Featured book

We’re featuring one of our books each issue, either a book written by one or both of us, starting with KING ARTHUR: HISTORY and LEGEND (Folio Society only.) The two extracts below are from the Introduction and from Chapter 4
The Arthur of Myth. The book traces the many faces of Arthur from Roman to modern times.

WHO IS ARTHUR?

‘Sir Thomas Malory called Arthur ‘The Once and Future King’. This title, redolent of prophecy and ancestral heritage, conveys the enduring essence of a hero who is known throughout the world. Yet who, exactly, was King Arthur? This question is asked with increasing regularity, both in the media and in a regular outpouring of books, articles and academic studies on the subject published every year. Yet it seems that few, if any, of those who ask the question can agree about the answer. Even those who believe that there might have been a real Arthur cannot be certain when he lived, and offer a dozen or more men with his name that could be the one and only hero.

The first thing we must say is that he was probably never a king – certainly not in the sense that we would use the word today. It is possible to say that he was a 5th/6th century soldier, who may have operated in areas as far apart from each other as Cornwall, Wales, Scotland or Brittany. It is also possible that he was a 2nd century Roman officer, active in the area around Hadrian’s Wall in Cumbria. Equally it can be claimed that he is entirely mythical, a fiction dreamed up by a conquered people to bring them hope in a dark period of history. For most, he remains a brilliant medieval monarch reigning over a fairy-tale kingdom accompanied by his brave Knights of the Round Table and their beautiful ladies.

It is clear from this that any attempt to identify a real King Arthur is mined with dozens of traps set to lure unwary researchers to their doom. The simple truth is that there is no absolute or conclusive evidence dating from the period in which Arthur is presumed to have lived. Nowhere is there the kind of textual or archaeological evidence we would like that points to a leader named Arthur who achieved specific things at a specific time.

Some researchers have declared simply that there has to be an Arthur, because we need him to fill a gap otherwise left in the historical record. Indeed, a recent writer commented that if you remove Arthur from his assumed place in history you leave an Arthur-shaped hole behind! Such an argument is reasonable and can be embroidered almost endlessly, as it has over the past few decades, producing a number of plausible portraits of Arthur.

It could be said that in a certain sense all of these images are valid, and that the Arthur we know best from the Medieval stories derives from several figures, none of whom were necessarily called Arthur and may date from several different times.

Arthur’s life remains as hotly contentious today as it was almost from the moment he vanished from the world, though for different reasons. His existence or non-existence currently ranges from a popular trend that uncritically conflates sources from many eras and accepts everything on faith, to an academic viewpoint that is quick to distance itself from mythical interpretations.

The division of Arthurian scholarship into ‘history’ and ‘myth’ is not a new phenomenon. The earliest surviving chronicle of Arthur, the 9th century Historia Brittonum, shows us that his legend was already fragmented. Within this slender account, Arthur is presented not only as a real person, a seasoned battle-leader, but also as a semi-mythic character whose deeds are stamped on the landscape. In a variety of other sources, dating from within a hundred years of his lifetime, he is described as a battle-leader, a ‘red ravager,’ an active and courtly king, a freedom fighter, and as the figurehead of orderly government, who attempted to restore the Roman Empire in Britain. All of these Arthurs represent successive turns of a kaleidoscope, and offer portraits in which we may discern the features of a man we know so well and yet hardly know at all. ‘ From the Introduction.

GUINEVERE and ARTHUR

‘This powerful underlying myth (of the Flower Bride) seeded itself throughout the Arthurian legends, but the original motivations became lost as these stories entered the courts of Christendom, by which Guinevere was judged merely as a sinful woman and unfaithful wife. The dying of the Arthurian dream was subsequently portrayed with Arthur and Guinevere completely estranged, no longer in communication, but in three stray and undated verses from the middle ages, found in a margin of manuscript copy of the Welsh poem The Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle, wife and husband speak intimately together, directly after the strife of Camlann.

Gwenhwyfar: “Arthur, son of Uthr, of the long sword,
I tell you a certain truth:
Over every strong one there is a master.”

Arthur: “Gwenhwyfar, my dear little white one,
My love for you has never abated.
Medrawd lies dead: I myself am near death.

No doctor has ever seen a scar
Where Caledfwlch once struck:
Nine times I struck Medrawd.”’

Gwenhwyfar reminds her husband that death comes for everyone, while Arthur responds that no-one has ever recovered from a blow from his sword and that Medrawd is most certainly dead as a result. Here at last the rivalry for the Flower Bride is truly ended. Arthur’s pyrrhic victory in the love triangle leads him now to enter a long otherworldly sojourn where his deep wounds must be healed before his return from Avalon.’ From Chapter 4.