Daname
Sir Daname is a knight in Le Morte d'Arthur, nephew to Sir Darras, who appears briefly in Book IX during the episode of Tristram's imprisonment.
Sir Daname is a knight in Le Morte d'Arthur, nephew to Sir Darras, who appears briefly in Book IX during the episode of Tristram's imprisonment. When Sir Lucan arrives seeking lodging, Daname refuses him and issues a challenge: "Nay, nay, said Sir Daname, that was nephew to Sir Darras, say him that he shall not be lodged here, but let him wit that I, Sir Daname, will meet with him anon, and bid him make him ready" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book IX, Chapter XXXVI).
The encounter that follows is swift and decisive. "So Sir Daname came forth on horseback, and there they met together with spears, and Sir Lucan smote down Sir Daname over his horse's croup, and then he fled into that place, and Sir Lucan rode after him, and asked after him many times" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book IX, Chapter XXXVI). The pattern is characteristic of Malory's minor knights: bold challenge followed by immediate defeat and flight. Daname's two appearances compress an entire chivalric arc -- defiance, combat, humiliation -- into a few sentences.
Both citations come from the same chapter and the same episode, forming a self-contained narrative unit. The first establishes Daname's identity (nephew to Darras) and his combative disposition. The second delivers the deflating outcome. Malory uses Daname as a plot device to demonstrate Sir Lucan's prowess and to complicate Tristram's imprisonment at Darras's castle, where the host's family members pick fights with passing knights and invariably lose.
Appears in: Beings, Entities in Le Morte d'Arthur, British Tradition