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I'm looking for a fantasy story about a Knight of the Round Table with Impostor Syndrome (they don't call it that). He's scared of being found-out, so he volunteers to do every quest, fight every monster, etc. IIRC, the story ends with Arthur explaining that they're all scared and that the volunteering was why Arthur called him the bravest of Arthur's knights.

I don't know when I read it -- definitely between 1990 and 2015, probably between 2000 and 2010.

I was reading a lot of Arthurian stuff at the time, so this may have been the final chapter of a book, a short story -- or maybe even a comic...

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    Hi, welcome to SF&F! Do you have any idea when the story was from, or at least when you read it? You can check out some other suggestions for things that might help you add details to your question.
    – DavidW
    Commented Jul 17, 2019 at 21:32

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I think this might be Tumbleweed by Dick King-Smith.

Sir Tumbleweed is an unlikely knight—afraid of horses, jousting, and dragons. But with help from Arthur the Lion and Spearhead the Unicorn, he floors Sir Basil the Beastly in a jousting match. Will the champion jouster of all England find an obliging damsel in distress?

That said, as far as I can tell, Arthur the Lion is the only Arthur in this book. I don't think King Arthur actually features.

These Google Books search results seem to back up the core theme. Sir Tumbleweed is scared, and doesn't understand that bravery isn't being unafraid, but persevering anyway in spite of his fear. However, this point is made much earlier on, and it looks like he talks about it more during the book than OP recalls:

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    The name and snippets don't ring any bells, but I read a lot of Dick King Smith when I was younger so ... maybe. I'll try and find a copy to share with my kids. Whether it's the book I remember, it looks like Sir Tumbleweed would do the job. :-)
    – Steve Almond
    Commented Apr 10, 2022 at 9:20
  • @SteveAlmond: Did you ever find a copy to read?
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Jul 12 at 12:11
  • @FuzzyBoots: alas, no
    – Steve Almond
    Commented Jul 13 at 18:24

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