Category: arthuriana

How to start a war between fans of the Arthurian legends:

professorerudite:

morgauseoforkney:

Ask them what they think the single most important factor was in the fall of the Round Table.

I could go on about this for ages and I’d rather just link you to my book… but that would be self-serving. Instead, I’d just casually mention that the fall of the Round Table is the chivalric ideal itself.

After the wars are won, the Table Knights fall into what T.H. White refers to as ‘games mania.’ They have nothing to fight for because the wars are over and the knights inevitably begin to fight each other. The battle against Mordred could have been against anyone. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s Arthur’s inbred son, jealousy amongst the knights, the Lancelot/Guinevere affair–which is of later tradition–or any of that; eventually, someone would prevent the eternal peace of Arthur’s kingdom because we, as humans, are flawed. The chivalric ideal is a concept that cannot be maintained without an outlet for the knights’ inherent violence and the imperfection of human nature.

“The Dark and Middle Ages! The Nineteenth Century had an impudent way with its labels. For there,…”

“The Dark and Middle Ages! The Nineteenth Century had an impudent way with its labels. For there, under the window in Arthur’s Gramarye, the sun’s rays flamed from a hundred jewels of stained glass in monasteries and convents or danced from the pinnacles of cathedrals and castles, which their builders had actually loved. […] Did you know that in these dark ages which were visible from Guenever’s window, there was so much decency in the world that the Catholic Church could impose a peace to all their fighting - which it called The Truce of God - and which lasted from Wednesday to Monday, as well as during the whole of Advent and Lent? Do you think that they, with their Battles, Famine, Black Death and Serfdom, were less enlightened than we are, with our Wars, Blockade, Influenza and Conscription? Even if they were foolish enough to believe that the earth was the centre of the universe, do we not ourselves believe that man is the fine flower of creation? If it takes a million years for a fish to become a reptile, has man, in our few hundred, altered out of recognition?”

- T.H. White, The Once and Future King.

nonlinear-nonsubjective: patron-saint-of-smart-asses: doctorbluesmanreturns: supreme-leader-stoat:…

nonlinear-nonsubjective:

patron-saint-of-smart-asses:

doctorbluesmanreturns:

supreme-leader-stoat:

supreme-leader-stoat:

Okay so imagine your Standard Medieval European Fantasy Setting™. Now imagine there’s no magic. Like there’s still a concept of it sure, with superstitions and all that. But you will never encounter an actual wizard or anything.

But you know what is in this otherwise-fantasy setting? Superpower mutations.

Sir Lawrence, the otherwise unremarkable knight who once outran his own horse and traveled four hours without rest to alert his lord of another lord’s treason and impending invasion.

The Sage of the North is shrouded in rumor and mystery; some say he is a holy man, blessed by God and able to work miracles. Others think he is closer to a witch than a priest, and still others believe he is simply a sage and healer whose skill has grown unrivaled in his old age. In comparison to these stories, the known fact that he lives beneath a freezing waterfall unbothered by the cold or lack of air barely raises any interest.

Scandinavian folklore is often Like That, there’s a whole subgenre of “hero collects men with really specific skills to win the hand of the princess” (like a guy who can run so fast you can’t see him move, a guy who can hear stuff on the other side of the world, and a guy who can shoot an arrow through an acorn from 10 miles away) and it’s not counted as sorcery but as just those guys can Do That.

Round Table of Guys Who Can Do That

“My liege, I knoweth a guy.”

lloerwyn: I don’t like modern Arthuriana that pulls the whole ‘Christianity bad and…

lloerwyn:

I don’t like modern Arthuriana that pulls the whole ‘Christianity bad and oppressive, paganism good and woke’ deal because so much Arthurian literature has such interesting religious synchretism that deserves exploring. Obviously it varies story by story, but broadly speaking, this is a world where God exists alongside witchcraft and the fae and this isn’t a contradiction. There’s even some Jewish Arthuriana out there. This complex set of beliefs is honestly way more interesting and tells you a lot more about the medieval worldview than trying to shoehorn in a black and white narrative that fits closer to our modern views on religion.

Medieval Readalong: Guinevere

oldshrewsburyian:

I didn’t plan to have a weekly feature about the ladies of Malory, but hey, let’s see how far we can go with this! I’m particularly interested in exploring Guinevere because Malory changes so much about her, and because so much about her has, of course, been changed in receptions and adaptations since.

A short version of the Guineveres Malory was working with: Geoffrey of Monmouth had made her part of the (sub-)Roman elite, chosen by Arthur for her beauty, but also a woman who would betray him sexually and politically, committing adultery with Mordred and setting up as queen in her own right with Mordred at her side. Chrétien de Troyes introduced Lancelot to the mythos, made him Guinevere’s lover instead of Mordred, and made Guinevere the ideal mistress of the courtly romance tradition.

Malory (I argue) gives Guinevere more depth, but at least in her introduction in Book IV, she’s still a bit of an enigma. Arthur is deeply in love with her, and has been for a long time. We don’t know the contexts in which they’ve met before; we just know this. And “there as a man’s heart is set, he will be loath to return,” as Merlin says. Also, and to me poignantly, Arthur loves her because she is valiant, as well as because she is fair. What we do not know is how Guinevere feels about all this. Arthur says that nothing is as welcome to him as she is. She says… nothing. Tennyson, of course, makes much of this.

What we do get, over the course of the comparatively brief Book IV, is Guinevere being given authority within the court, and then claiming such authority herself, as well as taking joint agency with Arthur. At the conclusion of the first quest ordained at the marriage feast, it is Guinevere who makes ordinance concerning Gawaine’s proper recompense. After the second quest, we are told that the king and queen 1) ask Sir Tor to tell them what happened 2) make great joy when he has told them. And at the end of the third quest, we not only get this linking of Arthur and Guinevere, but also Guinevere’s own voice in the court, and not only that, but her speaking openly and frankly. And the oath of all the knights of the Table Round includes a version of the ordinance she laid on Sir Gawaine. 

So we are shown (not told) that Guinevere becomes Arthur’s active partner in presiding over the affairs of the court, and that she seems to adapt to it readily and well. We know that she is valiant. Merlin has told Arthur that “Lancelot should love her, and she him again.” But this is not foreknowledge that Guinevere has. So what does she make of this new community, her new power, her new husband? 

…Part of me has maybe not shaken off the version of King Arthur I had when I was 5 (Blanche Winder’s) in which Guinevere was joyful as well as beautiful and loved.