Childe

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In the Middle Ages, a childe was the eldest son of a nobleman who had not yet attained to knighthood, or had not yet won his spurs.

The term is now obsolete, but is still well-known from poetry, such as Robert Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came and Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

The term also exists, albeit with a different meaning, in the roleplaying system "Vampire: The Masquerade" and various spin-offs. It signifies the "offspring" of a vampire, in this respect called a "Sire". See Childe (vampire).

Childe in The Dark Tower (series) is, in Roland Deschain's own words, "...a term that describes a knight - or a gunslinger - on a quest. A formal term, and ancient. We never used it among ourselves...for it means holy, chosen by ka. We never liked to think of ourselves in such terms, and I haven't thought of myself so in many years." (p. 859, The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, Pocket Books, 2006 ed.)

The term is used to apply to an expected next stage in human evolution in the Childe Cycle novels by Gordon R. Dickson.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.