster that would have nearly the same name and they'd nearly be doomed by a man's simple mistake, but Gideon couldn't really be bothered, seeing as how he was dead? Or something. It felt like, after such delicious ramblings beforehand, that last line was rather abrupt and unsatisfying.
Eh, maybe it's just me, but hey, there's mah two cents.
Yeah, not much else to say beyond more inane gushings of praise. For real, so much love.
~GryphonFledgling