A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court starts when the
story’s main character, a Yankee named Hank Morgan, is knocked out at a bar.
When he awakes, he finds himself in a strange world, being held captive by a
knight. Hank questions his captor on the way to wherever he is being taken as
to where he is. His captor, introduced as Sir Kay, answers that he is in Camelot
and the year is 618. He is brought to the dungeon of the castle of King Arthur.
As he sits in his dungeon cell, a young boy comes in and introduces himself as
Clarence. He tells Hank that he is to be hung the next day, by order of Merlin
the sorcerer. Hank decides to save his skin by saying that he too is a
sorcerer, and that if he is hung, terrible things will happen.
When Clarence tells Merlin this, he says he is lying, and
that if he was not, he would have said what the terrible thing was. Clarence
repeats this to Hank, who, remembering about an eclipse scheduled to happen the
next day, claims that the sun will disappear and darkness will encase the
world. Begging for him not to do so, the King releases him. Hank, who can’t
stop the eclipse either way, says that he will only let it go on for one day only
as long as he gets treated with the respect he deserves and is clothed royally.
With a lot of money, Hank starts modernizing the world he is now forced to live
in and builds schools, militaries and factories. He then teaches a few knights
and peasants to read and write and do basic math. His first personal student is
his newly made friend, Clarence.
4 years go by, and every day, Hank accepts more and more
that this is his new life. But he soon wants to go on an adventure. He hears
stories about Camelot about a mysterious Holy Fountain in The Valley of
Holiness. Hank takes a troop of knights and pilgrims and goes searching for the
fountain. Along the way, he and his band see many slave traders and the many
harsh doings of slavery. These include families being torn apart, people being
starved and chained together in the hot, scorching heat, and people who
collapse getting whipped by the slave leader mercilessly.
As they keep going toward the fountain, they run into a band
of monks that tell them that the fountain is broken and no longer good for
bathing, so they left. Even though the news is a big disappointment for the
group, they continue onward so as to see where the fountain once was. When they
finally get to the Valley of Holiness, they go to a nearby town to camp out.
The next day, they head out to the fountain and see that the bathing rooms are
still in perfect condition. Hank announces that he and his men will fix the
fountain so that it will flow water once more.
After laboring hard, Hank and his team finally fix the fountain
and spread the word to the nearby towns. Hank then gets in a big fight with
another town citizen over if the king will come to see the fountain or not. He
tells him that if the king doesn’t come, he will ride himself out of town on a
rail. If the king does come, then the other man will be ridden out of town on a
rail. Well, the king comes to the town, but on business, so neither is ridden
out on a rail.
The king is in town to judge a few trials, and after judging
one incorrectly, the townspeople turn on him. Hank, looking still for more
adventure, tells the king they will go undercover as peasants and get to know
the lowly life of a peasant. So over the next few days, Hank and the king practiced
being peasants. They hung their shoulders and kept their eyes on the floor, as
if ashamed to be who they were. Next, Hank cut the King’s hair so that it
looked ugly and shabby. Then, late after midnight, they crept away from the
village to go on their adventure.
The king had a very hard time adjusting to life as a
peasant. He had to stop every half an hour for food and drink and a rest. It
got on Hank’s nerves, but after about the 5th stop, Hank pretended
they were out of water just to pretend to look for some. While he was away from
the king, he himself rested. As they passed from town to town, the king started
to hear how his subjects hated him, and how they always pretended to like him.
He also adjusted to the customs of a peasant, and sleeping in the middle of
nowhere.
The first REAL place that they stopped was a small hut.
Inside, they found a very sick young woman, all alone in the dark, enclosed
space. They tried to give her water, but she refused. She came about to explain
that her entire family had died, in this same room, of smallpox, and that she
herself was sick, and would not except anything that would keep her from
joining her family. The two found a young girl in the corner, shuddering and
almost dead. Upon trying to water her, the mother slapped the water away. She
again said that nothing would keep them from death.
Soon, both were dead. The king and Hank knew they had to get
out when they heard two voices knock on the door and call out: “Mother? Are you
in?” Hank pulled to get the king away from the dead bodies. The king protested,
but Hank warned him that if they didn’t get out, they would be present to see a
horrible sight that they would never forget and always would make their heart
shatter when they remembered it.
After this excursion, they headed back to the town. This is
where the book skips ahead to 3 years later. Hank is now married, and has
revealed to Camelot that he has been running modernized factories in secret.
Many people are now well schooled, and Hank is a happy father of a child. However,
one of his knights has not been seen in awhile. Curious, Hank follows him to
where he was seen last: A mysterious cave.
Upon entering, he discovers that it is a group of knights
that have turned on him and dislike him very much. His small army is not enough
to take the knights, and Hank ends up getting stabbed in the stomach with a
knife. His wounds cannot be mended, though many cures are tried. Hank dies from
the wound the next day. Clarence goes on to finish the novel with his last testament
and says to close the story that “The Boss” has died.
