We are the Knights who say “Ni!” is a famous absurdist catchphrase and scene from the 1975 comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail , and today it lives on mostly as a cult quote, meme template, and general geeky in‑joke online.

Quick Scoop

What “we are the knights who say ni” is

  • The phrase comes from a group of bizarre woodland knights who terrify travelers simply by yelling the word “Ni!” in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  • In the film, they block King Arthur’s path and demand a “shrubbery” as tribute, specifically “one that looks nice… and not too expensive.”
  • They are played for surreal, over-the-top comedy rather than serious fantasy; their power is totally ridiculous, which is the whole joke.

“We are the Knights who say… Ni!” is often quoted verbatim in forums, chats, and comment sections as a kind of playful, nerdy greeting or punchline.

Why people still quote it

  • It’s one of the most iconic scenes from Monty Python, a group whose sketch style shaped modern British and US comedy, especially absurd and meta humor.
  • The specific combination of random sacred words (“Ni”, “Peng”, “Neee‑wom”) and mundane demands (“bring us a shrubbery”) makes it endlessly quotable and meme‑able.
  • Online, the phrase often signals “I’m a Monty Python fan” or just sets a silly tone in a thread, much like dropping other classic Python lines.

How it shows up online now

  • Meme generators have “Knights who say Ni” templates where users add new captions to the tall antler-helmet knight image.
  • Forum threads and comment chains sometimes devolve into call-and-response posts of “Ni!” or full copy-pastas of the Knights’ dialogue for fun.
  • Fans of fantasy games (like tabletop RPG communities) occasionally name guilds, clans, or joke NPC factions after the Knights Who Say Ni.

Fun little details for fans

  • In the movie, the Knights later change their name to a long, nonsensical string of syllables, and Arthur calls them “the Knights who ‘til recently said Ni.”
  • The stage musical Spamalot , based on the film, keeps the Knights and regularly improvises their new name, which often starts with “Ekke Ekke Ekke F’tang F’tang Olé Biscuitbarrel…”.
  • The leader knight was played by Michael Palin, one of the core Monty Python members, who has spoken in interviews about drawing on surreal, observational comedy influences for characters like this.

If you’re using this as a post prompt

For a light, forum-style or blog-style post built around “we are the knights who say ni,” you could:

  1. Open with a short nostalgic nod to the scene and what makes it so weirdly unforgettable (shrubberies, sacred words, the oversized antler helm).
  1. Add a mini-section on how it became an early meme before memes were called memes: quotes in fan circles, LAN parties, and early forums.
  1. Wrap with how the phrase still pops up in 2020s internet culture—reaction jokes, cosplay, and guild names—and what it signals about shared nerd humor.

TL;DR: “We are the knights who say ni” is a classic Monty Python line that evolved into a long-lived internet in‑joke and meme, used whenever people want to inject a bit of surreal, nerdy humor into a conversation.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.