The Mad Trist
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"The Mad Trist" by Sir Launcelot Canning' is a story within a story found in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". Canning is a fictitious author: the story's real author is, of course, Poe himself.
It is a humorously satirical tale of knightly chivalry, but it plays an important role in its mother-story, where actions within the "Trist" begin manifesting themselves in the House of Usher.
[edit] Plot summary
The plot is intentionally ludicrous. A brave knight, named Ethelred, who is drunk, storms the home of a hermit. After breaking though the door with his mace, he finds instead of the hermit a fire-breathing dragon guarding a palace of silver and gold and a brass shield. Ethelred slays the dragon and captures the shield.
The story interlocks with its outer story, "The Fall of the House of Usher", in the world of sound, where sounds in the "Trist"—the door being shattered, the dragon screaming as it dies, the brass shield falling to the floor—come to life in the outer story.
