“…and no one knows but Lorelei.”

Ah, the Middle Ages: idealized by some, studied by many, and fated to serve as the wellspring of some truly awful motion pictures.

Scott Nokes at Unlocked Wordhoard is having fun with the “study guide” for the impending Beowulf movie. A sample: “As I searched for the actual number or e-mail to order the study guide, I realized that the glossy ads for the film on the back of the poster were the study guide. Oh.”

Carl at Got Medieval is grumbling, too, about Beowulf’s mother’s footwear choices.

Meanwhile, Jennifer at Per Omnia Saecula notes, with understandable dread, a film adaptation of Boccaccio’s Decameron starring fame’s latest love-children.

Alas, my Charlemagne-and-the-giant-scorpions miniseries is no closer to becoming a reality. However, Variety mentions another movie that may have tremendous potential:

Telepool also picked up “The Charlemagne Code,” Munich-based Dreamtool Entertainment’s $7 million TV movie about an archeologist on a perilous quest to find the legendary Nibelung treasure. Made for RTL Television in Germany, Telepool has already presold the TV movie to Telecinco in Spain and TV2 in Hungary.

Charlemagne, the Nibelung treasure, and a German Indiana Jones? I’ve been teaching Wagner for three weeks, so part of me would love to see this improbable, ridiculous gesamtkunstwerk find its way to American cable.

And if it happens to have a few giant scorpions in it? So much the better.