About Legend and Myth

Introduction: "About Legend and Myth"

A legend (Latin, legenda, "things to be read") is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants, includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility", defined by a highly flexible set of parameters, which may include miracles that are perceived as actually having happened, within the specific tradition of indoctrination where the legend arises, and within which it may be transformed over time, in order to keep it fresh and vital, and realistic.

A legend is a story, that is probably about someone that did exist but has been twisted to seem more interesting and fascinating. This story is passed down generation to generation.

A modern folklorist's professional definition of legend was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990: "Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified (That is to say, specifically located in space and time), historicized narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs." ^[1]

A legend is a meme (disambiguation) that propagates through a culture. It may be crystallized in a literary work that fixes it and which affects the future direction it will take. Such an example of this is the contrast of Hamlet the legend, and Shakespeare's Hamlet. When a legend that is rooted in a kernel of truth is so strongly affected by an ideal that it conforms to expected literary conventions of behavior, in certain cases it turns into a Romance. Such may well be the case with a historical Arthur, around whom legends accumulated and were expressed in the purely literary magical atmosphere of surviving Arthurian romances, collectively known as the "Matter of Britain".

A myth is a sacred story concerning the origins of the world or how the world and the creatures in it came to be in their present form. The active beings in myths are generally gods and heroes. Myths often are said to take place before recorded history begins. In saying that a myth is a sacred narrative, what is meant is that a myth is believed to be true by people who attach religious or spiritual significance to it.

Throughout Arthurian legend, the Round Table has symbolized Arthur's dream for equality and continuous brotherhood of his people in the utopia of Camelot. The sphere shape of the historical round table represents what Arthur was trying to accomplish for the people that saw him as an almost Christ like figure thought his reign. Arthur's city was built around the round table, and was seen as an example of how to live. He saw this as perfection. The thirteen knights that sat around it were only the most chivalrous of all knights and were a perfect role model of what the Arthur was tiring to represent with the Round Table. In turn, this perfect society was established around the ideals of a table.

Tangherlini, "'It Happened Not Too Far from Here...': A Survey of Legend Theory and Characterization" Western Folklore 49.4 (October 1990:371-390) p. 85.

I. Medieval Literary Traditions

The creator of the familiar literary persona of Arthur was Geoffrey of Monmouth, with his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"), written in the 1130s. The textual sources for Arthur are usually divided into those that were written before Geoffrey's Historia was published, known as 'pre-Galfridian' texts, from the Latin form of Geoffrey, Galfridus, and those that followed this, and could not avoid his influence, Galfridian, or post-Galfridian texts.

A. Pre -Galfridian traditions

The earliest literary references to Arthur come from Welsh and Breton sources. There have been few attempts to define the nature and character of Arthur in the pre-Galfridian tradition as a whole, rather than in a single text or text/story-type. One recent academic survey that does attempt this, by Thomas Green, identifies three key strands to the portrayal of Arthur in this earliest material. The first is that he was a peerless warrior, considered the monster-hunting Protector of Britain from all internal and external threats. Some of these are human threats, such as the Saxons he fights in the "Historia Brittonum", but the majority are supernatural, including were-wolves, giant cat-monsters, destructive divine boars, dragons, giants and witches. The second is that the pre-Galfridian Arthur was a figure of folklore and localised magical wonder-tales, the leader of a band of superhuman heroes who lived in the wilds of the landscape. The third and final strand is that the early Welsh Arthur had a close connection with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn. On the one hand, he frees prisoners from Otherworldly fortresses and launches assaults for magical treasures. On the other hand, his warband in the earliest sources includes former pagan gods and his wife and possessions are clearly Otherworldly in origin.

One of the most famous Welsh poetic references to Arthur comes in the Welsh collection of heroic death-songs known as Y Gododdin ("The Gododdin"), attributed to the 6th-century poet Aneirin. Several poems attributed to Taliesin, a poet said to have lived in the 6th century, also refer to Arthur, although these all probably date from between the 8th and 12th centuries. They include Kadeir Teyrnon ("The Chair of the Prince"), which refers to "Arthur the Blessed", Preiddeu Annwn ("The Spoils of the Annwn"), which recounts an expedition of Arthur to the Otherworld, and Marwnat vthyr pen[dragon] ("The Elegy of Uthyr Pen[dragon]"), which refers to Arthur's valour and is suggestive of a father-son relationship. Other early Welsh Arthurian texts include a poem found in the Black Book of Carmarthen, Pa gur yv y porthaur? ("What man is the gatekeeper?"). This takes the form of a dialogue between Arthur and the gatekeeper of a fortress he wishes to enter, in which Arthur recounts the names and deeds of himself and his men, notably Cei and Bedwyr. The Welsh prose tale Culhwch and Olwen (c.1100), included in the modern "Mabinogion" collection, has a much longer list of more than 200 of Arthur's men, though Cei and Bedwyr again take a central place. The story as a whole tells of Arthur helping his kinsman Culhwch win the hand of Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden Chief-Giant, by completing a series of apparently impossible tasks, including the hunt for the great semi-divine boar Twrch Trwyth. This later tale is also referenced in the 9th century Historia Brittonum, with the boar there named Troy(n)t. Finally, Arthur is referenced numerous times in the "Welsh Triads", a collection of short summaries of Welsh tradition and legend which are classified into groups of three linked characters or episodes in order to assist recall. The later manuscripts of the "Triads" are partly derivative from Geoffrey of Monmouth and later Continental traditions, but the earliest ones show no such influence and are usually agreed to refer to pre-existing Welsh traditions. Even in these, however, Arthur's court has started to embody legendary Britain as a whole, with "Arthur's Court" being sometimes substituted for "The Island of Britain" in the formula "Three XXX of the Island of Britain". While it is not clear from the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae that Arthur was even considered a king, by the time Culhwch and Olwen and the "Triads" were written he had become Penteyrnedd yr Ynys hon, "Chief of the Lords of this Island", the overlord of Wales, Cornwall and the North. In addition to the pre-Galfridian Welsh poems and tales, Arthur appears in some other early Latin texts. In particular, Arthur appears in a number of well known vitae ("Lives") of post-Roman saints, none of which are now generally considered to be reliable historical sources. According to the "Life of Saint Gildas", written in the early 12th century by Caradoc of Llancarfan, Arthur is said to have killed Gildas' brother Hueil and to have rescued his wife Gwenhwyfar from Glastonbury in an Otherworldly tale. In the "Life of Saint Cadoc", written around 1100 by Lifris of Llancarfan, the saint gives protection to a man who killed three of Arthur's soldiers, and Arthur demands a herd of cattle as wergeld for his men. Cadoc delivers them as demanded, but when Arthur takes possession of the animals, they transform into bundles of ferns. Similar incidents are described in the 12th century medieval biographies of Carannog, Padarn, and Eufflam. A less obviously legendary account appears in the "Legenda Sancti Goeznovii", which is often claimed to date from the early 11th century alth 14214g69o ough the earliest manuscript of this text dates from the 15th century.

B. Geoffrey of Monmouth

The first narrative account of Arthur's life is found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin work "Historia Regum Britanniae" ("History of the Kings of Britain"). This work, completed in 1138, represents an imaginative and fanciful account of British kings from the legendary Trojan exile Brutus to the 7th century Welsh prince Cadwallader. Geoffrey places Arthur in the same post-Roman period as the "Historia Brittonum" and "Annales Cambriae" do. He introduces Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, and his magician advisor Merlin, and the story of Arthur's conception, in which Uther, disguised as his enemy Gorlois by Merlin's magic, fathers Arthur on Gorlois' wife Igerna at Tintagel. On Uther's death, the fifteen-year-old Arthur succeeds him as King of Britain and fights a series of battles, similar to those in the "Historia Brittonum", culminating in the Battle of Bath. He then defeats the Picts and Scots, before creating an Arthurian empire through his conquests of Ireland, Iceland, and the Orkney Islands. After twelve years of peace, Arthur sets out to expand his empire once more, taking control of Norway, Denmark and Gaul. The latter country is still held by the Roman Empire when it is conquered and Arthur's victory naturally leads to a further confrontation between his empire and that of Rome. Arthur and his warriors, including Kaius (Kay), Beduerus (Bedivere) and Gualguanus (Gawain), defeat the Roman emperor Lucius Tiberius in Gaul but, as he prepares to march on Rome, Arthur hears news that his nephew Modredus - whom he had left in charge of Britain - has married his wife Guenhuuara and seized the throne. Arthur returns to Britain and defeats and kills Modredus on the river Camblam in Cornwall, but he is mortally wounded. He hands the crown to his kinsman Constantine and is taken to the isle of Avalon to be healed of his wounds, never to be seen again.

How much of this narrative and life-story was Geoffrey's own invention is open to debate. Certainly Geoffrey seems to have made use of the list of Arthur's twelve battles against the Saxons found in the 9th century "Historia Brittonum". Arthur's personal status as the king of all Britain would also seem to be borrowed from pre-Galfridian tradition, being found in "Culhwch and Olwen", the "Triads" and the Saints' Lives. Finally, Geoffrey borrowed many of the names for Arthur's possessions and companions from the pre-Galfridian Welsh tradition, including Kaius (Cei), Beduerus (Bedwyr), Guenhuuara (Gwenhwyfar) and Uther (Uthyr). However, whilst names and titles may have been borrowed, Brynley Roberts has argued that "the Arthurian section is Geoffrey's literary creation and it owes nothing to prior narrative." So, for instance, the Welsh Medraut is made the villainous Modredus by Geoffrey, but there is no trace of such a negative character for this figure in Welsh sources until the 16th century. There have been relatively few modern attempts to challenge this notion that the "Historia Regum Britanniae" is primarily Geoffrey's own work, with scholarly opinion often seeming to echo William of Newburgh's late

12th century comment that Geoffrey "made up" his narrative, perhaps through an "inordinate love of lying". Geoffrey Ashe is one dissenter from this view, believing that Geoffrey's narrative is partially derived from a lost source telling of the deeds of a 5th century British king named Riotamus, this figure being the original Arthur, although historians and Celticists have been reluctant to follow Ashe in his conclusions.

Whatever his sources may have been, the incredible popularity of Geoffrey's "Historia Regum Britanniae" cannot be denied. Well over 200 manuscript copies of Geoffrey's Latin work are known to have survived, and this does not include translations into other languages. Thus, for example, around sixty manuscripts are extant containing Welsh-language versions of the Historia, the earliest of which were created in the 13th century; the old notion that some of these Welsh versions actually underlie Geoffrey's Historia, put forward by antiquarians such as the 18th-century Lewis Morris, has long since been discounted in academic circles and results from a "combination of misunderstanding and wishful thinking", to quote P. C. Bartrum. As a result of this popularity, Geoffrey's "Historia Regum Britanniae" was enormously influential on the later medieval development of the Arthurian legend. Whilst it was by no means the only creative force behind Arthurian romance, many elements of it were borrowed and developed and it provided the historical framework into which the romancers' tales of magical and wonderful adventures were inserted.

C. Romance traditions

1. ^ O. J. Padel, Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), p.81

2. ^N. J. Lacy, "Character of Arthur" in N. J. Lacy (ed.), The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1996), pp.16-17 at p.17

Arthur and his retinue appear in some of the Lais of Marie de France, but it was the work of another French poet, Chrétien de Troyes, that had the greatest influence on the development of Arthur and his legend. Chrétien wrote five Arthurian romances between 1170 and 1190. "Erec and Enide" and "Cligès" are tales of courtly love with Arthur's court as their backdrop, and "Yvain, the Knight of the Lion" features Yvain and Gawain in a supernatural adventure. However, the most significant for the development of the Arthurian legend are "Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart", which introduces Lancelot and his adulterous relationship with Arthur's queen (Guinevere), and "Perceval, the Story of the Grail", which introduces the "Holy Grail" and the "Fisher King". Chrétien de Troyes was thus "instrumental both in the elaboration of the Arthurian legend and in the establishment of the ideal form for the diffusion of that legend",^[3] and much of what came after built upon the foundations he had laid. So, "Perceval", although unfinished, was particularly popular; four separate continuations of the poem appeared over the next half century, with the notion of the Grail and its quest being developed by other writers such as Robert de Boron. Similarly, Lancelot and his affair with Guinevere became one of the classic motifs of the Arthurian legend, although the Lancelot of the Prose "Lancelot" (c.1225) and later texts was a combination of Chrétien's character and that of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet. Chrétien's work even appears to feed back into Welsh Arthurian literature, where there are found three Arthurian romances which are closely similar to those of Chrétien, albeit with some significant differences: "Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain" is related to Chrétien's "Yvain", "Geraint and Enid" to "Erec and Enide", and "Peredur son of Efrawg" to "Perceval". However, it is not entirely certain that these Welsh romances are derivative of Chrétien's works. A number of academics, including Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, certainly consider this to be the case, but others maintain that the relationship could move in the opposite direction or that there is a lost common source for both versions.

Up to 1210, continental Arthurian romance was expressed primarily through poetry; after this date the tales began to be told in prose. The most significant of these 13th century prose romances was the "Vulgate Cycle", a series of five Middle French prose works written in the first half of that century. These five works were the "Estoire del Saint Grail", the "Estoire de Merlin", the "Lancelot propre", the "Queste del Saint Graal" and the "Mort Artu". They combine to form the first coherent version of the entire Arthurian legend. The Cycle introduced the character of Galahad, expanded the role of Merlin, and established the role of Camelot, first mentioned in passing in Chrétien's "Lancelot", as Arthur's primary court. This series of texts was quickly followed by the "Post-Vulgate Cycle" (c.1230-40), of which the "Suite du Merlin" is a part, which greatly reduced the importance of Lancelot's affair with Guinevere, focussing more on the Grail quest. Nonetheless, Arthur remained a relatively minor character in these French prose romances (in the Vulgate itself he only figures significantly in the "Estoire de Merlin" and the "Mort Artu").

The development of the medieval Arthurian cycle culminated in "Le Morte d'Arthur" ( "Arthur's Death"), Thomas Malory's retelling of the entire legend in a single work in English in the late 15th century. Malory based his book -- originally titled "The Whole Book of King Arthur and of His Noble Knights of the Round Table" -- on the various previous romance versions, in particular the "Vulgate Cycle", and appears to have aimed at creating a comprehensive and authoritative collection of Arthurian stories. Perhaps as a result of this and the fact that "Le Morte D'Arthur" was one of the earliest printed books in England, published by William Caxton in 1485, most later Arthurian works are derivative of Malory's.

N. J. Lacy, "Chrétien de Troyes" in N. J. Lacy (ed.), The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1996), pp.88-91 at p.88

II. Decline, Revival and the Modern Legend

A.Post-medieval literature

The end of the Middle Ages brought with it a waning of interest in King Arthur. Although Malory's English version of the great French romances was popular, there were increasing attacks upon the truthfulness of the historical framework of the Arthurian romances -- established since Geoffrey of Monmouth's time -- and thus the legitimacy of the whole "Matter of Britain". So, for example, the 16th century humanist scholar Polydore Vergil famously rejected the idea of a post-Roman Arthurian empire as a fabrication, to the horror of Welsh and English antiquarians. Social changes associated with the end of the medieval period and the Renaissance also conspired to rob the Arthurian legend of some of its power to enthrall contemporary audiences, with the result that 1634 saw the last printing of Malory's "Le Morte D'Arthur" for nearly 200 years. This is not to say that King Arthur and the Arthurian legend was entirely abandoned until the early 19th century, but the material was certainly taken less seriously and often used simply as vehicle for allegories of 17th and 18th century politics. Thus Richard Blackmore's epics "Prince Arthur" (1695) and "King Arthur" (1697) feature Arthur as an allegory for the struggles of William III against James II. Similarly, the most popular Arthurian tale throughout this period seems to have been that of Tom Thumb, which was set in Arthurian Britain and was told first through chapbooks and later through the political plays of Henry Fielding.

B.Tennyson and the revival

The revival of interest in King Arthur and the Arthurian legend of the medieval romances began in the early 19th century. Partly this revival was motivated by a new respect for medieval chivalrous values as models for 19th century gentlemen, and in part it was a feature of the linked phenomena of medievalism, Romanticism and the Gothic Revival. The first major evidence for this renewed interest comes in 1816, when Malory's "Le Morte D'Arthur" came back into print for the first time since 1634. Initially the medieval Arthurian legend seems to have been of particular interest to poets, with William Wordsworth being inspired by it to write "The Egyptian Maid" (1835), an allegory of the Holy Grail. Pre-eminent amongst these poets was Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose first Arthurian work ("The Lady of Shalott") was published in 1832 and was based on a medieval Italian novelette, "Donna di Scalotta". This and his subsequent Arthurian poems, such as "Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere" and the "Morte d'Arthur", aroused considerable public interest in the legend of Arthur and brought Malory's tales (on which they were based) to a new, wider audience.

Tennyson's Arthurian work reached its peak of popularity with his "Idylls of the King". This was first published in 1859, when it sold 10,000 copies within its first week, and was expanded several times from then on until 1889. In the Idylls Tennyson covered and reworked the whole romance narrative of Arthur's career from birth to death, with Arthur now a symbol of ideal manhood - rather than the simply national hero or roi fainéant of the medieval tradition - whose attempt to establish an ideal kingdom on earth fails, finally, through human weakness. The influence of Tennyson on the Arthurian revival can be observed in a number of ways. One way is simply to look to Malory's "Le Morte D'Arthur" once more, on which much of Tennyson's work was based. The first modernisation of Malory into contemporary English was published shortly after "Idylls of the King" appeared, in 1862, with this seeing 6 further editions and 5 competitors before the century ended. Another way is to look to great explosion of Arthurian poetry and art in the second half of the 19th century. William Morris, Matthew Arnold and Algernon Charles Swinburne were all inspired to write Arthurian verse by Tennyson's Idylls (partly through disapproval of Tennyson's Arthurian poetry, it must be noted). So were the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, who were initially inspired by Tennyson and from whom they graduated to Malory and the medieval tradition. A final way is to consider that humourous fairy-story, the tale of "Tom Thumb", which was the main manifestation of the Arthurian legend in the 18th century. Whilst Tom maintains his small stature and comic potential, his stories are rewritten after the publication of Tennyson's verse to include ever more elements from the medieval Arthurian romances, both in terms of events and ethos.

This interest in the 'Arthur of romance' continued through the 19th century and into the 20th century, and it was not confined to England alone. So, for example, Richard Wagner was inspired by the romance tradition to produce his operas "Tristan und Isolde" and "Parsifal", his music in turn then influencing the English Pre-Raphaelites such as Burne-Jones. The revived Arthurian romance also proved influential in America, with such books as Sidney Lanier's "The Boy's King Arthur" (1880) reaching wide audiences and providing inspiration for Mark Twain's satiric "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1889). The Arthurian revival did not, however, continue unabated in all areas. By the end of the 19th century interest in it amongst artists was merely vestigial, confined mainly to Pre-Raphaelite imitators. Furthermore, the romance tradition of Arthur could not avoid being affected by the First World War, which damaged the public ethos of chivalry and thus interest in the medieval manifestations of this. It did, however, remain sufficiently powerful to persuade Thomas Hardy, Laurence Binyon and John Masefield to compose Arthurian plays and it served as the inspiration for T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land".

C. The modern legend

In the latter half of the 20th century the influence of the romance tradition continued to make itself felt, through novels such as T. H. White's "The Once and Future King" (1958, based on Malory's "Le Morte D'Arthur") and Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Mists of Avalon" (1981), and comic-strips such as "Prince Valiant" (1937). Just as Tennyson reworked his romance materials to suit his day and desired message, so too is it often the case with these modern treatments, for example Bradley's tale takes a determinably feminist approach to the legend and focussing on religious struggles between paganism and Christianity. All three of the above literary works have been made into films and/or TV series - in 1965 by "Disney"; 1953 by "Twentieth Century-Fox"; and 2001 by "Turner Network Television", respectively - and the Arthurian romances have continued to dominate this medium. So, for example, the musical "Camelot", with its focus on the love between Lancelot and Guinevere, was made into a film in 1967, whilst films including "Tristan et Iseult" (1972), "Gawain and the Green Knight" (1973), "Tristan and Isolt" (1979), "Sword of the Valiant" (1983), "The Fisher King" (1991), "First Knight" (1995) and "Merlin" (1998) are all derivative of the romances. This debt is particularly evident and (according to critics) successfully handled in Robert Bresson's "Lancelot du Lac" (1974, based on the Vulgate "Mort Artu"), Eric Rohmer's "Perceval le Gallois" (1978, based on Chrétien de Troyes's "Le Conte del Graal"), and perhaps John Boorman's "Excalibur" (1981, based on Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur).

Although clearly a major strand, retellings and reimaginings of Arthurian romance are not the only important aspect of the modern Arthurian legend. Attempts to envisage Arthur as a genuine historical figure of c.500 AD, stripping away the 'romance' elements to a greater or lesser degree, also play a significant role. As Taylor and Brewer have noted, this return to the medieval "chronicle tradition" of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the "Historia Brittonum" is a relatively recent trend which became dominant in Arthurian literature in the years following the outbreak of the Second World War, perhaps initially because of a combination of the weakening of the chivalric and romance ethos and the fact that the historical Arthur's resistance to Germanic invaders struck a certain cord in Britain after this time. So, Clemence Dane's series of radio plays, "The Saviours" (1942), made use of a historical Arthur in their invocation of a heroic spirit of resistance against desperate odds, and Robert Sherriff's play "The Long Sunset" (1955) saw Arthur rallying the Romano-British resistance against the Germanic invaders. The literary dominance of this desire to place Arthur in a historical, rather than a High Medieval romantic, milieu is also clear from novels published in this period, both true historical fictions and fantasy novels: for example, Stephen Lawhead's "Pendragon Cycle" (1987-99); Nikolai Tolstoy's "The Coming of the King" (1988); Jack Whyte's "Camulod Chronicles" (1992-97) and Bernard Cornwell's "The Warlord Chronicles" (1995-97). In recent years the portrayal of Arthur as a real, non-romance, hero of the 5th century has also made inroads into film versions of the Arthurian legend, most notably "King Arthur" (2004) and "The Last Legion" (2007).

III.Aspects of the legend

A.Weapons

The Lady of the Lake offering Arthur the sword Excalibur.

In "Culhwch and Olwen" and the Welsh Bruts, Arthur's sword is called Caledfwlch (derived from caled, "battle, hard" + bwlch, "breach, gap, notch"). It is often considered to be related to the phonetically similar Caladbolg, a sword borne by several figures from Irish mythology, although a borrowing of Caledfwlch from Irish Caladbolg has been considered unlikely by Bromwich and Evans. They suggest instead that both names "may have similarly arisen at a very early date as generic names for a sword"; this sword then became exclusively the property of Arthur in the British tradition.^[1] Geoffrey of Monmouth calls Arthur's sword Caliburnus, a name which most Celticists consider to be derivative of a lost Old Welsh text in which bwlch had not yet been lenited to fwlch. In early French sources this then became Escalibor, and finally the familiar Excalibur.

R. Bromwich and D. Simon Evans, Culhwch and Olwen. An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992), p.65

However, in what is sometimes called the "Post-Vulgate Merlin", Excalibur was given to Arthur by the "Lady of the Lake" sometime after he began to reign. In the "Vulgate Mort Artu", Arthur orders Girflet to throw the sword into the enchanted lake. After two failed attempts he finally complies with the wounded king's request and a hand emerges from the lake to catch it, a tale which becomes attached to Bedivere instead in Malory and the English tradition . According to "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, Excalibur was originally derived from the Latin phrase "Ex calce liberatus", "liberated from the stone". In Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur", Excalibur is said to mean "cut-steel", which some have interpreted to mean "steel-cutter".

In her book "The Ancient Secret", Lady Flavia Anderson postulates that "Excalibur" has a Greek origin, "Ex-Kylie-Pyr" or "out of a cup-fire". This corresponds to her thesis that the Holy Grail refers to those items used to draw down the Sun in order to make fire. Excalibur, she believed, was a "brand of light" ("brand" is another word for "sword") and associated with Aaron's Rod. Just as only Aaron or Moses could make their rod "flower" (into flame), so only Arthur could pull Excalibur from the stone. In many versions, Excalibur's blade was engraved with words on opposite sides. On one side were the words "take me up", and on the other side "cast me away" (or similar words). This prefigures its return into the water. In addition, when Excalibur was first drawn, Arthur's enemies were blinded by its blade, which was as bright as thirty torches. Excalibur's scabbard was said to have powers of its own. Injuries from losses of blood, for example, would not kill the bearer. In some tellings, wounds received by one wearing the scabbard did not bleed at all. The scabbard is stolen by Morgan le Fay and thrown into a lake, never to be found again.

Nineteenth century poet Lord Alfred Tennyson, described the sword in full Romantic detail in his poem "Morte d'Arthur", later rewritten as "The Passing of Arthur", one of the "Idylls of the King":

"There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,

And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon,

Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth

And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:

For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,

Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work

Of subtlest jewellery

Excalibur is by no means the only weapon associated with Arthur, nor the only sword. Welsh tradition also knew of a dagger named Carnwennan and a spear named Rhongomyniad that belonged to him. Carnwennan ("Little White-Hilt") first appears in "Culhwch and Olwen", where it was used by Arthur to slice the Very Black Witch in half. Rhongomyniad ("spear" + "striker, slayer") is also first mentioned in Culhwch, although only in passing; it appears as simply Ron ("spear") in Geoffrey's Historia. In the "Alliterative Morte Arthure", a Middle English poem, there is mention of Clarent, a sword of peace meant for knighting and ceremonies as opposed to battle, which is stolen and then used to kill Arthur.

B.Family

In non-Galfridian Welsh Arthurian literature Arthur was granted numerous relations and family members. Several early Welsh sources are usually taken as indicative of Uther Pendragon being known as Arthur's father before Geoffrey wrote, with Arthur also being granted a brother (Madog) and a nephew (Eliwlod) in these texts. Similarly, as Bromwich and Evans have observed, "Culhwch and Olwen", the "Vita Iltuti" and the "Brut Dingestow" combine to suggest that Arthur was assigned a mother too - Eigyr - as well as maternal aunts, uncles, cousins and a grandfather called Anlawd Wledig. Arthur would seem to have had a sister, as Gwalchmei is named as his sister-son (nephew) in Culhwch, Gwalchmei's mother being one Gwyar. Turning to Arthur's own family, his wife is consistently stated to be Gwenhwyfar, usually the daughter of Ogrfan Gawr (Ogrfan "the Giant"), although Culhwch and "Bonedd yr Arwyr" do indicate that Arthur also had some sort of relationship with Eleirch daughter of Iaen, which produced a son named Kyduan. Kyduan was not the only child of Arthur according to Welsh Arthurian tradition - he is also ascribed sons called Amr, Gwydre, Llacheu and Duran.

Relatively few members of Arthur's family in the Welsh materials are carried over to the works of Geoffrey and the romancers. His grandfather Anlawd Wledig and his maternal uncles, aunts and cousins do not appear there and neither do any of his sons or his paternal relatives. Only the core family seem to have made the journey: his wife Gwenhwyfar (who became Guinevere), his father Uther, his mother (Igerna) and his sister-son Gwalchmei (Gawain). As Roberts has noted, Gwalchmei's mother - Arthur's sister - failed to make the journey, Gwyar's place being taken by Anna, the wife of Loth, in Geoffrey's account, whilst Medraut (Mordred) is made into a second sister-son for Arthur (a status he does not have in the Welsh material). In addition, new family members enter the Arthurian tradition from this point onwards. Uther is given a new family, including a brother and a father, while Arthur gains a sister, Morgan le Fay (first identified as Arthur's sister by Chrétien de Troyes), and a new son, Loholt, in Chrétien's "Eric and Enide", the "Perlesvaus" and the "Vulgate Cycle".

Another significant new family-member is Arthur's half-sister Morgause, the daughter of Gorlois and Igerna and mother of Gawain and Mordred in the French romances (replacing Geoffrey of Monmouth's Anna in this role). In the Vulgate Mort Artu we find Mordred's relationship with Arthur once more reinterpreted, as he is made the issue of an unwitting incestuous liaison between Arthur and this Morgause, with Arthur dreaming that Mordred would grow up to kill him. This tale is preserved in all the romances based on the Mort Artu and by the time we reach Malory's "Le Morte D'Arthur" Arthur has started to plot, Herod-like, to kill all children born on the same day as Mordred in order to save himself from this fate.

Although Arthur is given sons in both early and late Arthurian tales, he is rarely granted significant further generations of descendents; this is at least partly because of the premature deaths of his sons in these legends. Amr is the first to be mentioned in Arthurian literature, appearing in the 9th century "Historia Brittonum":

"There is another wonder in the region which is called Ercing. A tomb is located there next to a spring which is called Licat Amr; and the name of the man who is buried in the tomb was called thus: Amr. He was the son of Arthur the soldier, and Arthur himself killed and buried him in that very place. And men come to measure the grave and find it sometimes six feet in length, sometimes nine, sometimes twelve, sometimes fifteen. At whatever length you might measure it at one time, a second time you will not find it to have the same length--and I myself have put this to the test".

Why Arthur chose to kill his son is never made clear. The only other reference to Amr comes in the post-Galfridian Welsh romance "Geraint", where "Amhar son of Arthur" is one of Arthur's four chamberlains along with Bedwyr's son, Amhren. Gwydre is similarly unlucky, being slaughtered by the giant boar Twrch Trwyth in "Culhwch and Olwen", along with two of Arthur's maternal uncles -- no other references to either Gwydre or Arthur's uncles survive. More is known of Arthur's son Llacheu. He is one of the "Three Well-Endowed Men of the Island of Britain", according to Triad number 4, and he fights alongside Cei in the early Arthurian poem "Pa gur yv y porthaur?". Like his father is in "Y Gododdin", Llacheu appears in 12th century and later Welsh poetry as a standard of heroic comparison and he also seems to have been similarly a figure of local topographic folklore too. Taken together, it is generally agreed that all these references indicate that Llacheu was a figure of considerable importance in the early Arthurian cycle. Nonetheless, Llacheu too dies, with the speaker in the pre-Galfridian poem "Ymddiddan Gwayddno Garanhir ac Gwyn fab Nud"d remembering that he had "been where Llacheu was slain / the son of Arthur, awful in songs / when ravens croaked over blood". Finally, Loholt is treacherously killed by Sir Kay so that the latter can take credit for the defeat of the giant Logrin in the "Perlesvaus", while another son, known only from a possibly 15th century Welsh text, is said to have died on the field of Camlann:

"Sandde Bryd Angel drive the crow

off the face of ?Duran [son of Arthur].

Dearly and belovedly his mother raised him.

Arthur sang it"^[1]

Medraut/Mordred is an exception to this tradition of a childless death for Arthur's sons. Mordred, like Amr, is killed by Arthur - at Camlann - according to Geoffrey of Monmouth and the post-Galfridian tradition but, unlike the others, he is ascribed two sons, both of whom rose against Arthur's successor Constantine with the help of the Saxons. However, it perhaps should be remembered that in Geoffrey's "Historia" (when Arthur's killing of Mordred and Mordred's sons first appear), Mordred was not yet actually Arthur's son.

C.Messianic return

The possibility of Arthur's return is first mentioned by William of Malmesbury in the early 12th century: "But Arthur's grave is nowhere seen, whence antiquity of fables still claims that he will return." As Constance Bullock-Davies demonstrated, this belief in Arthur's eventual messianic return was extremely widespread amongst the Britons from the 12th century onwards - how much earlier than this it existed is still debated - and was often linked to the expulsion of the English and Normans from Britain, for which belief William of Newburgh and others mocked the Britons: "most of the Britons are thought to be so dull that even now they are said to be awaiting the coming of Arthur."^[2] This did, in fact, remain a powerful aspect of the Arthurian legend through the medieval period and beyond. So John Lydgate in his "Fall of Prince" (1431-8) notes the belief that Arthur "shall resorte as lord and sovereyne Out of fayrye and regne in Breteyne" and Philip II of Spain apparently swore, at the time of his marriage to Mary Tudor in 1554, that he would resign the kingdom if Arthur should return.

A number of locations were suggested for where Arthur would actually return from. The earliest-recorded suggestion was Avalon. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century "Historia Regum Britanniae" it is asserted that Arthur "was mortally wounded" at Camlann but was then carried "to the Isle of Avallon (insulam Auallonis) to be cured of his wounds", with the implication that he would at some point be cured and return therefrom made explicit in Geoffrey's later "Vita Merlini".

Another tradition held that Arthur was awaiting his return beneath some mountain or hill. First referenced by Gervase of Tilbury in his "Otia Imperialia" (c.1211), this was maintained in British folklore into the 19th century and Loomis and others have taken it as a tale of Arthur's residence in an underground (as opposed to an overseas) Otherworld. Other less common concepts include the idea that Arthur was absent leading the Wild Hunt, or that he had been turned into a crow or raven. This idea of Arthur's eventual return has proven attractive to a number of modern writers. John Masefield used the idea of Arthur sleeping under a hill as the central theme in his poem "Midsummer Night" (1928). C. S. Lewis also was inspired by this aspect of Arthur's legend in his novel "That Hideous Strength" (1945). Finally, Mike Barr and Brian Bolland have Arthur and his knights returning in the year 3000 to save the Earth from an alien invasion in "Camelot 3000" (1982-85).

J. Rowland, Early Welsh Saga Poetry: a Study and Edition of the Englynion (Cambridge, 1990), pp.250-1

C. Bullock-Davies, "Exspectare Arthurum, Arthur and the Messianic Hope" in Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 29 (1980-82), pp.432-40; T. Green, Concepts of Arthur (Stroud: Tempus, 2007), pp.72-5

IV. King Arthur, the Myth

It seems that there was a war leader, whose name we do not know, who defeated the Saxons, checking their advance temporarily. In later years people remembered this leader with longing; "Oh, if we only had ... to lead us now". Eventually the name Arthur adhered to this folk memory, and his list of accomplishments grew. Arthur is in many ways greater because we do not know the truth; it can't get in the way of peoples' need to create a saviour who is waiting to come to their aid when times get tough. In British legend, Camelot was the capital of the kingdom of King Arthur. Cadbury Castle in Somerset, an isolated Iron Age hill fort, is the site most often identified with Camelot. Archaeological evidence confirms that during the 6th century the fort was occupied by a powerful British warrior chieftain. However, local folklore advances alternative sites at Camelford in Cornwall and Winchester in Hampshire as the original Camelot.

Some people believe that King Arthur is so inextricably tied up in Celtic Mythology that he must, in origin, have been, not a man at all, but a god.

Like so many other characters featured in the Mabinogion, Arthur in his earliest form, appears almost entirely mythical. He and his companions have superhuman strength and abilities, and consort with giants and other mythological creatures.

In the early Welsh poem "Preiddeu Annwfn", Arthur visits the Celtic Underworld, Annwfn, and his adventures closely parallel those of the cauldron-seeking god, Bran the Blessed. Even in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain," and Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte D'Arthur," upon being fatally wounded in battle, Arthur is carried to the mystical Avalon, apparently the Underworld home of the Celtic god, Afallach. Many legends around the country attest to Arthur's immortality. He is said to be sleeping in one of numerous caves waiting to return and lead his people.

The name Arthur itself appears to derive from the Celtic word Art, meaning "bear". Could Arthur, like so many other Celtic gods, be merely a personification of the many reverred animals of the wild? Later to become humanized like Loucetios, one of several Celtic deities known to be able to transform themselves into birds or beasts of the forest. Many such gods had stellar associations and the constellation of Ursa Major or the Great Bear is sometimes known as Arthur's Wain even today.

Three Bear-gods are known from the Celtic world. Strangely, they acted as both champion of bear-hunters and protectors of the beast itself. The most celebrated was, perhaps, Artio, worshipped near Berne in Switzerland and around Trier in Germany; but she was actually a goddess. A male god, Artaios, was reverred in Beaucroissant in Isere, where he was identified with the Roman Mercury. In Britain there is scant evidence for the bear cult, though a number of small jet bear talismans from Yorkshire may have devotional associations. The god to which they probably relate, however, derives his name from the alternative bear word, matus (Gaulish) or math (Irish). Matunus appears to have had a shrine at Risingham, just north of Hadrian's Wall.

Some theorists claim Arthur was a late addition to the Celtic pantheon during a resurgence in pagan worship, or possibly a mythical hero, the offspring of a human and a bear. There is no evidence for either.

V. The Knights of the Round Table

The Round Table was founded in patience, humility, and meekness. Thou art never to do outrageousity, nor murder, and always to flee treason, by no means to be cruel, and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentle women succour. Also, to take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law nor for no world's goods.

Thou should be for all ladies and fight for their quarrels, and ever be courteous and never refuse mercy to him that asketh mercy, for a knight that is courteous and kind and gentle has favor in every place.

Thou should never hold a lady or gentle woman against her will. Thou must keep thy word to all and not be feeble of good believeth and faith. Right must be defended against might and distress must be protected. Thou must know good from evil and the vain glory of the world, because great pride and bobauce maketh great sorrow. Should anyone require ye of any quest so that it is not to thy shame, thou shouldst fulfil the desire.

Ever it is a worshipful knights deed to help another worshipful knight when he seeth him a great danger, for ever a worshipful man should loath to see a worshipful man shamed, for it is only he that is of no worship and who faireth with cowardice that shall never show gentelness or no manner of goodness where he seeth a man in any danger, but always a good man will do another man as he would have done to himself.

It should never be said that a small brother has injured or slain another brother. Thou shouldst not fail in these things: charity, abstinence and truth. No knight shall win worship but if he be of worship himself and of good living and that loveth God and dreadeth God then else he geteth no worship here be ever so hardly. An envious knight shall never win worship for and envious man wants to win worship he shall be dishonoured twice therefore without any, and for this cause all men of worship hate an envious man and will show him no favour.

Do not, nor slay not, anything that will in any way dishonour the fair name of Christian knighthood for only by stainless and honourable lives and not by prowess and courage shall the final goal be reached. Therefore be a good knight and so I pray to God so ye may be, and if ye be of prowess and of worthiness then ye shall be a Knight of the Table Round.

The emblem of the Knights of the Round Table worn round the necks of all the Knights was given to them by King Arthur as part of the ceremony of their being made a knight.The Order's dominant idea was the love of God, men, and noble deeds.

The cross in the emblem was to remind them that they were to live pure and stainless lives, to stive after perfection and thus attain the Holy Grail. The Red Dragon of King Arthur represented their allegiance to the King. The Round Table was illustrative of the Eternity of God, the equality, unity, and comradeship of the Order, and singleness of purpose of all the Knights.

Sir Lancelot Du Lac (Launcelot)

Lancelot was the son of King Ban of Benwick and Queen Elaine. He was the First Knight of the Round Table, and he never failed in gentleness, courtesy, or courage. Launcelot was also a knight who was very willing to serve others.

It has been said that Lancelot was the greatest fighter and swordsman of all the knights of the Round Table. Legend tells us that as a child, Lancelot was left by the shore of the lake, where he was found by Vivien, the Lady of the Lake. She fostered and raised him, and in time Lancelot became one of history's greatest knights.
Legend also says that Lancelot was the father of Galahad by Elaine. It was another Elaine, Elaine of Astolat, who died of a broken heart because Launcelot did not return her love and affection.
Many sources tell us of the love shared toward each other of Lancelot and Queen Guinevere. There may be some truth to this since Lancelot was a favorite of the Queen's, and he rescued her from the stake on two different occasions. It was at one of these rescues that Lancelot mistakenly killed Sir Gareth, which led to the disbandment of the Round Table. After the Queen repented to an abbey as a nun, Lancelot lived the rest of his life as a hermit in penitence.

King Arthur

King Arthur is most known for his Kingly leadership, his loving rule, and even his ruthless judgment of Lancelot and Guinevere. But often a very important part of Arthur's

life is forgotten: his skills as a general and knight. The name Arthur may be a form of Artorius, a Roman gens name, but according to J. D. Bruce, it is possibly of Celtic origin, coming from artos viros (bear man). Bruce also suggest the possibility of a connection with Irish art (stone).
King Arthur was the son of Uther Pendragon and defeated the barbarians in a dozen battles. Subsequently, he conquered a wide empire and eventually went to war with the Romans. He returned home on learning that his nephew Mordred had raised the standard of rebellion and taken Guinevere, the Queen. After landing, his final battle took place. Tradition has it that after King Uther's death there was no king ruling all of England. Merlin had placed a sword in a stone, saying that whoever drew it out would be king. Arthur did not know his true status but had grown up living with Sir Ector and Sir Kay, his son. The young Arthur pulled the sword from the stone and Merlin had him crowned the King of Britain. This led to a rebellion by eleven rulers which Arthur put down. He married Guinevere, whose father gave him the round table as a dowry.
In the war against the Romans, Arthur defeated Emperor Lucius and became emperor himself. The last battle of Arthur took place between he and the forces of his evil nephew, Mordred. Arthur delivered the fatal blow to Mordred in the battle, but in the process Arthur was struck a mortal blow, himself. It was then that he commanded Sir Bedivere to throw Excalibur into the Lake.

Sir Gawaine

Gawain is generally said to be the nephew of Arthur. His parents were Lot of Orkney and Morgause (though his mother is said to be Anna in Geoffrey of Monmouth). Upon the death of Lot, he became the head of the Orkney clan, which includes in many sources his brothers Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth, and his half-brother Mordred.

Gawain figures prominently in many romances. In France he is generally presented as one who has adventures paralleling in diptych fashion but not overshadowing the hero's, whether that hero be Lancelot or Percivale. In the English tradition, however, it is much more common for Gawain to be the principal hero and the exemplar of courtesy and chivalry, as he is in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the other Arthurian romances of the Alliterative Revival. In Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur", however, he has a role similar to that in the French romances, in which Lancelot is the principal hero.
The accidental death of Gawain's brothers at Sir Lancelot's hands caused Gawain, one of the mightiest warriors at court, to become the bitter enemy of his once greatest friend. He was mortally wounded in a fight with Lancelot who, it is said, lay for two nights weeping at Gawain's tomb. Before his death, Gawain repented of his bitterness towards Lancelot and forgave him.

Sir Geraint

The eldest son of King Erbin of Dumnonia who was a Knight of Devon. After the death of his wife, Prince Geraint spent much time at King Arthur's Court, looking for action and adventure. It was during this period that he encountered the Sparrow Hawk Knight and came to marry Lady Enid of

Caer-Teim (Cardiff), a story told in the ancient tales of "Erec (alias Geraint) & Enid" and "Geraint mab Erbin". Sir Geraint restored Sir Yniol all of his possessions and then married his beautiful daughter, Lady Enid. Later Geraint heard Enid bewailing his sloth as a knight; he was stung with shame and mistakenly believed Enid to be unfaithful to him. He took her on a journey through a series of trials until she convinced him of her constancy. They returned and lived in happiness for the remainder of their lives.
He inherited the Dumnonian throne in c.497 (or 480) and is recorded as one of the great "Fleet Owners" of post-Roman Britain His castle was once called Caer-Gurrel or Fort of the Ship. He died fighting the Saxons with King Arthur at the Battle of Llongborth (Langport, Somerset) around 480/510. This is recorded in a long Welsh poem called the "Elegy for Geraint".

Sir Gareth
Gareth was the youngest brother of Sir Gawain and the son of Lot and Morgause of Orkney. He played a significant role in Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur". Malory's "Tale of Sir Gareth" presents Gareth as an exemplar of chivalry who is knighted by and devoted to Sir Lancelot and who acts chivalrously towards Lynette despite her abuse of him.
This picture of Gareth, who avoided even his own brothers when they acted less than chivalrously, is one of the elements that comes together in the final scenes of the "Morte" to produce the tragic ending. Lancelot blindly slayed Gareth in his rescue of Guinevere from the stake. When Gawain heared of this, he turned against Lancelot and demanded that Arthur pursue him to punish him, thus setting the stage for Mordred's takeover.
In Tennyson's "Idyll of Gareth and Lynette", although Gareth, like almost everyone in Camelot, is not what he seems, he proves himself better than he seems to the sharp-tongued Lynette and the misjudging Sir Kay: he defeated a series of knightly opponents and rescued Lyonors. Gareth also figures in modern works like T. H. White's "The Once and Future King" and E. M. R. Ditmas's "Gareth of Orkney" (1956).

Sir Galahad

Galahad was the natural son of Launcelot. His name may be of Welsh origin or come from the place named Gilead in Palestine. His mother was Elaine, and he was placed in a nunnery as a child, being that the abbess there was his great aunt.
One day a sword in a stone was seen in a river by Arthur's knights, and it was said that only the world's best knight could pull out the sword. Galahad was led into Arthur's court where he sat in the Siege Perilous and then drew the sword out. It was later on when the Grail appeared in a vision at Arthur's court that Galahad was one of the three knights chosen to undertake the Quest for the Holy Grail. He was given a white shield, made by Evelake, with a red cross which Joseph of Arimathea had drawn in blood. In the course of the Quest he joined up with Percivale, Bors, and Percivale's sister. On Solomon's ship board, Galahad obtained the Sword of David, and after the death of Percivale's sister the trio split up for a while and Galahad traveled with his father, Launcelot.
When the three rejoined forces they came to Carbonek and achieved the Grail. Galahad mended the broken sword, and therefore, he was allowed to see the Grail. After beholding the Holy Grail, Galahad requested of Joseph of Arimathea that he die, which request was granted unto him. Galahad was always known as the "Perfect Knight". He was "perfect" in courage, gentleness, courtesy, and chivalry.

Sir Gaheris

Sir Gaheris was the son of King Lot of Orkney and his wife Morgause, sister of King Arthur. Before being knighted he was squire to his elder brother Gawaine. Sir Gaheris married Lynette on the day his brother Gareth married her sister, Dame Lionesse, of the Castle Perilous.
The two brothers were slain in the struggle following the rescue of Queen Guinevere from the fire, though this was by accident as Sir Lancelot did not recognise them in the crowd. Sir Gawaine for a long time held Sir Lancelot in bitter hatred.
Gaheris, like his other brothers, first visited Arthur's court when Morgause arrived following the Battle of Bedegraine. When Gawaine returned to be made a knight at Arthur's wedding to Guinevere, Gaheris was by his side to act as his page. In a way, he acted as Gawaine's conscience, cooling his hot temper when Gawaine wished to challenge Pellinore, praising him for his skills in his combat with Allardin of the Isles, and admonishing him after his failure to show mercy causes the death of the lady of Ablamar of the Marsh. But throughout Gawaine's early adventures, Gaheris was his steadfast companion. There were two Gaherises that were Knights of the Round Table. This one was the brother of Gawain, Gareth, and Agravain.

Sir Bors de Ganis

Sir Bors was the only knight to survive the Quest for the Holy Grail and return to court. His father's name was Bors, and he later succeeded his father as King of Gannes. Bors was a chaste knight, but the daughter of King Brandegoris fell in love with him, and with the aid of a magic ring forced Bors into loving her.
As a result of this union, Bors became the father of Elyan the White, later Emperor of Constantinople. Bors undertook the Quest for the Holy Grail along with Galahad and Percivale. Bors was the only one of the three to return to Britain, and after the Quest, he returned to Arthur's Court.
Bors was the cousin of Sir Lancelot, and he steadfastly supported him against Arthur during the conflict between the two. After the death of Lancelot, Bors returned to the Holy Land where he died fighting in the Crusades.
It has been suggested that, in origin, Bors may have been a character who figures in Welsh legend as Gwri.

Sir Bedivere

Sir Bedivere was a trusty supporter of King Arthur from the beginning of his reign, and one of the first knights to join the fellowship of the Round Table. He helped Arthur fight the Giant of Mont St. Michel, and later he was made Duke of Neustria.
Bedivere had only one hand later in life, having lost one of his hands in a battle. He had a son called Amren and a daughter named Eneuavc.
Bedivere was present at the Last Battle, the fateful Battle of Camlan. He and Arthur alone survived the battle, and he was given the command by Arthur to throw Excalibur back into the Lake. After lying twice to Arthur, he finally tossed the precious sword out into the lake, and the hand of the Lady of the Lake came up and retrieved the sword to its watery home.
The name Bedivere comes from the Welsh Bedwyr. His grandfather was also named Bedivere, and he founded the city of Bayeux. Bedivere was killed in the Roman Campaign.

Sir Kay

Sir Kay was the son of Ector (Ectorious) and the foster brother of

King Arthur. History records Kay (Cai in Welsh) as being a very tall man, as shown by his epithet, the Tall. He appears in the Mabinogion tale of "Culhwch and Olwen" as the foremost warrior at the Court of the King Arthur, and apparently had mystical powers and was called one of the "Three Enchanter Knights of Britain" for: "nine nights and nine days his breath lasted under water, nine nights and nine days would he be without sleep. A wound from Cai's sword no physician might heal. When it pleased him, he would be as tall as the tallest tree in the forest. When the rain was heaviest, whatever he held in his hand would be dry for a handbreadth before and behind, because of the greatness of his heat, and, when his companions were coldest, he would be as fuel for them to light a fire".

Sir Kay at times had a volatile and cruel nature, but he was Arthur's senechal and one of his most faithful companions. Kay married Andrivete, daughter of King Cador of Northumberland, and he is credited with sons called Garanwyn and Gronosis and a daughter called Kelemon. Some sources say that Kay was a Saxon, but was unlike the heathen Saxons because he was a Christian.
There are different accounts of his death: throughout Welsh literature it is claimed that he was killed by Gwyddawg who was, in turn, killed by Arthur; but he is also said to have been killed by the Romans or in the war against Mordred.

Sir Lamorak

Lamorak was the son of King Pellinore and in some legends the brother of Percivale. He was one of the strongest Knights of the Round Table. Lamorak was the lover of Morgause, whose husband King Lot of Orkney had been killed by Lamorak's father, Pellinore.
Lamorak was one of three knights most noted for their deeds of prowess. At an early age he received a degree for jousting, at which he excelled. There were several different occasions in which Lamorak fought over thirty knights by himself.
Some sources say Lamorak was killed by Mordred who crept in behind him and stabbed him in the back, but most stories refer to Lamorak as being killed by Gawaine in retaliation for Lamorak's relationship to Morgause, Gawaine's mother.

Sir Percivale
Percivale was raised by his mother in ignorance of arms and courtesy. Percivale's natural prowess, however, led him to Arthur's court where he immediately set off in pursuit of a knight who had offended Guinevere.
Percivale is the Grail knight or one of the Grail knights in numerous medieval and modern stories of the Grail quest. Percivale first appears in Chrétien de Troyes's unfinished "Percivale or Conte del Graal" (c.1190). The incomplete story prompted a series of "continuations", in the third of

which (c. 1230), by an author named Manessier, Percivale achieves the Grail. (An analogue to Chrétien's tale is found in the thirteenth-century Welsh romance Peredur
Chrétien's story was also the inspiration for one of the greatest romances of the Middle Ages, Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival" (c. 1200-1210). As in Chrétien's story, Wolfram's Parzival is initially naive and foolish, having been sheltered from the dangers of the chivalric world by his mother. In both versions Percivale/Parzival is the guest of the wounded Fisher King (called Anfortas by Wolfram but unnamed by Chrétien) at whose castle he witnesses the Grail procession and fails to ask--because he has been advised of the impoliteness of asking too many questions--the significance of what he sees and, in Wolfram's romance, what causes Anfortas's pain. This failure is calamitous because asking the question would have cured the king.
Other medieval versions of the story of Percivale can be found in the French texts known as the Didot-Percivale and Perlesvaus (also called The High Book of the Grail or Le Haut Livre du Graal). Percivale is the central character in the fourteenth-century Middle English romance Sir Percivale of Galles which is apparently based on Chrétien's tale but which omits the Grail motif entirely. Percivale is one of three Grail knights in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the others being Galahad and Bors. Percivale functions as the narrator of the dramatic monologue which comprises most of Tennyson's Idyll "The Holy Grail." In this idyll, much of what Percivale tells focuses on Galahad as the central Grail knight. Richard Wagner, drawing his inspiration primarily from Wolfram von Eschenbach though greatly simplifying Wolfram's plot, wrote the opera Parsifal in 1882.
As in the medieval stories, Parsifal is presented initially as a fool, but is pure enough to heal the wounded Anfortas and to become himself the keeper of the Grail. Among the twentieth century works to deal with Percivale/Parsifal are the poem "Parsifal" by Arthur Symons, several of Charles Williams's Arthurian poems, Robert Trevelyan's "The Birth of Parsival" (1905) and "The New Parsifal: An Operatic Fable" (1914), and the novels "Percival" and the "Presence of God" (1978) by Jim Hunter, "Parsifal" (1988) by Peter Vansittart, and Richard Monaco's tetralogy (containing "Parsival" [1977], "The Grail War" [1979], "The Final Quest" [1980], and "Blood and Dreams" [1985]). One of the most interesting Arthurian films is Eric Rohmer's Percivale le Gallois (1978), a fairly faithful rendition of Chrétien's Conte del Graal. The story of Percivale is recast in a modern setting in the film "The Fisher King" (1990).

Sir Tristan (Tristram) Tristan, or Tristram in Old English, was a contemporary of King Arthur and a Knight of the Round Table. He was the nephew and champion of King Mark of Cornwall and the son of Meliodas, King of Lyoness. Tristan's mother died when he was born, and as a young man he took service with his uncle, Mark.

Tristan became the champion of his uncle after defeating and killing Marhaus of Ireland in a duel. That defeat led to a truce with King Anguish of Ireland and he arranged for his daughter, Iseult to be married to King Mark. It was Tristan who was sent to Ireland to fetch the one who would be Queen. While in the process of bringing her back to Cornwall, Tristan and Iseult fell helplessly in love with one another. Therefore, they fled from Mark and lived the rest of their days on the run.
Legend has it that while Tristan was playing his harp for Iseult, Mark snuck in behind him and killed him with a dagger or a lance in the back.
The Fowey Stone in Cornwall is thought to bear an inscription about a Tristan, son of Cunomorus, to whom the tale may have been transferred. According to the Italian version of the story, Tristan and Iseult had two children, bearing their names, while the French view gives them one son, Ysaie, and a grandson, Marc.

The Round Table

The consensus is that Merlin the Wizard created the legendary Round Table - in a shape symbolising the roundness of the universe - for Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father. When Uther died, it passed to Guinevere's father, King Laudegraunce, and then to King Arthur when he married Guinevere. Real or symbolic, the Round Table for the fellowship of knights has remained a powerful and appealing concept for several hundreds of years.

The Round Table was first mentioned by the French poet, Wace, in 1155 and in that account was made round so that all the knights seated around it would have the same stature - a table with no head to sqabble over. In Arthurian legend it wasn't just an actual table but represented the highest Order of Chivalry at King Arthur's court. The Knights of the Round Table were the cream of British nobility, who followed a strict code of honour and service.

There is a big Round Table hanging on the wall of Winchester Castle, which names 25 shields. Sir Thomas Malory in Le Morte d'Arthur identifies Camelot as the English town of Winchester (disputed by William Caxton, Malory's own publisher, who asserts that Camelot was in Wales) and there has been a long and popular association between King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and the actual Winchester Round Table, but its origin has been dated to around 1270, the start of the reign of King Edward I - like the knights, well after Arthur's time.

In literature, the Round Table varies in size according to which author is decribing it. The consensus is that it seated 150, with one chair - the Siège Perilous ('danger-seat') - which no-one could occupy safely except for the true Grail-Knight: the knight destined to achieve the Holy Grail, or Sangreal, a symbolism sometimes linked to the Last Supper, which had one place for Judas of ill-omen. The Grail-Knight - it was said that the Siège Perilous was reserved for Sir Perceval, then later, Sir Galahad - was required to be a hero with the purest heart, who was chaste and a virgin without sins (which disqualified Sir Lancelot from the start).

The breakdown of the seating arrangements is this: King Laudegraunce brought 100 when he gave the table to King Arthur, Merlin filled up 28 of the vacant seats, and King Arthur elected Sir Gawain and Sir Tor - the remaining 20 seats, including the danger-seat, were left for those who might prove worthy.

Arthurian legend also contains reference to lesser Orders: the Queen's Knights, the Knights of the Watch, the Table of Errant Companions, and the Table of Less-Valued Knights, which could explain, in a literary sense, why the Round Table would be so large, though it must have been ring-shaped rather than a round normal table, otherwise most of its surface would have been unreachable.

VI. Cultural and Political Influence

The influence of Arthur's legend is not confined to novels, stories and films; he has also had a profound impact on popular culture and politics, especially in Britain and America. The legend of Arthur's messianic return has often been particularly influential from a political perspective. On the one hand it seems to have provided a means of rallying Welsh resistance to Norman incursions in the 12th century and afterwards, with one Anglo-Norman text recounting of the Welsh that "openly they go about saying,... / that in the end they will have it all; / by means of Arthur, they will have it back... / They will call it Britain again."^[1] On the other hand, the notion of Arthur's eventual return to rule a united Britain was harnessed by the Plantagenet kings as political propaganda to justify their rule through the naming of Richard I's heir as Arthur. Furthermore, once King Arthur had been safely pronounced dead and buried at Glastonbury, in an attempt to deflate Welsh dreams of a genuine Arthurian return, the Plantagenets were then able to make ever greater used of Arthur as a political cult to support their dynasty and its ambitions. So, Richard I used his status as the inheritor of Arthur's realm to shore up foreign alliances, giving a sword reputed to be Excalibur to Tancred of Sicily. Similarly, 'Round Tables' - jousting and dancing in imitation of Arthur and his knights - occurred at least 8 times in England between 1242 and 1345, including one held by Edward I in 1284 to celebrate his conquest of Wales and consequent 're-unification' of Arthurian Britain. The Galfridian claim that Arthur conquered Scotland was also used by Edward I to provide legitimacy to his claims of English suzerainty over that region too.

The influence of King Arthur on the political machinations of England's kings was not confined to the medieval period: the Tudors also found it expedient to make use of Arthur. In 1485 Henry VII marched through Wales to take the English throne under the banner of the Arthurian Red Dragon, he commissioned genealogies to show his putative decent from Arthur, and named his first-born son Arthur. Later, in the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth Arthur's career was influential once again, now in providing evidence for supposed historical rights and territories in legal cases that pursued the crown's interests. Whilst the potential for such political usage - wherein the reality of Geoffrey's Arthur and his wide-ranging conquests was accepted and proclaimed by English antiquarians and thus utilised by the crown - naturally declined after the attacks on Geoffrey's Historia by Polydore Vergil and others, Arthur has remained an occasionally politically potent figure through to the present era. A notable example of this comes from 20th century America, where a comparison of John F. Kennedy and his White House with Arthur and Camelot, made by Kennedy's widow, helped cement and consolidate Kennedy's posthumous reputation, with Kennedy even becoming associated with an Arthur-like messianic return in American folklore.

Arthur's impact on popular culture has also been very significant. There have, for example, been attempts to use Arthur as a model for modern-day behaviour. In Britain the Order of the Fellowship of the Knights of the Round Table - based at King Arthur's Great Hall at Tintagel - existed in the 1930s to promote Christian ideals and Arthurian notions of medieval chivalry. Similarly, in America hundreds of thousands of boys and girls joined Arthurian youth groups, such as the Knights of King Arthur, in which Arthur and his legends were provided to them as wholesome examples to be emulated. However, the penetration of Arthur goes beyond such obviously Arthurian endeavours, with Arthurian names being regularly attached to objects, buildings and places. In Britain a whole class of locomotives, in use from 1925 until the 1960s, were named after King Arthur, whilst, in Las Vegas, the then-largest hotel in the world (opened in 1990) was named The Excalibur and there is even a US brand of flour named after Arthur. Arthur can also be found making appearances in numerous non-Arthurian television series, such as the Babylon 5 episode "A Late Delivery from Avalon", and comics - Lupack and Lupack note that almost all of the major comic book characters, including Spider-Man, Superman and the Fantastic Four, have had at least one Arthurian adventure. As Norris Lacy has observed, "The popular notion of Arthur appears to be limited, not surprisingly, to a few motifs and names, but there can be no doubt of the extent to which a legend born many centuries ago is profoundly embedded in modern culture at every level."^[2]

O. J. Padel, "The Nature of Arthur" in Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 27 (1994), pp.1-31 at p.11; C. Bullock-Davies, "Exspectare Arthurum, Arthur and the Messianic Hope" in Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 29 (1980-82), pp.432-40

2. ^ N. J. Lacy, "Popular Culture" in N.J. Lacy (ed.) The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1996), pp.363-4 at p.364

Conclusions

King Arthur is one of the most familiar figures of Western lore to ever exist. Literature, art, stage, and screen have all paid tribute to this mysterious figure seen as the saviour-king of Britain. Historians have alternately proclaimed and scoffed at Arthur's existence over the centuries, and yet none wants to be the first to totally tear the legend apart.

Many historians believe that Arthur very likely did exist, if not quite as the romantic hero he has become. Since many of the early Dark Age heroes were real men upon whom mythical ability and position were often thrust by storytellers, it is very likely that Arthur was a Dark Age warrior, perhaps even a petty king or war-leader (as the later applied title of Pendragon implies) of the Celts upon whom all the rest of the mythological superstructure was formed.

In an age of treachery and darkness, one king brought peace and prosperity to his land, defended it from every danger, and expanded it to an empire that would rival Rome itself. His wise counselor, Merlin, taught him the ways of justice and to value truth. At his command a loyal band of fearless, gentle knights protected the helpless, struggled against evil, and faced unimagined peril in the search for the holiest of relics. Though his queen and his best knight would betray him, though his own son would defeat him, though the shining kingdom he had forged would fall into ruin, still he set the standard by which all other leaders would be judged for centuries.

King Arthur became a legend shortly after his death and much information about his life was wrote by Welsh writers and then it was turn to account by the latin writer Geoffrey of Monmouth in his work "Historia Regum Britanniae" ( "History of the Kings of Britain"), and other writers changed the story in time.

Arthur's base was at a place called Camelot. Here he built a strong castle. His knights met at a Round Table. They carried out acts of chivalry such as rescuing damsels in distress and fought against strange beasts. They also searched for a lost treasure, which they believed would cure all ills - this was the 'Quest for the Holy Grail'. Under the guidance of Merlin, Arthur had obtained a magical sword from The Lady Of The Lake. This sword was called 'Excalibur" and with this weapon he vanquished many foes.

Unfortunately, as peace settled over the country things turned sour within the court of Camelot and civil war broke out. In the final battle at Camlan both Arthur and Mordred, Arthur's traitorous nephew, were mortally wounded. Arthur was set upon a boat and floated down river to the isle of Avalon. Here his wounds were treated by three mysterious maidens. His body was never found and many say that he rests under a hill with all his knights - ready to ride forth and save the country again.

So, from Dark Age warrior to chivalrous legend and myth of the twentieth century, the legendary figure of Arthur has transcended mortality to become one of the most beloved figures of hope, courage, and tragedy to ever exist. Whether or not he ever truly lived no longer matters, for he has come to live in the heart of the world in the centuries since

Bibliography

Tangherlini, "'It Happened Not Too Far from Here...': A Survey of Legend Theory and Characterization"

Barber, R. King Arthur in Legend and History

Bradley, M. Z. The Mists of Avalon

Bromwich, R. "Concepts of Arthur"

Green, T. "The Historicity and Historicisation of Arthur"

^ Lacy, N. J. "Character of Arthur" in N.J. Lacy (ed.), The New Arthurian Encyclopedia

Padel, O. J. "Recent Work on the Origins of the Arthurian Legend: A Comment"

White, T. H. The Once and Future King

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