The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

The Armor of Sir Locust As Dictated to Stepan Chapman by Dr. Thackery Lambshead, 1998

Until recently, I looked forward to cataloging my collection of souvenirs and curios. Now, in retirement, I finally have the time, and it turns out that the job is an endless drudgery. It further turns out that I know nothing worth recording about my possessions. I only know that I acquired some of these things during my years of constant travel. Others could explicate them with better success than I. My memory is not what it was.

This thing, for example. I had to wire it together from various pieces. Bought it in a canvas box from an antique store in Cairo. Got it for peanuts. Had it appraised at the London Natural History. The docent said it was priceless. Hard to know what that means, coming from a docent.

Ivica Stevanovic’s “Armor Montage” incorporating Dr. Lambshead, as first published along with the doctor’s account in the magazine Armor & Codpiece Quarterly (Winter 2000).

It’s unusual, these days, to own a suit of medieval armor, but this specimen is more than unusual, it’s downright peculiar. The metal’s been assayed. I’m assured that it’s an alloy of tin and bronze characteristic of the Second Crusade. Copper grommets—probably a later addition. Scraps of leather, hung with buckles.

The first time you see this thing, a series of questions enter your mind. Such as: Is it armor for a man or for a horse? And if it’s for a man, why has it got armor for four arms? And if it’s for a horse, why has it got armor for six legs? That’s three questions already, and they just keep coming. For as long as the legend of Sir Locust has been recited, there have been variants, and the variants raise questions of their own. Was he originally a soldier? Was he a priest? Was he a locust that grew and grew and somehow, by some bizarre spontaneous recombinant mutation, took on human attributes? Was he a man who was cursed, at puberty perhaps, with the attributes of a locust? Too many questions.

Sometimes I entertain the ghoulish notion that perhaps this armor is no artifact at all, but rather a mummified skeleton, scooped out subsequent to burial and grave robbery. But then I look closely at the hooks and loops and chain mail, and I remember that insects, of whatever size, are not made of metal. But a custom-forged spring-wound machine, an engine of war disguised as a person, that would be made of metal. Speculation is impossible. Let’s examine the written records.

Sir Locust appears in several of the illuminated annals of the Second Crusade. His presence is noted at certain battles. One such text, which still exists in scattered fragments, is The True Chronicle of Sir Locust the Unlikely. It reports that Sir Locust had a nemesis, an opposite number on the Saracen side of the conflict, who was called the Mullah Barleyworm. This priest of Allah, so we’re told, sent a series of three assassins against Sir Locust. None returned. At this juncture, the mullah confronted the French knight directly. They joined combat, and neither survived. I’m leaving out all the good parts. My time is limited, and my collection is extensive.

For instance, I’m leaving out the love interest. Evangelette of Lombardy was Sir Locust’s lady. After his death, she cherished a bloodstained silk scarf, and so on. I’m sure that he wrote her countless sonnets from the front. If the Second Crusade had a front. The Christians lost that crusade, as you may recall.

So now we have a cast of characters all constellated around this dented suit of giant insect armor. Once, the Mullah Barleyworm traveled to France in disguise and kidnapped the Lady Evangelette. Word reached our hero. What a kick in the head for him. He followed his archenemy to Syria but could only effect his lady’s release by giving himself into Barleyworm’s power, as they say in gothic novels. Torture followed, and rooms filling with water, walls sprouting spikes, bottomless chasms, impregnable towers, the jaws of death, all the usual flummery. Also there was some question as to whether the lady actually wanted to be rescued, having fallen in love with her captor in the time-honored masochistic tradition. Legend has it she was drugged. That’s just what Crusaders would expect from an infidel.

I remember one last thing about Sir Locust. I almost left this out. It’s an alternative-origin story, which hinges on the third-century Syrian mystic, Saint Simeon Stylites.

Saint Simeon, as everyone knows, mortified his flesh by living for thirty-seven years at the top of a pillar. They say he subsisted on honey-dipped locusts, provided, I suppose, by respectful local peasants. I always wondered how the locusts got to the top of the pillar. Perhaps he had a bucket on a rope. I don’t see why not. Simeon was so holy, they say, that even the fleas and horseflies refrained from biting him.

But one day, a great grey locust lighted on his sun-blistered nose, as bold as you please. This locust called out to Simeon. “Now I shall bite you, old hermit,” it told him, “for excellent reasons. I can ignore your incessant consumption of my brethren bugs, soaked in the baby food of my cousin bugs, for such is the way of nature. But why should I excuse you from reciprocation? You may very well be considered a candidate for sainthood amongst the benighted Christians. But I, I’ll have you know, am a good Mussulman locust.” Whereupon the locust bit Simeon’s nose, drank his blood, and flew away.

The saint might have been excused for cursing the locust. Being a saint, he did the opposite. He prayed for the proud heathen insect, and God was so impressed that He followed the saint’s suggestions and blessed the locust with three boons. First, it grew as large as a horse—a miracle! Then it grew a human face on its head—an egregious miracle! The third boon, longevity, would only become apparent as the years went on. Saint Simeon had assumed that the locust would be grateful for its transformation. He hoped that it would convert to the true faith and save its tiny soul. (Saint Simeon didn’t get out much.) The locust remained an unrepentant Muslim, and to compound its ingratitude, it outlived the saint by decades.

In fact, it lived in Syria for eight centuries, doing whatever it did without making any impression on the historical record. Then came 1144, the fall of Edessa, and the Second Crusade. The ancient creaking locust purchased a sword, commissioned a fine suit of armor, and joined the army of defense. It marched into legend as an illustrious soldier of Islam and died, in due course, a soldier’s death.

The Christians, far from home, heard the story of the pious old locust from their wretched prisoners of war. And one Frenchman liked the story so well he stole it.