at last taken to the shore of his native Ithaca in a boat that travels more quickly than a swallow in flight and completes the journey in a single night. On his return, Odysseus pretends at first to be a Cretan fugitive, then disguises himself as a beggar, then, to his own father, declares himself to be Eperitus, the son of Prince Apheidas of Alybas, who has been blown off course. Pre-Raphaelite A chapter in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur recounts the story of Elaine of Astolat, who asks that her body be sent downstream to Westminster in a boat when she has died, holding a letter of rebuke to Sir Lancelot, whom she loved. The dominant image in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem The Lady of Shalott, which is at least partly based upon Malory's story, is depicted in a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse, and is one that gives expression to a mythical idea that is far older than Sir Thomas Malory. Mythical flying creatures Dragon Sir Eglamour kills a dragon as his third trial for the hand of Christabel, the earl's daughter. Dragons feature in many medieval stories, both in the Arthurian world and in medieval romance generally. The Middle English Breton lai Sir Degaré, for example, tells a broadly similar story to that of Sir Eglamour of Artois. A baby boy is separated from his mother, brought up by another family knowing nothing of his true origins and on reaching adulthood, takes part in a tournament at which he wins the hand of his own mother in marriage. In both cases, the mistake is soon realized by the recognition of an object; gloves in the case of Sir Degaré, a heraldic device on a shield in the case of Sir Eglamour of Artois's lost son. In both stories, a dragon is killed: Sir Degaré kills his before his journey to the tournament. Tristan kills a dragon that is ravaging Ireland, in the Arthurian romance set in Cornwall at the time of King Mark and set down by Thomas of Britain in the mid-12th century, retold by Gottfried von Strassburg in the early 13th century. Sir Lancelot kills a dragon that is living inside a tomb, in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthure. Edmund Spenser’s Elizabethan epic poem The Faerie Queene describes how a Red Cross Knight defeats a dragon at a place where