The Myths of King Arthur

[Tamina]

I keep seeing these references to the myths of King Arthur and how it can be closely assocaited with a ton of the welsh gods. WHile it's fascinating, I mean, I loved the myth as a child and even read The Once and Future King by T.H. White when I was in Iraq, but now I'd love to know more. How it connects with the Celtic myths and the roots of the legend.



Problem is, there is so much stuff that I've got to weed through, some of it good reading but not very informative, some of it infomative buthard to follow and understand. I need either a book, or a good website, to find out more and was wondering if you guys could help me out there.

Thanks for any input you've got.

[Finn]

This is a pet subject of mine, but I've limited time. Let me point out to you some favorite titles:

Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance by R.S Loomis (who also has a great book on the Grail)
The Quest for Merlin by Nikolai Tolstoy
King Arthur and the Goddess of the Land: The Divine Feminine in The Mabinogion by Caitlin Matthews

(I'll add my usual caveat with any of the Matthews' work: they clearly have a deep love for the material [they have written a bunch of books on it; search John Matthews and Caitlin Matthews on Amazon and you'll see], and they are at their best when presenting the material straightforwardly. Their commentary is very much their own and shouldn't be taken without lots of salt, nor taken to be accepted scholarly opinion. All that said, I find them immensely inspirational, particularly when it comes to building meaningful practice from beloved stories).

[Finn]

This is a pet subject of mine, but I've limited time.

Norma Goodrich also has several titles: Merlin, King Arthur, Guinevere that explore these important characters.

And John Matthews has a little book called: Gawain, Knight of the Goddess, which, again, has lots of suspect conclusions. But Gawain is my favorite knight, and I like reading all of his stories, several of which are difficult to find but are included here.

[Tamina]

This is a pet subject of mine, but I've limited time.

I knew tere would be someone! Thanks so much! I feel like I should read once and future king again, it's been years and I was in the middle of war the last time i picked it up. It was more 'something to occcupy my brain while I was busy pretending that life hadn't gone on wthout me at home' instead of reading material I paid attention to. But I'm definately going to start with one of the books you mentioned instead.

Thanks again!

[Jenett]

I keep seeing these references to the myths of King Arthur and how it can be closely assocaited with a ton of the welsh gods. WHile it's fascinating, I mean, I loved the myth as a child and even read The Once and Future King by T.H. White when I was in Iraq, but now I'd love to know more. How it connects with the Celtic myths and the roots of the legend.

Also a pet subject of mine (and I got to take a full semester class on it in college, which was awesome.)

Two of the earliest references are both Welsh-relevant: One is in the Mabingion (Welsh mythology, specifically the story "How Culwch won Olwen") - there are various translations, but the more modern ones tend to be less sanitised. (the Charlotte Guest one, however, is.) The other is in Geoffrey of Monmouth's _History of the Kings of Britain_.

There are a wide number of other early Arthurian works: you should know going into this that you have
- the early stuff (pretty minimal and fragmented)
- the French and French-influenced stuff (where Lancelot starts showing up)
- and then a whole bunch of later stuff, ranging from Malory (from whom a lot of _The Once and Future King_ is derived) to various Romantics and modern interpretations.

Wikipedia actually has a pretty good overview of a number of the developments and changes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur - and their references section is hitting a number of the big-name texts in the field. _The New Arthurian Encyclopedia_ is a great starting place if you can get access to it, and there's the _ The Romance of Arthur: An Anthology of Medieval Texts in Translation_ which is my favorite collection of medieval excerpts.

There's also related material - the Tristan and Iseult story (of which my favorite medieval version is Gottfried von Strassbourg, but lots of people like Beroul - I am having accent issues on this computer.)

http://www.digitalmedievalist.net/ is also an amazing resource, and she has good reviews of some of the most common translations - see http://www.digitalmedievalist.com/bibs/arthbib.html for an example (more awesome stuff under Bibliographies)

In terms of stories and movies, _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ remains closest to some of the earliest (pre-Malory) Arthurian tales of pretty much any of the Arthurian movies. (and as a rule of thumb, if Sean Connery - much as I like him in other films - is in an Arthurian movie, that movie is pretty far from the historical roots of the legend.)

[Asch]

(and as a rule of thumb, if Sean Connery - much as I like him in other films - is in an Arthurian movie, that movie is pretty far from the historical roots of the legend.)

Oh noes The Green Knight isn't accurate?! (I may be bungling that title...) What was the one w/him as Arthur and Richard Gere as Lancelot?

My least favorite Arthurian text was Le Morte D'Arthur. How knights, jousting, quests, etc can be dull is beyond me but the translation I read was an absolute insomnia cure.

[Jenett]

Oh noes The Green Knight isn't accurate?! (I may be bungling that title...) What was the one w/him as Arthur and Richard Gere as Lancelot?

It's more accurate than most of his others (though I think it misses a whole lot of the subtlety of the text), but the production quality is pretty lousy.

And you're thinking of _First Knight_. (We had to watch it for class: I sat in the back corner with another medievally inclined friend, and we spent the movie passing notes on the various inaccuracies and suspension-of-disbelief-breaking moments.)

(I am not against movies having fun with the period. I just want them to do it with grace and skill and a sense of what actually is engaging. _Knight's Tale_, for example, makes me crack up in joy all over the place, because someone planted a whole bunch of really awesome in-jokes for medievalists in it. Plus, it's just plain fun. Not Arthurian, though.)

My least favorite Arthurian text was Le Morte D'Arthur. How knights, jousting, quests, etc can be dull is beyond me but the translation I read was an absolute insomnia cure.

I am not a big Mallory fan. I adore the Lais of Marie de France, the Gottfried _Tristan_, and the really early stuff. A lot of the post-Mallory stuff, it really depends on how I feel about what the author is doing with it.

[Tamina]

Oh noes The Green Knight isn't accurate?! (I may be bungling that title...) What was the one w/him as Arthur and Richard Gere as Lancelot?

My least favorite Arthurian text was Le Morte D'Arthur. How knights, jousting, quests, etc can be dull is beyond me but the translation I read was an absolute insomnia cure.

First Knight. And I freaking loved that movie. I always knew it was inacurate, but it did inspire my enjoyment of the stories a bit more than, say, A Kid in King Arthur's Court. LOL Hey, I was like... 15, rmance was part of the required movie watching.

Thanks so much for all the info! (Monty Python's King Arthur was one of the first movies I bouht on DVD when I first got a tv and play station when I came bck from Iraq.)

[Finn]

Also a pet subject of mine (and I got to take a full semester class on it in college, which was awesome.)

Super jealous! And thank you for writing about the primary sources: I wanted to throw out some of the secondary books particularly on the relationship between Celtic myth and Arthurian romance, but primary sources are the place to start.

[Micheál]

I wanted to throw out some of the secondary books particularly on the relationship between Celtic myth and Arthurian romance, but primary sources are the place to start.

The myths are great, and primary sources are, well, Primary. We always run into what is myth, romance, and speculated historical basis with them. They all work on their on levels IMO, for ex. take Merlin.

Geoffrey of Monmouth supposedly invented the character that we identify as Merlin based on older Welsh personages, however there isn't much solid ground to support it. Then you have tales about Merlin, that are similar to that with actual older Welsh personages like Gwydion. Both apparently flew the stones from Stonehenge over from Ireland., Merlin's story 1000CE, and actual Stonehenge 3000BCE. It was also 3000BCE that Gwydion supposedly came to Wales from Ireland with the children of Don at the site of Stonehenge off of the Preselli coast at the Bluestone Quarry. We didn't know this was the actual quarry until about 5 years ago, so the creator of the Merlin tale must have goten it somewhere. (Similar to Newgrange in Ireland)

Gwydion appears in primarily 4 ancient texts, and there are parallels with him, Merlin, and even Ireland's Daghdha. (The children of Don are almost like a Welsh version of the Tuatha Dé Dannan) And Arthurian legends are chalk full of magical swords, cauldrons, stones, e.t.c just like the 4 treasures of the TDD. Immigration from Ireland to Wales was common, and it's not difficult to imagine the same tales being re-told.

A friend pointed out to me that the Welsh were telling stories about a magical God since the 3rd millennium, the English have been telling stories about a Welsh magician since the 5th century, and we're familiar with the stories of Merlin since the 12th century. all of the stories never drastically change, but are re-told.

The Dion part of Gydion's name means 'god,' the Lin, in Merlin mean "leader," so with time we get Gwydion-Myrddin- Merlin, which is a little different to how our character appears in the myths.