Black Knight- the traditional knightly type in medieval novels and the fantasy that inherits them. In the classical form, black meant rather anonymity, but later it was overgrown with a number of connotations of various kinds.

Since a knight often wears a closed helmet or at least a helmet that hides his face well, the best way to determine his identity or at least ancestral affiliation is his coat of arms and coat of arms, in which his armor or surcoat and cloak are painted. Accordingly, a knight, whose armor or equipment is painted over with black paint (as an option, covered with blackening, if the knight has the time and means to regularly lubricate his armor) is a kind of medieval equivalent of a car without numbers and with tinting, on which all sorts of criminals, death squads usually drive around and other unpleasant citizens who have reason to hide from the law.

Who has a reason to use such a "disguise"? Well, firstly, to all exiles, raubritters, rebels and disgraced aristocrats, so as not to shine. A gothic avenger from an unjustly persecuted family, leading a personal war forgiving his oppressors, may well wear non-binding black armor and a black shield, demonstrating, on the one hand, the formal innocence of any of the known factions, and on the other hand, willingness to fight bypassing traditional rules. As well as a king in exile or an undercover king, whose coat of arms is known to everyone and who wants to remain anonymous, can wear such.

At the same time, a black knight may be in someone's service, but wear faceless armor, so as not to associate with his formal patron, if the instructions given to such a knight are illegal or immoral. In this version, black armor and a shield without a coat of arms or with a meaningless emblem instead of it is a kind of medieval analogue military uniform unmarked or with a badge of someone paramilitaries, which is often worn by all sorts of "formally not associated with the authorities" death squads.

And also a warrior in armor and in itself looks impressive and formidable. If you paint this armor black and paint over the coat of arms with it, the result will look downright ominous. If, instead of a coat of arms, draw some gloomy emblem like a "dead head" over the black field of the shield, then such a knight will seem like a medieval equivalent of a horror hero. Therefore, in fantasy, the image of a black knight is often chosen by evil warriors or those associated with dark forces - anti-paladins, death knights and simply servants of assorted dark lords and evil empires. In real life, approximately the same reputation was borne by the mercenary reiters, famous for their cruelty, who wore black-painted armor and were called "black riders" for this.

In a conditionally positive version, the black color, due to its association with monasticism, can be chosen by fighting monks or hunters for evil spirits - but even among them there are dangerous templars, not much different from their nominal enemies - heretics, pagans and monsters.

In the plot, the black knight usually acts as a worthy opponent of the hero or heroes, the battle with which will be an important test for them, at least he turns out to be a warrior of the Dark Lord or, on the contrary, a mysterious ally or mentor of the heroes.

Examples of

Legends

• In the works about the Knights of the Round Table, the Black Knight turns out to be the hero's private enemy. Some of these black-armored warriors are honest antiheroes, but there are also natural death knights.
• Black Krzysztof, legendary raubriter of Polish, Galician and Lusatian legends.

Literature

• "Ivanhoe" by Walter Scott - the Black Knight of the Padlock - is actually none other than the traveling incognito King of England, Richard the Lionheart.
• His "Quentin Dorward" - "black riders" at work.
• "Simplicissimus" by Hans Jacob Christoph von Grimmelshausen - again "black horsemen", only unlike Scott Grimmelshausen these guys saw, as they say, "in the visor" - went through the Thirty Years War, however.
• "Lord of the Rings" - The Nazgul death knights are called the Black Riders here - the strongest servants of Sauron, ghost warriors on black horses, encased in black cloaks and armor. They were once mortal warriors and magicians who received the Rings of Power, multiplying their capabilities many times over, but slowly immersing their bodies in the Invisible World and eventually subjugating them to the will of the Dark Lord.
• Black Book of Arda - knights Ast Ahe, heroic anti-paladins in the service of Melkor, in another way are called exactly that black knights.
• Subsequently, the same knights Ast Akhe appear in another Russian-language apocrypha on Tolkien, “On the other side of the dawn” by Chigirinskaya, where they are already “honest” anti-paladins, brainwashed mystery cultists.
• The Witcher Saga - black - is the coat of arms of the Nilfgaard army, so the black knights serve in it in great numbers. In the plot, such is Kahir aep Keallah - an agent of the Nilfgaardian intelligence, sent by the emperor to kidnap the Cintrian princess Ciri, who is undergoing a long evolution from an antagonist of heroes, carrying out the cruel orders of his superiors, to their companion, in the final atoning for his sins with blood.
• "The Saga of Reinevan" by the same Sapkowski - it is from them that the death squads of Bishop Kondrat Olesnitsky consist. They also evaporate with all sorts of bad substances before the battle in order to mow under the undead who do not feel pain and fear. Their commander, a bastard and the right hand of Bishop Birkart von Grellenort, is an extremely colorful type: an obscurantist, a black magician and a complete monster is no better than his dropping dad.
  • The legendary Zavisha Charny also briefly appears as a positive representative of the role.
• "Crusaders" by G. Senkevich - Zavish Charny in person, no comment.
• Astrid Lindgren, "Mio, My Mio" - the brutal black knight Kato, the antagonist of heroes.
• "It is difficult to be a god" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - black robes over armor are worn by the fighting monks of the Holy Order - exemplary religious fanatics and templars.
• "A Song of Ice and Fire" by JRR Martin - a whole order of such, the Night Watch, protects the Wall from the invasions of the Others and the wild.
• Fate / Zero Gena Urobuchi is a servant-Berserker serving Matou Kariya, who looks exactly like a knight in black armor without a coat of arms. In fact, this is Sir Lancelot, who became the Black Knight out of guilt for civil war, which ruined Britain, in which he became an unwitting accomplice.
• “The City of Craftsmen, or the Tale of Two Hunchbacks” by Tamara Gabbe - Guillaume Gottschalk, a fierce warrior in the service of the Duke de Malicorne and his right hand.

Cinema

• The adaptation of "Ivanhoe".
• Screen adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" by Peter Jackson.
• The adaptation of "Mio, my Mio" - to the heap of Kato is also played by Christopher Lee, the future Jacksonian White Magician Saruman.
• "Lady Hawk" - protagonist Etienne of Navarre, played by the magnificent Rutger Hauer - a gothic avenger, a black knight and a werewolf.
• Herman's film adaptation of "It's Difficult to Be God" - in Fleischmann's templars wear dark red robes.
• Star Wars are Sith, all of them. In the Disney trilogy - the Knights of Ren, led by the full-fledged anti-paladin Kylo Ren.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail is an incredibly colorful Black Knight, a worthy enemy of heroes: a GAR warrior in dark armor, ready to confront the heroes even after the loss of all limbs.

Anime and manga

Videogames

• Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor - a cavalier who followed the path of Darkness becomes a black knight. To complete the promotion quest, you need to plunder the elven treasury.
• Heroes of Might and Magic III - the black knight is a unit of the Necropolis castle of the sixth level, an undead warrior (possibly a vampire) in black armor, sitting on a battle horse and armed with an owl. Upgrades to Death Knight.
• Kingdom Rush - heavily armored Dark Knights (together with their enhanced version - Dark Assassins) are part of Vez'Nan's army. The Fallen Knights who serve in Blackburn's army and Blackburn himself are very similar to them.
  • In Vengeance, where you need to play for the "Nan commander," a tower-barracks with two knights appears. Their names are generated (more precisely, they should be generated, but a bug prevents) in honor of the actors who played Batman: Sir Clooney, Sir Affleck, Sir Bale and etc.

Board games

• Chess is the Black horses, obviously.
• Dungeons and Dragons - Blackguard, in different translations called the "black guard", then the "black knight" - a local class of anti-paladin.
• Warhammer Fantasy Battles - in the version of the "Warriors of the Dark Lord" these are, in fact, the Black Knights (equestrian deaths of the Grave Guard) and the Black Grail Knights (former Breton Grail Knights who joined the ranks of the Blood Dragons) vampires and Cold Knights of the dark elves (these raptor lizards are dissected), in addition to which the dark elves also have Black Riders similar to the historical German raptor. And in the variant "knights-monks" these are the templars of the imperial god of death Morr, clad in black armor and fighting with the undead: the Black Guard, the Black Rose, the Order of the Shroud and the Knights of the Crow. Moreover, the imperials, as a cultural template of medieval Germans, have real reitars, but they just don’t wear black armor.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • In the classic version - "black shields": space marines of the Horus Heresy, who hid their legion of origin (loyalists from the heretical legions, heretics from the loyal legions), painting the power brooch painted in the coat of arms of the legion in black.
  • Then, under the "black shields", the space marines of Karul Death began to dress up - an elite order that provides power support to the Ordo Xenos, such people in the black world of the Hammer of War. Since the order consists of paratroopers of other orders seconded to the Ordo Xenos, black is used as the "heraldic color" fighters are left unpainted.
  • In the variant "warrior monks" - the Black Templars, especially burnt on religious grounds, the Order of the Space Marines, disguised as the Teutons.
  • In the variant "knights of the dark forces" - the Black Legion, an elite unit of the Chaos Space Marines, serving directly the Warrior of Chaos Ezekiel Abaddon.

Real life

• Edward the Black Prince. For the British - a national hero and an exemplary prince on a white horse (like Eugene of Savoy for Eastern and Central Europe), for the French - a subject and embodiment of the "War is a nightmare" trail.
• Charny is hovering. What is unusual for a representative of the role, it was considered and is still considered the standard of the "correct" knight.
• The Order of the Hospitallers (with black surcoats and cloaks with a white cross) is a codifier of the warrior-monk subtype.
• The German black reiters already mentioned in the heading of the article.
• And the Black Packs of Florian Gayer, a German rebel knight known as the right-hand man of the religious dictator Thomas Münzer. See epigraph - the song is about Guyer and his troops.
• Knights of the Hungarian "black army" in full force.
• The guardsmen of Ivan the Terrible. Depending on the sympathies of the audience, they can be perceived both as "warrior-monks" and as "thugs of the Dark Lord", since there were hardly less rumors and myths about them than about the below-mentioned SS.

For the first time, the black knights were mentioned in the 800s, and in the 13th century they were already legendary. Although the black knights did good deeds and protected cities from unjust rulers and other threats, the medieval church forbade mention of them and all texts related to them. However, the story of the legendary knight Ashora has been spreading over the centuries.

The Black Knight Ashor is known as an experienced and strong man, despite his advanced age, specializing in the murder of cruel kings and other noble people. In the XIII century, one king had a powerful enemy - the king of another state, oppressing his subjects. Desperate to defeat his opponent, the king sent a message and asked Ashor to come. One night, the king woke up and saw a knight next to his bed. He entered the palace unnoticed, thus proving his skill.

He learned that the evil king was holding an old priest in prison, who had once rebelled against the cruelty of the evil ruler. After the murder of the king, Ashor decided to free the priest. He entered the dungeon and saw that the priest was very weak and could hardly stand. It was difficult for Ashor to get out of the dungeon with the old man in his arms, the knight was wounded. Nevertheless, both reached the horse, rode out of the city and disappeared into the woods.

The black knight freed the city from the evil king, however, they sent a pursuit after him. Ashor realized that he was dying of wounds, got off the horse and told the priest to continue on his way without him. The priest thanked him, blessed him and rode away.

While these two were fighting for the soul of man, a third person appeared, who had no form. To be visible, he manifested as a figure in a black cloak, but his arms, legs, and face were not visible. This third was the Anonymous, the guardian of the universal balance, the one who cannot be named, the personification of absolute neutrality, neither good nor bad, beyond division.

He said the knight did as much good as he did evil. Thus, neither side can claim his soul. At that moment, the angel and demon disappeared, and Anonymous turned to the knight.

According to legend, after these words, the mysterious stranger disappeared, and the knight Ashor still lives among people and is engaged only in good deeds.

They say that he is right now above us in the blackness of space, beyond the glow of the Earth. He slowly circles in the dark in a special, constantly corrected, orbit. The earth revolving under him is completely unaware of its unauthorized guest. This is the "Black Knight" satellite - a mysterious object of unknown (possibly alien) origin. They say that he is right now above us, like the last 13 thousand years.

Guest from the constellation Bootes

By 1960, both the United States and Soviet Union already had satellites orbiting the Earth. But on February 11, 1960, many newspapers carried the disturbing news that someone else had something in orbit. Radar screens designed by the US Navy to detect spy satellites have revealed something. It has been described as a dark tumbling object. And it didn't belong to the Americans or the Soviets.

The next day, the newspapers published a little more information. The orbit of the mysterious object was 79 ° to the equator, not 90 ° of the correct polar orbit. The eccentricity of its orbit was also unusual, with an apogee of 1,728 km and a perigee of only 216 km. The mysterious satellite completed a full revolution around the Earth in 104.5 minutes.

At the same time, the US Navy was tracking an almost 6m long protective casing left over from an old Discoveryr launch. Discoveryr-8 was launched on November 20, 1959, as a rehearsal for a manned flight into space, followed by a return in a capsule with a parachute. The launch went according to plan, but there were problems with the separation of the 136-kg capsule. The capsule shells detached normally, but the capsule itself deviated into an orbit close to that of the mysterious object and was eventually declared lost. The Navy tracked one of the shrouds, it orbited every 103 minutes at an 80 ° angle, with an apogee of 950 km and a perigee of 187 km. Similar to the orbit of the Black Knight, but not quite.

In 1963, astronaut Gordon Cooper reported that during his 15th orbit on board spaceship Mercury Atlas 9 saw a greenish UFO. This was witnessed by almost 100 people watching the radar screens of the NASA tracking station, which was located in Muchea, 60 km from the city of Perth (Australia). The official clarification that followed talks about an electronics malfunction on board and Cooper's hallucinations caused by high levels of carbon dioxide in the air. The Black Knight's existence seemed undeniable.

In 1973, Scottish explorer Duncan Lunan wanted to know for sure. He went back to Norwegian scientists' long delay echo (LDE) data and analyzed it. Lunen discovered that the signal was pointing towards Epsilon Boötis, a double star in the constellation Bootes. Whatever the Black Knight is, it looks like it was broadcasting an invitation from the people of Epsilon Bootes, an invitation 12,600 years old, according to Lunen's analysis.

The final piece of evidence came in 1998, when the space shuttle Endeavor made its maiden flight (mission STS-88) to the International Space Station. Astronauts aboard the Endeavor took many photographs of the strange object, which have appeared in the public domain on the NASA website. But soon all the photographs disappeared. They showed up again after some time on new pages with descriptions stating that the objects depicted on them are space debris. The photographs were of high quality, and they unmistakably identified a type of spacecraft. Since then, we know almost everything about the "Black Knight". We know what it looks like, where it came from and when it came to us with the mission of an interstellar ambassador. And this has been attested to by so many reliable witnesses who have taken part in space programs.

Then why doesn't anyone know about the Black Knight, and why doesn't NASA acknowledge its existence?

True facts

Nikola Tesla did receive rhythmic radio signals in 1899, and believed that they were coming from space. Today we know that Tesla was right. The signals it was catching came from pulsars, giant sources of pulsating radio signals in deep space that were not officially discovered until 1968. Since the pulsars were unknown in Tesla's time, he made a better guess as to what these signals could be: undeciphered messages of reasonable origin.

Norwegian scientists did receive a Long Delay Echo (LDE), and its cause remains almost as much of a mystery today as it was then. Today we have five possible explanations, and almost all of them refer to strange effects in the earth's ionosphere. The most popular theory states that radio signals are trapped between two layers of the ionosphere, and repeatedly bouncing around the Earth several times until they finally find an exit through the lower layer. These are five of about fifteen more or less plausible explanations, none of which consider orbiting alien satellites. Although, if such an alien satellite recorded our radio signals and broadcast them back 8 seconds later, it could have the same effect as the LDE.

When Duncan Lunen interpreted the LDE data as signals from space in 1973, he had no idea about the Black Knight or any other strange polar moon. Lunen suggested that the effect is associated with the Lagrange point L 5. L 4 and L 5 are two points along the Moon's orbit. One of the points is 60 ° ahead of the Moon, the other 60 ° behind the Moon, they are stable and here the gravimetric influence of the Earth and the Moon is able to keep the object in a constant orbit. Moreover, Lunen later abandoned his method, admitting that it was not only unscientific, but also contained gross errors. Therefore, despite the history that has entered modern pop culture, there is no and never was any connection between Epsilon Bootes and the mysterious satellite, or with the date "12,600 years ago."

Newspaper reports of two satellites in orbit in 1954? A wild story sucked from the thumb in support of the sale of a UFO book. The Air Force officer referred to was just a guy who once saw a UFO but never came up with the idea of ​​unknown satellites orbiting the Earth. No connection to the alleged Black Knight.

The most interesting part of the story took place in 1960, when the Discoverer satellites were launched. Air Force spokesman Dudley Sharp told the press that this mysterious new object is likely the second shell from the Discoverer-8, a twin of a famous object that they have already tracked. The sizes of the objects coincided, and they were found in approximately the same place. Very soon the information was confirmed. Even Time magazine wrote about this, but since mundane explanations are not as exciting as mysterious objects, the message got to the very last page of the news.

There is something else interesting about the Discoverer program. In 1992, a CIA program called Corona was declassified, and it was discovered that the Discoverers were not at all going to launch the guys into space, but in fact carried Corona spy satellites. The reason for using a polar orbit was that it could fly over every part of the Earth with the ability to photograph everything, in contrast to conventional orbits, which capture only certain ranges of latitudes. In those days, there was no such thing as transmitting digital images to Earth, so you had to use film cameras. The footage had to be brought back to Earth for development and study. For this, the camera from the Corona KH-1 apparatus in the capsule left orbit and parachuted in the atmosphere, where it was intercepted by the JC-130 search and rescue aircraft.

Thus, although the entire Discoverer program was only a cover, the information about the launches and their results presented in the newspapers at the time was in fact true, which was confirmed later after the secrecy was lifted. The Corona camera aboard Discoverer 8 was indeed lost exactly as the newspapers reported in 1960. Both the casings and their unusual orbit were reported.

So what did Gordon Cooper see from the Mercury Atlas 9 that was confirmed by all those radar operators? According to Cooper himself (who died in 2004), nothing at all. And there is no mistake, Gordon Cooper has reported on UFO sightings more than once during his career as a pilot. He adamantly claimed that while serving in Germany, he saw a flotilla of UFOs flying overhead, although no one else reported this. But Cooper was no less adamant when he declared that the UFO near "Mercury-Atlas-9" - his alleged observation of the greenish "Black Knight" in 1963 - was completely fabricated by pseudo-ufologists. He posted all of the tapes, including his own originals, as proof that nothing of the kind was reported during the flight. This story is mentioned in almost every UFO book that tells about the "Black Knight", but there is no such record in NASA documents, in the reports of radar operators or in any other sources of that time. This is a pure invention of modern writers.

Which leaves us with STS-88 of the shuttle Endeavor and their striking images of a certain spacecraft. We know that during one of the astronauts' spacewalks, a thermal-protective ceramic tile flew off from the shuttle - one side is silver, the other is black. This incident was photographed many times. The tile has crumpled and acquired a bizarre shape. Unaware of the origin of the object, an ordinary person would have no idea what it might be. But unfortunately for the legend and fortunately for the astronauts, it still wasn't an alien satellite.