I did not save the thread, although I wish I had. At the top of my list still is M.Z. Bradley's "Mists of Avalon."

That is one I have read and enjoyed. Right now I'm reading The Skystone by Jack Whyte, readable but not enthralling. I find myself skimming to get to the next part, not a good sign. I found the link below but it's simply overwhelming. I do wish I'd saved the earlier thread. I remember wonderfully useful opinionated reviews, exactly what I want.

Rosefolly

Here is a link that might be useful: Modern Arthurian novels

Rosefolly/Paula what is it about Arthurian fiction that so appeals to you . . .and other US RP'ers?
Is it the knights in shining amour fighting for the honour of maidens in distress, or are you more interested in the possibilities of a 'real' Arthur the Romano-British 'war-lord' who comes to the aid of his people in their hour of need?

Mary Stewart's Merlin/Arthur series stands out in my mind the most. I liked it so much when I read it as a teenager that nothing else ever quite came up to it in my mind.

rosefolly, I saw the list and remembered that many years ago I had read and liked very much the trilogy by Persia Woolley.

vee, I've always been enchanted by the Middle Ages, ever since childhood. I grew up on Robin Hood, Ivanhoe, and King Arthur tales. Later at University, I studied Medieval Art and Gothic architecture, which only added to my deep interest. As well, I am fascinated by the early "tors" and ancient mounds found in England, which speak of the past fortifications. I've delved a lot into whether there was an actual warrior, Artorius, at the tail end of the Roman days in Britain, who temporarily held back warring hordes to maintain a brief peace, before the curtain came down. I am well aware that there are false claimants, also....

Interesting question, Vee. I'm not entirely sure why I'm interested at this point.

Back when I was in college I had a professor who had just written a book called Custer and the Epic of Defeat. In it he examined the idea that certain legends gather around defeated heroes, and that in fact the legends gather very quickly. He researched the Custer facts and compared them with the Custer legend and found that the legend as we know it today was in place in about a year or two. (Historic facts: Custer was not betrayed; he was consistently arrogant and foolish; and his defeat and the wholesale slaughter of his men were primarily his own doing.) My professor identified a core set of beliefs that gather around such heroes and looked for historic and legendary figures that matched the pattern. He found a number, King Arthur being one example. Based on his research, I privately believe that there probably was a real Arthur, but even disregarding the magical part, the story as we know it has little to do with the historic truth.

But isn't it fun to read the stories! There must be something in the human character that wants it to be a certain way if we so persistently shape our stories to say it was so.

Rouan and Woodnymph, I'll look up your suggestions. Thanks.

Rosefolly

Rosefolly,

attached is a link I saved that has a pretty comprehensive listing of Arthurian Literature (might be a daunting task narrowing down the choices).

Here is a link that might be useful: Arthurian Literature

Okay... I needed to read down further... I see you also provided the same link in a later post.

There are Arthurian elements in Holdstock's Mythago Wood cycle, but it's really something quite more than just that. I thought "Lavondyss" in particular was one of the most beautiful and melancholy books I've ever read. I'm interested in Cornwell's Warlord series, but hear it's quite gritty.

I have noticed a lot of Americans with a very strong interest in Arthurian legend, and after having lived here a long while, have narrowed it down (and this could be wrong) to an attraction with a history of something that happened a long time ago in a country far away (but where they still speak English and for many Americans, the country where their families are from). Maybe it's something to do with that and the fact that although America has a very interesting history and achieved an awful lot in its young time, it doesn't have the romance of times long ago like Arthur and co.

I could be wrong though. I have picked this up from my friends who can be an odd bunch at times. :-)

I remember the thread since I, too, love the Arthur stories. I have The Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff that presents Arthur as a warlord. I particularly like it, as well as the Mary Stewart series.

I did a research paper on Arthur in a medieval history class, and one source said that there were numerous boys named Arthur after c. 600 but none before. I made a good grade on the paper, but the professor wrote a note on the bottom to the effect that all societies look back to a "golden age."

The Sutcliff book quotes the following poem by Francis Brett Young:

Hic Jacet Arthurus
Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus

Arthur is gone . . . Tristram in Careol
Sleeps, with a broken sword--And Yseult sleeps
Beside him, where the westering waters roll
Over drowned Lyonesse to the outer deeps.

Lancelot is fallen . . . The ardent helms that shone
So knightly and the splintered lances rust
In the anonymous mould of Avalon:
Gawain and Gareth and Galahad--all are dust!

Where do the vanes and towers of Camelot
And tall Tintagel crumble? Where do those tragic
Lovers and their bright-eyed ladies rot?
We cannot tell--for lost is Merlin's magic.

And Guinevere--call her not back again
Lest she betray the loveliness Time lent
A name that blends the rapture and the pain
Linked in the lonely nightingale's lament,

Nor pry too deeply, lest you should discover
The bower of Astolat a smoky hut
Of mud and wattle--find the knightliest lover
A braggart, and his Lily Maid a slut;

And all that coloured tale a tapestry
Woven by poets. As the spider's skeins
Are spun of its own substance, so have they
Embroidered empty legend--What remains?

This: That when Rome fell, like a writhen oak
That age had sapped and cankered at the root,
Resistant, from her topmost bough there broke
The miracle of one unwithering shoot

Which was the spirit of Britain--that certain men
Uncouth, untutored, of our island brood
Loved freedom better than their lives; and when
The tempest crashed around them, rose and stood

And charged into the storm's black heart, with sword
Lifted, or lance in rest, and rode there, helmed
With a strange majesty that the heathen horde
Remembered after all were overwhelmed;

And made of them a legend, to their chief,
Arthur, Ambrosius--no man knows his name--
Granting a gallantry beyond belief,
And to his knights imperishable fame.

They were so few . . . we know not in what manner
Or where or when they fell--whether they went
Riding into the dark under Christ's banner
Or died beneath the blood-red dragon of Gwent.

But this we know: That, when the Saxon rout
Swept over them, the sun no longer shone
On Britain, and the last lights flickered out;
And men in darkness murmured: Arthur is gone . . .

Carolyn
A hopeless romantic

What a beautiful poem, Carolyn. Thanks for posting it. Another hopeless romantic, here....

carolyn, interesting that you wrote a medieval history paper on King Arthur. I don't think that could have happened over here; most historians would be too cynical about the 'evidence' imo . . . but then I'm a feet-of-clay non-romantic stiff-upperlipped English person. ;-)

I have "Queen of Camelot" by Nancy Mackenzie, which is focused on Guinevere, and "The Winter King" by Bernard Cornwell (the first in a series)currently in my TBR pile, so unfortunately I cannot give you an opinion on them yet. They did get a number of good reviews at goodreads.com (a website I discovered based on an RPer's recommendation) and Amazon, which prompted me to buy them - not that I need much prompting, mind you!

I used to be quite an Arthurian fan and read everything I could until I burned out sometime in the mid-80s.

I can highly recommend Gillian Bradshaw's trilogy, starting with Hawk of May. She later went on to write a whole bunch of very good historical novels...not a series, all stand-alone books, most set in late Byzantine/early Dark Ages Eurasia.

Lemonhead, I think the (American) South is particularly attracted to Arthur. Strong Scots/Irish roots, and a history of chivalric thinking. A woman named Saunders Anne Laubenthal wrote a fantasy about Excalibur being discovered in Alabama, for example, and Walker Percy did an Arthur/Lancelot/Guinivere love triangle based on a football player.

Georgia Peach, I think that list is a little over-inclusive. Many of the titles feature British myth and folklore that is non-Arthurian (e.g. the Alan Garner titles). Still, it's a useful reference...thanks for posting it.

The Arthurian legends and tales have little or nothing to do with Ireland or Scotland. They originated, so far as we can trace with accuracy, with Geoffrey of Monmouth and were apparently based on earlier Welsh texts. They concern the West of Britain and are always connected with Cornwall, Wales and parts of what are now Yorkshire and Cumbria whence the original Celtic and Celtic-Roman people were driven when the Saxon invasions began along the East coast. Arthur was a Pendragon, 'Pen' meaning 'Head' in Welsh; the land of 'Logres' in the legends is a variation on the Welsh name for England - 'Lloegr'.

To me, these legends encapsulate all the polarisations of the best in taletelling: great heroes, great love, fantastic quests, all of which ultimately give way to invidious evil, betrayal, disillusion and death. It's a tragic epic and an allegory/extended metaphor (as are all great stories), of what life is all about - like Beowulf. The most poignant point in the whole tale is at the last battle, when the forces of Arthur are lined up against Mordred's army. There is a truce whereby both sides agree not to draw weapons. Then there's a breathless hush of pure hope for the good of the future, on the battlefield, when suddenly one lone soldier is threatened by an adder and draws his sword to kill it. The sun glints on the metal..... the opposing army sees it and misinterprets it - and all hell is let loose. What awful coincidence; what tragedy; what irony! It's at this point that I weep.

Dido

Dido

Dido said:
>The Arthurian legends and tales have little or nothing to do with Ireland or Scotland.

True, but the Scots and Irish adopted them and brought them to America. You could call it pan-Celticism or English imperialism, whichever you prefer. :-)

I saw one article in a folklore journal that suggested that the original stories were Middle Eastern, brought to Britain by Roman auxiliaries stationed in lonely forts near the Lake District and Hadrian's Wall. That's a bit far-fetched, IMO, but stranger things have happened.

There's also the problem of the French connection. Did the stories originate in France and move to Wales by way of Brittany, or v.v.?

Agree perfectly with your final paragraph. Whatever the source, the stories are great. Thanks.

Balrog,

The stories originated in Wales, mainly with Geoffrey of Monmouth (Historia Regum Britanniae, 1136, tr into Welsh as Brut y Brenhinedd)), though there are earlier Welsh bits and pieces - as those in the Mabinogion (Pedair Ceinc y Mabinogi) (the ancient book of Welsh legends, which often cross Irish legends - as with the tale of Bran the Blessed - Bendigaidfran in Welsh) - Owain, Geraint and Enid, for example. The French took them up soon after Geoffrey and so you get additions such as Lancelot du Lac and the chivalric code in general. Later, of course, the Germans adopted them so there's a bit of everyone there now; the tales have become universal. As you say, the Irish and Scots adopted them too; and so did the English; and so everyone from Western Europe probably had a hand in taking them to America.

There seems to be no connection with Brittany as a particular area of France - though, of course, the languages of old Breton and Welsh are the same brand of Celtic; as was the now defunct Cornish: that's 'Celtic B', as opposed to 'Celtic Q', which are the Irish and Scots forms. Chretien de Troyes, famous French poet and Trouvere of the 2nd half of the 12th century seems to have devised many of the French tales and so they would have been seriously taken up in France after that.

Hope this helps.

Dido

balrog, there is a school of thought I've encountered which states that the earliest origins of the Arthurian tales did, indeed, come out of the Middle East. In fact, I've read that the entire culture of courtly love and chivalry originated in Persia, with the love poetry and minstrel music written there, and subsequently spread to the West, some say, via the Crusades, and even earlier. It was certainly a civilizing influence and temporarily elevated the status of woman, as contrasted with the prior barbarian invasions. I do not have my reading material handy but I am sure there is much on the Internet about this.

As for the Celtic influence in America, there is a heavy amount of it in the deep South, where I grew up, due to the large early settlements in the Colonies by Scots and Irish. These folk went west into the Appalachian mountains, became rather cut off by their geography, so preserved a lot of the old folkways and language and music. There has been much written about this fact. So I would agree that there is a long-standing appreciation of the "chivalry tradition" more so in the deep South, due to the homogeneity of its early population. Of course, all this is changing now, with the New South experiencing many other cultures and nationalities settling into the area.