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So, what was your first image of (King) Arthur? Was it the old man sitting on a throne handing out quests and knighthoods? Was it the boy pulling the sword out of a stone? The heroic Romano British warrior? Something in between? All of them are legitimate, all of them have their modern authors writing about them, as well as the mediaeval ones.
Here is a post I wrote earlier, about visual Arthurs, to save writing about those again. There are quite a few films and telemovies and even a TV series, Arthur Of The Britons.
I think my first Arthur may have been T.H White’s, via the film Camelot and the Disney Sword In The Stone, both of which I saw as a child. And T.H White’s Once And Future King was based on Malory’s 15th century Morte D’Arthure. This is probably the Arthur most of us think of first when we think of him. Sword in the stone or from the lake, Merlin, Camelot, Lancelot and Guinevere, the Grail Quest.
But there are others. Even Thomas Malory’s Arthur, the king who hands out knighthoods in Camelot gets his moment of warrior glory when he goes to war against Rome and wins. By the way, Malory seems to have written his magnificent work while in prison. He chose the wrong side in the Wars of the Roses(Lancaster while York was in charge), but he may have been locked up for reasons that were not political. Whatever the reasons, he gave us the Arthur everyone imagines even today, though he was using existing French works.
There is a warrior Arthur, who turns up in quite a few modern books, including Rosemary Sutcliff’s Sword At Sunset. His first companions did not include Lancelot, who arrived later, from France, but Bedwyr(Bedivere) and Gwalchmai(Gawain). Drust(Tristan) was an early one too, and may even have been a real person.
So, why did Arthur change from warrior to the King of Camelot? I wrote my Honours thesis about that very question. The early, possibly historical, Arthur gets very few mentions in the surviving texts, but if he was around he would have been too busy trying to keep out the post-Roman invaders to sit around handing out quests. And he is not a Christian creation. My conclusion was that by the time you get to Malory he has become a Christian King, and while Christian kings did fight - look what happened to poor Richard III! - the expectation was that they didn’t risk themselves and the kingdom, the land which was one with them, by going into battle. At the start of the Morte Arthur, having won his kingdom in battle against eleven kings who didn’t want to serve “a beardless boy”, decides to have adventures like his knights and goes off alone to have one. He meets up with a mysterious knight who turns out to be King Pellinore, fights and is defeated, having to be rescued by Merlin, who explains to Pellinore who he is. What’s more, he has broken - broken! - that sword which made him king when he pulled it out of the stone. That’s when Merlin arranges for him to get another one, from the Lady of the Lake and you see the arm in white samite. (I wrote a story about that, “The Sword From The Lake”, published in Andromeda Spaceways #5. In my story it was Nimue, who was disobeying orders, desperately trying to get the sword to Arthur).
After that, Arthur never does the adventure thing again. Battle, yes, in the Roman War and, of course, when he has to fight Mordred. And he kills a giant at St Michael’s Mount to save the local community. But none of the silly, “Bet I can beat you!” (to paraphrase Mark Twain) the knights are doing. If he, the anointed king, had died that first time, what would have happened to the kingdom?
I’d compare it to Captains Kirk and Picard. Kirk just runs off every time, taking his second in command, sometimes even his chief engineer and medical officer, and nearly gets killed. Who would run the ship in that emergency without him? Early Picard has to be reminded by his second that it’s not appropriate. Not that he listens for long.
But warrior Arthur is in quite a few early tales including some I will mention in the course of this A to Z. Watch out for them!
And here are two posts I wrote about Arthurian books!
and
21 comments:
Stories about King Arthur, Lancelot & Lady Guinevere were some of the first things that really captured my imagination as a child!
The Lady of the Lake is the image that sticks with me. :-) Thanks for sharing.
atozwriting.blogspot.com
Mine too, Sati! There was a children’s TV series when I was little, “The Adventures Of Sir Lancelot” in which the lead role was played by the dashing William Russell, who went on to play Ian Chesterton, one of the first Doctor’s companions in Doctor Who. I loved watching the Lancelot series. As it was a children’s show, of course, there was no love triangle!
I am so excited for this theme, and glad you are doing it! :)
My first Arthur was probably Sword in the Stone, and then Excalibur. I also read Once and Future King very early on, probably my first Arthurian book experience. I like Arthur as the king he is instead of being a warrior, but I also enjoy some of the Welsh legends where he does fight. Like when he defeats the giant monster cat, or the king who collected all the beards :)
Happy A to Z!
The Multicolored Diary
The king with the beard collection is right there in Malory, but I confess I haven’t heard o& the giant cat. I should have known that YOU would know about it! 😂
I love Excalibur, gorgeous film! It was visually beautiful and included the whole “king and the land are one” theme, plus there were a lot of actors who went on to fame and fortune - Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson... There was even the actor who went in to play Guy of Gisburne in Robin of Sherwood, another beautiful folklore-y thing.
Hi Sue - I'm going to enjoy your Arthurian romp through the A-Z ... and I'll be learning much ... take care and all the best with the A-Z ... Hilary
Happy first day of Blogging A to Z! My first image of King Arthur was Monty Python and the Holy Grail which I saw as a kid. I wanted to find out more about the "real" King Arthur, so I read Howard Pyle's books, and then John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights and then T.H. White's The Once and Future King (which I loved and is still one of my favorite books). In college I took an Arthurian Literature course and read Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrétien de Troyes, Thomas Malory, Tennyson, and more.
Great to see you're doing the A-Z Challenge this year. I'm afraid I'm not - I have a bit too much on my mind right now to really do it justice. But I can't wait to read all of yours.
Amazing you're going through the Arthurian mythos! As a Brit, I should know more about it, but I really don't, other than being told over and over again some dead (fictional) king is in a mountain and will come back when Britain needs him. Seriously - corona, Brexit, it's now or never Arthur! My Dad is a big fan of all this so I'll send him your way. Look forward to tomorrows post!
Hi Hilary! Thanks for visiting. Hope you enjoy reading these!
Liam - wow, you’ve really read your Arthurian stuff! Monty Python was wonderful. I was doing my thesis when I saw the film and so found it even funnier. The Pythons knew their stuff. They met at university. Terry Jones wrote books of history. I keep promising myself to read the Steinbeck. It was special to him. I agree, White’s is the definitive Arthurian novel.
Melanie - I agree, now is when we could do with the return of Arthur, though I suspect that if those knights came galloping out of that mountain now they would either be dead from the virus or locked up. 🙁
PS Liam, do you have a blog? I would like to visit, but you have your profile set to private. Even if you’re not doing the Challenge, I’d love to take a look.
Melanie, I’m following your blog and there is always so,etching interesting to read.
Thanks! I have a Wordpress blog so it doesn't show up in Blogger comments. The url is http://othemts.wordpress.com/
Excellent, will check today!
Mine was definitely the boy pulling the sword out of the stone. I think it was a story in an anthology I had as a kid, but I also remember a cartoon version as well.
Hi Anita! I’m guessing that cartoon you remember was the Disney version of The Sword In The Stone. I had that on video and now on DVD. A classic!
I just love all stories revolving around Arthur and his knights. My favourite TV series is BBC's "Merlin" which relies heavily on old texts about Arthur and Merlin. As for movies, "King Arthur" with Keira Knightley as Guinevere is my favourite. Both has Arthur as a warrior :-)
An A-Z of Faerie: Ankou
Hi Ronel! Oh, yes, the BBC Merlin was lovely. Colin Morgan, who played Merlin, was also in the radio play of Good Omens. And I’m fond of the King Arthur film you mention. It was visually stunning and the characters were likeable.
Where better to start than with the man/legend himself. And links to some of my favourite visual representations from Nigel Terry's in Excalibur to Oliver Tobias on the small screen. And I found the Sarmatian theory about Arthur interesting as my ex studied that era at University.
However, as I posted on your theme post, my image began with reading 'King Arthur And The Round Table' by Alice Mary Hadfield, which was more like Malory's Christian King. Would he have known what the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow was?
Hi Roland! Is that swallow African or European variety? 😜
I loved Nigel Terry and Oliver Tobias. Did you know Nigel Terry and Cherie Lunghi, his Guinevere, went on to star together in a TV series called Covington Cross? It was not very good, but it was nice to see them together, playing as middle aged country knight Sir Edward Grey and his love, Lady Elizabeth, the widow in the next castle!
I missed Covington Cross, although I admired both actors. I saw Nigel Terry on the stage playing a Shakespearean character. Hamlet?
Luck you! He has, alas, passed away, so no one will see him on stage again. Did you see him in The Lion In Winter? He was playing Prince John, King Henry’s favourite son, and did such a good job of twisting his face to make himself look ugly.
I admit that was a film I missed, but should have watched.
A lovely film, with Peter O’Toole and Kathryn Hepburn as the bickering Mr and Mrs Plantagenet. And a young a Anthony Hopkins as Richard, his mother’s favourite son. He said later that he learned a lot from Kathryn H. It may even have been his first film. You can see a telemovie of it with Patrick Stewart, who is great, but this one is the classic, definitive version.
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