Right, so today I'm working on a final presentation for King Arthur. (Technically, I'll be doing that all this week, but that includes today). Since I'm a filthy procrastinator, I only started looking for sources properly yesterday. This means that I have very little of note so far to say about the weaponry of the Arthurian legend.
This is in part due to the fact that nobody else had anything to say about it, either.
There are very few papers about this topic anywhere online. The only ones I could find were from the last quarter of the 19th century to the first quarter of the 20th century, and archaeology has probably caught up quite a bit since then. I assume that nobody has written much about this in a very long time because there are two sorts of people who are interested in ancient weaponry nowadays: collectors of ancient swords and LARPers. (this is what my web searches are telling me, anyways). The former group should get their acts together and write some cool stuff about their artifacts, because I WANT ALL OF YOUR RESEARCH. The latter group should name their weapons something different (well, I should probably yell at the creators of D&D for that), and get their butts out of my Medieval Weapons searches.
Since there are no academic papers on the topic, you have to go to books. Like, actual books. Like, my right arm is sore because I was just carrying three 500-page hardcover books around for half an hour as I looked through the library for sources on What Might Have Been Used to Kill People in the Middle Ages. I know that Arthur was technically in the Roman era, but there's always room for authors to impose what they know. There wasn't Google back then, so Geoffrey of Monmouth couldn't have gotten an image of the sort of sword Arthur might have used in reality, so he probably took his own mental image of a noble's sword and assumed that weapon had always been used. Same goes for Thomas Malory, Edmund Spenser, the Gawain poet, and a lot of people who wrote about the Arthurian legend.
Time to do some real-life research, though.
Showing posts with label Arthur. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arthur. Show all posts
Monday, May 12, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
On King Arthur (again!) - Merlin
Yes, another post about King Arthur! HUZZAH!
I know that this is an easy way to do things because I'm writing similar things for class, but I find it kind of interesting - so I'm writing about Merlin today.
Right, so Merlin. In the three accounts we have read so far - Geoffrey of Monmouth, Thomas Malory, and Lord Alfred Tennyson - Merlin has pretty much been Uther's wingman; his sole purpose seems to be to turn him into Gorlois (and, later, to whisk Arthur off to a humbler upbringing). As far as we've gotten in Arthur's upbringing, that's Merlin's only relationship to Arthur.
Then we get to T. H. White's The Once and Future King. If any of you have ever seen Disney's The Sword in the Stone, this is the same Merlin that shows up in the book (I'm pretty sure the movie is based on the first third of the book, in fact). The Once and Future King is obviously more of a kid's book than the others - there's no mention of wingmen or sex of any level of consent - and the early pages focus more on Arthur's early life than the other works thus far. (this is probably because, again, it's a kid's book, and probably wants to relate to the target audience and everything). Here, Merlin is Arthur's teacher, mentor, and the resident hooligan of the castle. He's got powerful magic, turning Arthur into a fish and a hawk for various ordeals. Outside of Uther's relationship with Ygerne, this is the first real mention of Merlin's magical abilities.
Merlin, in White's tale, gets a lot more description than in the earlier works; whatever classic Wizard trope you have in your head - that's what Merlin is in this book (also, look up The Sword in the Stone; they do a good job of animating him). Interestingly, this is one of the only descriptions of the wizard we have - or any character, for that matter. It shows a bit of the values for the time - White was writing a narrative story for kids in the 1930s, not a history of kings from a monastery in Wales in the 12th century, as Monmouth was. White spends more time describing interests and places and things - the typical fare that you need to comprehend a novel. Monmouth does the same, but focuses more on the battles than the people. Merlin is more of a presence in T. H. White's novel as well - that could just be because Arthur hasn't properly pulled the sword out of the stone yet; maybe Merlin leaves after that. I don't really know.
The third major thing that White added to Merlin's character is that he ages backwards. As Merlin has only had a few lines of text among all three of the previous authors, it's a lot easier to expand on his character and his hobbies. Here, White uses Merlin's backwards aging as a source for comedy and bringing in time-irrelevant things (Merlin tries to draw his pointed wizard hat from thin air, for example, and goes through several iterations, including a sailor's hat, before he gets it). At the same time, there's so much potential for something darker - but, of course, remembering one's audience is important. (Maybe White might go into that... but... we haven't gotten there yet).
I know that this is an easy way to do things because I'm writing similar things for class, but I find it kind of interesting - so I'm writing about Merlin today.
Right, so Merlin. In the three accounts we have read so far - Geoffrey of Monmouth, Thomas Malory, and Lord Alfred Tennyson - Merlin has pretty much been Uther's wingman; his sole purpose seems to be to turn him into Gorlois (and, later, to whisk Arthur off to a humbler upbringing). As far as we've gotten in Arthur's upbringing, that's Merlin's only relationship to Arthur.
Then we get to T. H. White's The Once and Future King. If any of you have ever seen Disney's The Sword in the Stone, this is the same Merlin that shows up in the book (I'm pretty sure the movie is based on the first third of the book, in fact). The Once and Future King is obviously more of a kid's book than the others - there's no mention of wingmen or sex of any level of consent - and the early pages focus more on Arthur's early life than the other works thus far. (this is probably because, again, it's a kid's book, and probably wants to relate to the target audience and everything). Here, Merlin is Arthur's teacher, mentor, and the resident hooligan of the castle. He's got powerful magic, turning Arthur into a fish and a hawk for various ordeals. Outside of Uther's relationship with Ygerne, this is the first real mention of Merlin's magical abilities.
Merlin, in White's tale, gets a lot more description than in the earlier works; whatever classic Wizard trope you have in your head - that's what Merlin is in this book (also, look up The Sword in the Stone; they do a good job of animating him). Interestingly, this is one of the only descriptions of the wizard we have - or any character, for that matter. It shows a bit of the values for the time - White was writing a narrative story for kids in the 1930s, not a history of kings from a monastery in Wales in the 12th century, as Monmouth was. White spends more time describing interests and places and things - the typical fare that you need to comprehend a novel. Monmouth does the same, but focuses more on the battles than the people. Merlin is more of a presence in T. H. White's novel as well - that could just be because Arthur hasn't properly pulled the sword out of the stone yet; maybe Merlin leaves after that. I don't really know.
The third major thing that White added to Merlin's character is that he ages backwards. As Merlin has only had a few lines of text among all three of the previous authors, it's a lot easier to expand on his character and his hobbies. Here, White uses Merlin's backwards aging as a source for comedy and bringing in time-irrelevant things (Merlin tries to draw his pointed wizard hat from thin air, for example, and goes through several iterations, including a sailor's hat, before he gets it). At the same time, there's so much potential for something darker - but, of course, remembering one's audience is important. (Maybe White might go into that... but... we haven't gotten there yet).
Friday, February 21, 2014
On King Arthur
As some of you may know, I'm doing a course on King Arthur this semester. We've only had three classes - one class last week was cancelled for snow - but it's still very interesting. We're going over the various aspects of the Arthurian myth, starting from Arthur's origin story.
The thing about Arthur's legend is that, well, he's a legend. Someone important named 'Arthur' can be traced back to the Welsh writing during the Saxon invasion of what is now Wales in 410 AD, after the collapse of the Roman empire - and even then, it was a passing reference, as if everyone knew who Arthur was. (He's like Jesus like that... is that bad to say?) Since he's been around for several thousand years, the legend has changed.
Since the part we've focused on in class so far is just Arthur's origin story, that's what I'm focusing on today.
There have been four assigned texts for this portion: Geoffrey of Monmouth's A History of the Kings of Britain, which was finished around 1136 AD and contains accounts of other (also mythical) kings like Cymbeline and Lear; Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, completed in 1467-70 (Malory, by the way, could have a novel written about his shenanigans, including the fact that he was knighted and then arrested and escaped prison via the moat... and again, with several swords and daggers); Lord Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King, written in 1839 to bad reviews and then re-released in 1859; the first 100 pages of The Once and Future King by T. H. White are due on Tuesday.
There only a few things agreed upon in the span of 800 years of myth: Igraine is pretty but married and Uther wants to get it on with her; on the night that her husband, Gorlois, dies in battle (that Uther started... probably), Uther goes in (possibly in the disguise of Gorlois because MAGIC) to bed her. This is the night that Arthur is conceived; a short while later, they get married and Arthur is born. There are some stories that say that Merlin has him whisked off to grow up in a more humble area with a knight.
There are differences in the accounts, however. Geoffrey is more concerned with Arthur's exploits in the battlefield than his origins, so this whole story is the work of a few paragraphs. Igraine is consenting to sleep with Uther, and Gorlois apparently dies while Uther is in the building. When Igraine finds out the truth about who the father of her baby is, she is completely okay with the whole thing and rejoices in her new marriage. She's more of an object than a person here. Merlin is around - he gives Uther 'medicines' to change his face to that of Gorlois (this is a very Christian work, so 'magic' is probably not the best word to use). In Malory's account, she's similar - not only consenting to the match, but outright rejoicing that the baby is Uther's. This is the first time that Merlin is mentioned as taking the baby away afterwards. Also, Merlin seems more magical here - he casts a spell over Uther and several others to make Uther look like Gorlois and himself and one other man to look like Gorlois's companions.
In Tennyson's account, however, Igraine is the most different from the other two. Not only is Uther not disguised, but he goes in after Gorlois is dead and takes Igraine right there. She is CRYING at the wedding and CLEARLY NOT OKAY WITH IT. The other interesting bit of Tennyson's account is that Guinevere is a bit different, too. She's beautiful, sure, but Tennyson's account really highlights that the relationship between Guinevere and Arthur: when they first get the chance to see each other, Arthur isn't wearing anything to distinguish himself as a king, so she barely notices him and he thinks she's the most attractive person that he's ever laid eyes on. This sets up the interesting relationship between the two - it's the first time that you see the one-sidedness of it. Also, Tennyson includes two life lessons that we now know NEVER TO DO if we find ourselves in a work of fiction: first, Arthur sends his wingman LANCELOT to go get Guinevere from her palace on their wedding day; second, Arthur says to Guinevere at their wedding, "Behold, thy doom is mine... I love thee to the death." words such as these have been said by John Grady Cole in Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy; Romeo probably said it to Juliet. Basically, the words "I WILL DIE FOR YOU" (or, you know, "I will love thee to death and doom and blah blah blah" or something) will be immediately noted by Fate and used for further reference.
That's all I have for now. Farewell.
The thing about Arthur's legend is that, well, he's a legend. Someone important named 'Arthur' can be traced back to the Welsh writing during the Saxon invasion of what is now Wales in 410 AD, after the collapse of the Roman empire - and even then, it was a passing reference, as if everyone knew who Arthur was. (He's like Jesus like that... is that bad to say?) Since he's been around for several thousand years, the legend has changed.
Since the part we've focused on in class so far is just Arthur's origin story, that's what I'm focusing on today.
There have been four assigned texts for this portion: Geoffrey of Monmouth's A History of the Kings of Britain, which was finished around 1136 AD and contains accounts of other (also mythical) kings like Cymbeline and Lear; Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, completed in 1467-70 (Malory, by the way, could have a novel written about his shenanigans, including the fact that he was knighted and then arrested and escaped prison via the moat... and again, with several swords and daggers); Lord Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King, written in 1839 to bad reviews and then re-released in 1859; the first 100 pages of The Once and Future King by T. H. White are due on Tuesday.
There only a few things agreed upon in the span of 800 years of myth: Igraine is pretty but married and Uther wants to get it on with her; on the night that her husband, Gorlois, dies in battle (that Uther started... probably), Uther goes in (possibly in the disguise of Gorlois because MAGIC) to bed her. This is the night that Arthur is conceived; a short while later, they get married and Arthur is born. There are some stories that say that Merlin has him whisked off to grow up in a more humble area with a knight.
There are differences in the accounts, however. Geoffrey is more concerned with Arthur's exploits in the battlefield than his origins, so this whole story is the work of a few paragraphs. Igraine is consenting to sleep with Uther, and Gorlois apparently dies while Uther is in the building. When Igraine finds out the truth about who the father of her baby is, she is completely okay with the whole thing and rejoices in her new marriage. She's more of an object than a person here. Merlin is around - he gives Uther 'medicines' to change his face to that of Gorlois (this is a very Christian work, so 'magic' is probably not the best word to use). In Malory's account, she's similar - not only consenting to the match, but outright rejoicing that the baby is Uther's. This is the first time that Merlin is mentioned as taking the baby away afterwards. Also, Merlin seems more magical here - he casts a spell over Uther and several others to make Uther look like Gorlois and himself and one other man to look like Gorlois's companions.
In Tennyson's account, however, Igraine is the most different from the other two. Not only is Uther not disguised, but he goes in after Gorlois is dead and takes Igraine right there. She is CRYING at the wedding and CLEARLY NOT OKAY WITH IT. The other interesting bit of Tennyson's account is that Guinevere is a bit different, too. She's beautiful, sure, but Tennyson's account really highlights that the relationship between Guinevere and Arthur: when they first get the chance to see each other, Arthur isn't wearing anything to distinguish himself as a king, so she barely notices him and he thinks she's the most attractive person that he's ever laid eyes on. This sets up the interesting relationship between the two - it's the first time that you see the one-sidedness of it. Also, Tennyson includes two life lessons that we now know NEVER TO DO if we find ourselves in a work of fiction: first, Arthur sends his wingman LANCELOT to go get Guinevere from her palace on their wedding day; second, Arthur says to Guinevere at their wedding, "Behold, thy doom is mine... I love thee to the death." words such as these have been said by John Grady Cole in Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy; Romeo probably said it to Juliet. Basically, the words "I WILL DIE FOR YOU" (or, you know, "I will love thee to death and doom and blah blah blah" or something) will be immediately noted by Fate and used for further reference.
That's all I have for now. Farewell.
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