King Arthur's Forest

Upcoming Works Hello everyone, I hope you all enjoyed your excerpt of Wace's Roman de Brut. Chretien de Troyes   If you purchased the Everyman "The Life of King Arthur,"  I recommend you hang on to it.  The second section by Lawman covers the same story but done much later in English with even more embellishments and we will be getting to it soon enough.  In the meantime we will be taking a break from the Brut tradition and exploring the beginnings of the French romance tradition as well as a small Welsh work described below. As I frequently like to do, we will be covering a small work before tackling a much larger work.  In this case we will be covering a short but very unusual Welsh work called the Dream of Rhonabwy from around  1159 - 1200. It's only about 12 pages long, so it should not be too much to handle. If you purchased the Oxford World Classics version of The Mabinogion, then you should have it already. I will list a link to t...

Next up:  What Man? Hello, everyone!   We will be doing a few works coming up.  There are 2 smaller Welsh works that don't really fit into the scheme of "major influences" but I think merit discussion. One is Pa Gur? (What Man?) , a short, incomplete Welsh poem where Arthur recites the qualities of his warriors, much like in Culhwch and Olwen.  The other is a loose conglomeration of Welsh triads commonly referred to collectively as the Triads of the Islands Britain .  The Triads are a bardic sequence of 3 events, persons, or things that are similar, so arranged for easy memorization.  An example that I am making up right now as I stare at a poster on the wall would be:  The three great Draculas of the 20th century: Bela Lugosi as Dracula; Christopher Lee as Dracula; and Gary Oldman as Dracula.  This is just an example for fun,  the Welsh ones are much weirder.  Most of the Triads are from different times and were original...

Upcoming Book:   The Life of Merlin  by Geoffrey of Monmouth As we circle back to Geoffrey of Monmouth, I will discuss in my upcoming article the works just before and after The History of the Kings of Britain (HRB).  Those would be the Prophesies of Merlin which were also later included in the "History" (so you wont have to purchase that one!) and the Life of Merlin.  I will only touch on "The Prophesies" because it is not particularly relevant but of more interest is the "Life" because it adds a little definition and story to the character of Merlin though he still is not quite the Merlin you are familiar with.  The Life of Merlin is not included in the HRB but you can purchase it using the link below.  It is a relatively short work and not particularly expensive.    

Next Up:  The Saints Lives. The Saints Lives is not one book or or even a series of stories.  They are actually disparate tales of different saints by by different authors during the early 11th and 12th centuries.  They are interesting because they feature a version of Arthur who can sometime be seen as conniving, dishonest, vain, even as a rapist, which is quite apart from the noble, generous Leader you may be used to. I will discuss them soon in more detail.  For those of you who wish to read ahead I would advise to use Richard White's King Arthur: In Legend and History   (pp.12-21), rather than the Oxford Guide. White's version has pulled the excerpts relevant to the subject which will save you from having to read unrelated material or purchase unnecessary books.  Each saint only makes brief mention of Arthur, from about a paragraph to a page, so it will be a blessedly short read.  If you only have the Oxford guide, though it does not prov...