Universität Bayreuth

The Arthurian Legends and Their Legacy

Nadine Wolf

Contents

1. Preface ... 3

2. Myths And Legends ... 6

2.1. The Sword Excalibur ... 6
2.2. The Quest For The Holy Grail ... 9
2.3. Avalon, The Lost Isle ... 13
2.4. Tintagel And Glastonbury ... 15

3. The Role Of Women ... 16

3.1. Love And Adultery ... 16
3.2. Subtle Power ... 21
3.3. Guinevere ... 23

4. Magical Friends And Foes ... 25

4.1. Enchanting Ladies ... 25
4.3. Merlin, The Wizard ... 27

5. Movie Adaptations and Their Role-Models ... 31

5.1. King Arthur (2004) ... 31
5.2. First Knight (1995) ... 33
5.3. Merlin (1998) ... 34

6. Conclusion ... 36

7. Bibliography ... 38

1. Preface

“There would be a day – there must be a day – when he would come back to Gramarye with a new Round Table which had no corners, just as the world had none – a table without boundaries between the nations who would sit to feast there. The hope of making it would lie in culture. (…)
The cannons of his adversary were thundering in the tattered morning when the Majesty of England drew himself up to meet the future with a peaceful heart.


RE[X] QUONDAM RE[X]QUE FUTUR[US]

THE BEGINNING” (White, 676-678)

This quote from T. H. White’s The Once and Future King is not the only reference to King Arthur’s return we can find when looking through the different Arthurian stories or that which is scattered among folk tales. Arthur is often carried away in a boat to Avalon, or “the Vale of Affalach”, by three queens, to be healed of his wounds and to return afterwards. In Italy, an “Arturo Magno” is believed to live within Mount Etna, occasionally seen, and also waiting for the day of his return. The Irish say he “rides round a rath” with raised sword, to the tune of Londonderry Air. The Scottish swear to him in Edinburgh, believing he presides from Arthur’s Seat, having a legend about “Arthur Knyght / Wha raid on nycht / Wi’ gilten spur / And candel lycht”. The Britons still can hear his horn and see his armour (White, Merlyn, 135). There seems to be a strong yearning within all kinds of people that refuses to let King Arthur die. Gerard of Wales even compared this obsession about the return of Arthur with religion and wrote in his Speculum Ecclesiae from 1216 that “the result of all this is that [the Britons] really expect him to come back, just as the Jews, led astray by even greater stupidity, misfortune and misplaced faith, really expect their Messiah to return” (earlybritishkingdoms.com).

The quote from The Once and Future King is also symbolic for the never-ending flow of Arthurian romances and novels. White first published his book in 1958, about one millennium and a century after Nennius wrote about Arthur, the “dux bellorum”, and eight centuries after Geoffrey of Monmouth’s influential book The History of the Kings of Britain was published, and the mystery and fascination about Arthur, his knights, his queen Guinevere and Merlin the wizard is still unbroken.
Even great poets and novelists refer to Arthur in their works: Tennyson envisioned that “There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore/King Arthur, like a modern gentleman/Of stateliest port” (Tennyson, 114), whereas Shakespeare returns his figure Falstaff upon his death not in Abraham’s, but in Arthur’s bosom, and Milton locates Arthur subterranean, “Arturumque etiam sub terris bella moventem” (www.dartmouth.edu), “and Arthur, too, stirring up wars beneath the earth” (White, Merlyn, 136).
But what exactly is it that makes the tales of Arthur and his knights so very fascinating that for 1100 years we cannot cease from rewriting and adding to them over and over again? What is it that makes them so interesting that even now modern authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley or movie directors like Antoine Fuqua deem them worthy enough to write novels about them or preserve them on celluloid? We cannot even call one specific figure in history ‘King Arthur’, for there are so many different sources featuring a great warrior Arthur, but they mention different years, different adventures and different contemporaries. While Phillips and Keatman’s favourite is Owain Ddantgwyn, who lived at the time of the sixth battle Nennius attributed to Arthur, which “was above the river which is called Bassas” (Ashley, 138), Mike Ashley has him only at place 15 out of 20 possible candidates. His favourite is Athrwys ap Meurig (~610-680), seventh-century ruler of Gwent and also known as Atroys, Adroes, Athrawes or Adros. A character whom I personally find quite interesting is the Roman prefect Lucius Artorius Castus (140-197) and his Sarmatian warriors, although he only occupies rank 20 in Ashley’s list of contenders. We will, however, meet him again later on in this paper.
Arthur himself is not the only interesting aspect in the legends, however. There are some items and places still holding a certain fascination to mankind. In chapter one, we will explore the fascination with Arthur’s sword Excalibur, a recurrent symbol of power in the original romances and poems as well as in the more modern versions. After Chréthien de Troyes introduced it in his romance Perceval: The Story of the Grail, Arthur’s knights have repeatedly quested for the Holy Grail, with varying success, as we will then see. The mystical island of Avalon, ruled by beautiful and magical fairies and destination of Arthur’s last journey, still eludes us on the world map and gives rise to speculation. The castle of Tintagel and the abbey of Glastonbury will make up the last part of the next chapter, being of interest because they have been declared in various stories as birthplace and place of burial of King Arthur.

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