Summary
In chapter sixteen, Twyti, the king's huntsman, leads everyone into the woods. They discover a boar's den and begin to pursue it. The boar charges them and Twyti narrowly escapes death with the help of Robin Hood. The boar grievously wounds one of the dogs and Robin mercifully ends its life. Wart finds this very upsetting and is angry at Twyti for having no emotional reaction to it. At the same time, King Pellinore finally discovers the Questing Beast but notes that it is in a very sickly and weakened state. He takes it to the castle to receive medical care.
In the chapter that follows, Wart expresses a desire to fly and see birds. Archimedes offers to assist him in this endeavor and talks to him about crows. Archimedes gives him instruction and Wart slowly develops the skills. They also discuss the meaning of birdsong and compare the different tunes of various birds.
Archimedes gives Wart a dead mouse and he transforms into an owl. As a bird, Wart gains an entirely new view of the world, being able to see from the skies. Archimedes takes him to the "tree of dreams" to meet Athene, the goddess of knowledge. They converse and Athene reveals many of nature's secrets to Wart, giving him a greater understanding of the world around him.
Manipulating the movement of time, she shows him how trees have different personalities and grow in small increments. Likewise, she shows him how rocks have the same individual characteristics and also change with a similar slowness. She shows him how mountains and cliffs take shape with a similarly unhurried pace. The rocks say the phrase "hold fast," as they attempt to "cohere" into something solid, but ultimately cannot stop the flow of time and erosion. Wart wakes up and is mocked by Kay for snoring.
Along with Merlyn, Reverend Sidebottom teaches the boys about kings and knights. On a particularly dull day of these lessons, Merlyn takes Wart to see a giant. He explains that they will need to remain invisible in order to safely go to the giant's home without being detected, adding that for the spell to work they must all lock hands and hold tight. They agree to do so and travel to the castle together, getting used to the trickiness of being invisible.
Upon reaching the giant's home, they discover that he has a massive amount of captured individuals working his lands. He treats them cruelly. The boys find that the giant is smaller than they expected and Merlyn tells them they had exaggerated expectations. Their conversation is too loud and the giant overhears them. He comes looking for them, saying he will devour them. Concurrently, they find that King Pellinore has also been captured by the giant. Wart accidentally loses his grip on Merlyn's hand and they become visible again. The giant goes after them but everyone is saved, at the last minute, by the Questing Beast, who fends off the giant. They free all the prisoners and laborers and the castle is destroyed. They escape back home.
Fall returns and the narrator describes various habitual actions in the castle. King Pellinore, Grummore, and Robin all make various appearances at different times. The boys become more proficient with swords and bows, although Kay also becomes increasingly difficult and temperamental. Wart still has affection for Kay, but remains sad and frustrated that he himself will never get to be a knight. Merlyn tells him the actions around it are largely ceremonial.
Analysis
The encounter Wart has with Athene shows him the importance of looking at time with a degree of patience and care. In meeting the trees and seeing how they grow slowly, he sees what came from steady development. Similarly, in seeing how rocks attempt to hold together and mountains form, Wart is able to see the broad sweep of time. In the slow shaping of both of these natural phenomena, Wart is able to glean the value of patience, another important quality for a ruler to have.
Violence is another theme revisited in this section. In the hunting sequence, Wart once again sees how violence begets violence. Twyti remains in pursuit of a boar and seems entirely unconcerned with anything else. He nearly dies as a result of this hunt and is only protected by the quick thinking of others. The boar is eventually captured and slain, but this results in the death of a dog, an act of mercy that Robin Hood has to carry out, not Twyti. In this way, he sees that all of this pageantry results in the waste of a dog’s life, a fact that he finds troubling.
This idea of wasteful violence also appears in a comment Archimedes makes to Wart. While discussing hunting, Archimedes says that no owl "kills for pleasure." In contrast to the king's hunting party, owls do not merely kill for sport. This portrait fits with the dignity assigned to Archimedes and other owls in the book, but it also speaks to the earlier scene's depiction of violence. As demonstrated by the later scenes with Athene, owls are very wise and judicious in the world of the novel, as they take a wider view of the natural world. Seemingly as a result, they choose not to partake in the wastefulness of killing for anything but survival. The suggestion made here is that to do so is cruel and tasteless. Given this comment, Wart is again shown the importance of not engaging in violence for its own self-justifying end.
In his interaction with the giant, Wart sees how authoritarianism doesn’t work as a viable form of governance. In the moment in which they free the prisoners and laborers, the giant calls on them to help him, but no one assists him. Instead they flee. What he fails to recognize in this moment is that his power hinged entirely on his exercise of force. In the moment where it slipped, he no longer had any real control over his land. In this instance, White seems to point to the limitations of using force to hold together a kingdom, as the giant's dominion is fully contingent on a constant display of violence.
As they prepare to go to the giant's house, Merlyn warns the boys that the invisibility spell will only continue to function if they lock hands and do not let go. He emphasizes that the spell is a difficult one to maintain and that it requires them to work in unison with one another. This scene demonstrates the importance of unity to Wart, as the spell can only function with cooperation. As with many of his other adventures, this one reveals the role that working together plays in building a strong governing body, on a small scale, as its constituents need to be able to rely on their king.
