What’s so funny about this? This strange little story came about not because of a twist of fate when the horses happened to be out of the stable. It happened because of a twist of words, a spoonerism. In days of olde, whatever kings and queens wanted was considered the law; people had to obey, especially knights who swore to be loyal. It was a very risky thing to argue with a royal request. Nevertheless the knight in our story must have been afraid that his armor might get rusty, because he argued with the queen not wanting to get wet. But what did out knight discover when he went to the stable? All the horses were out. Perhaps they were on an overnight camping trip. Whatever the reason, the only creature who remained the stable was a giant beer-drinking dog. What was our knight to do? It was his duty to get the queen’s message to the king, no matter what. He offered the only thing a gentleman and a loyal night could offer, to ride the giant dog. But the queen wasn’t having any of it.
