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Celebrating King Arthur on Tolkien Reading Day · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding.
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  Now the 25th of March which is during this week when this podcast is being released is
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  celebrated as the Tolkien reading day and that's because it's the day that the ring goes into
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  the fire if you're following Tolkien's calendar in the Lord of the Rings and also in terms of
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  the church year which was very important to Tolkien its Lady Day so one of the special feast days
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  in the Roman Catholic Church. So in terms of celebrating I thought we would have a focus on what
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  people have been reading through the ages and shortly we're going to be having a special guest on
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  the podcast Malcolm Gaite whose new Galahad and the Grail the first of his proposed Arthurian
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  epic poetical work has just come out and I thought we could talk about what Arthur has meant
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  to people over the centuries. We have touched on Arthur once before in the podcast with the
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  expert to do all things Arthurian but here I'm thinking more about how people have responded as
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  readers so we're not really looking into the historical evidence for Arthur that is another kind
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  of podcast entirely but we're looking at what people have got over the centuries reading about
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  Arthur. Now Arthur is ubiquitous in the UK you'll go to many places and visit all sorts of
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  different parts of the kingdom and you'll find places named after Arthurian characters or
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  Arthur himself and for those of you who have somehow managed to avoid what Arthur's about he is a
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  king of legend or myth who supposedly existed in after the fall after the Romans left and before
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  more recorded history and he joined together the king the different tribal groups at the time and
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  became a great king. Now a lot of that is based on stories attached to real kings that kind of have
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  been scooped up by Arthur and then there's also this Celtic folkloric element which has also
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  been sort of put around him so he's one of those figures who've attracted stories barnacles
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  so he's you know he's like something that's sunk in the sea and if you go down now and have a
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  look at it he's got barnacles and seaweed and starfish and all sorts of things growing on it.
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  What the original structure was who knows and it doesn't matter because the stories are so powerful.
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  Where did it all come from? Well originally there were brief mentions in histories written
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  by the very early chroniclers and they don't really interest us so much as in terms of readership
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  it's more they were the sources that got Arthur's stories into the English language
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  and there is a history where he was taken up by the Germans and the French and all sorts of other
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  people but where we really start is with the story of the Mort d'Arthur. It's a French title
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  isn't it but actually it is one of the very first books printed. I've got a pretty ancient
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  edition here not not the Caxon version but Thomas Mallory collected all sorts of stories and
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  organized them into a long and see how many books there is in my if I think it's 12 books
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  oh no no no much more than that 21 books in this story and you'll find in here all the sort of
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  popular versions of what you know as Arthur's stories so you'll get the the Arthur and Mordred
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  and Scalibur and Guinevere and Lancelot they're all in here and you'll of course get
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  the story of the Grail the Grail is the cup used at the last supper by Jesus and his disciples
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  also thought to have caught some of his blood on the cross and then brought to England yeah
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  for you're with me still um by Joseph of Arimathea and it becomes this sort of mystical cup
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  that is much sought after it's the kind of thing that would be the aim of an Indiana Jones quest
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  if you know that kind of religious object so Mallory but in a sense really kicked off the
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  the main reading phase of King Arthur before then it would have been in poetry and songs that were
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  performed but now there was something you could have in your household or in your library and you
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  could read so what does it sound like what is Mallory like it's fairly close to modern English
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  even though the actual date of first publication 1470 in the ninth year of Edward IV so if you
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  think about history this is before the tutors it's the um end of the it's really where the medieval
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  world is turning into the Renaissance world it's that period and the printing press is a big part of
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  that and it was a bestseller in its era and it still is a jolly good read so I'm going to choose
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  a little bit to read to you just so that you can get a flavour of it so I'm going to read you the
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  bit where Arthur pulls its caliber from the stone so this this sort has arrived it's set in a stone
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  and no one so far has been able to pull it out so upon New Year's Day when the service was done
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  the barons rode under the field some to joust and some to turny and so it happened that Sir Ector
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  that had great livelihood about London rode unto the joust and with him rode Sir K his son
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  and young Arthur that was his nourished brother and Sir K was made night at all Hallomassah 4
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  so they rode to the joust Ward Sir K lost his sword where he'd left it at his father's lodging
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  and so he prayed young Arthur for to ride for the sword I will well said Arthur and rode fast
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  after the sword and when he came home the lady and all were out to see the jousting then was Arthur
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  Ross and said to himself I will ride to the churchyard and take the sword with me that stick it
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  in the stone for my brother Sir K shall not be without a sword this day so when he came to the
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  churchyard Sir Arthur delighted and tied his horse to the style and so he went to the tent and found
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  no nights there for they were at the jousting and so he handled the sword by the handles and likely
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  and fiercely pulled it out of the stone and took his horse and rode his way until he came to his
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  brother Sir K and delivered him the sword and as soon as Sir K saw the sword he wished well
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  it was the sword of the stone and so he rode his father Sir Ector and said Sir Lowe here is the
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  sword of the stone wherefore I must be king of this land when Sir Ector beheld the sword
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  he returned again and came to the church and there they all elated all three and went into the
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  church and anon he made Sir K swear upon a book how he came to that sword Sir said Sir K
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  by my brother Arthur for he brought it to me how Gaggy this sword said to Ector to Arthur Sir I will
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  tell you when I came home for my brother's sword I found nobody at home to deliver me his sword
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  and so I thought my brother Sir K should not be swordless and so I came hither eagerly and pulled
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  it out of the stone without any pain so gives you a flavour these what these days
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  that sort of repetition and what have you would probably be edited out I noticed that there was
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  you know you say something once and then you say it again and then again but anyway it still reads
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  pretty well there's only a few archaic words like wrist and attorneying all things such I think
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  you can get overquite quickly so if in terms of going to the source of Arthur tales don't be put
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  off by the age of the more dotha but I would very much advise dipping in rather than trying to sit
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  down and read it all in one gulp I remember studying this at university and I think I had a week
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  to do it and I got rather sort of dizzyed by the number of different nights but you can see the
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  very strong bones shall I say of the Arthurian legends here and Mallory has absorbed all the
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  stories I've gone before and produced a very readable version of King Arthur which has really
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  influenced what came next so while King Arthur was a popular folkloric figure he really comes
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  again in sort of a new flourishing when it came to the romantic poets and in particular I would
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  point to Keats who I think gives the sensibility rather than the knockabout stuff that you find in
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  Mallory which is much more folkloric in its feel the sort of Jack the Giant Killer feel to Mallory
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  Keats gives it that melancholy air which I think is often found in the art about Arthur and the
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  sense of loss that's in the Arthur tale and of course probably his most famous Arthurian poem
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  is La Belle d'Arms on Merci so this is a ballad which is the the verse form which of course
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  many Arthurian tales come in including Malcolm's grail poem and it has a haunting
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  cool and answer oh what can ale the knight at arms alone and paley loitering the sedge has
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  withered from the lake and no bird sing oh what can ale the knight at arms so haggard and so woe
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  the squirrel's granary is full and the harvest stun I see a lily on thy brow with anguish moist and
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  feverdue and on thy cheeks a fading rose fast wizard too I met a lady in the meads full
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  beautiful a fairy's child her hair was long her foot was light and her eyes were wild I made a
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  garland for her head and bracelets too and fragrant zone she looked at me and she did laugh and made
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  sweet moan I set her on my pacing steed and nothing else saw all the day long for side long
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  was she bend and sing a fairies song and so it goes on so the poor poor knight has been put
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  under the spell and left in the wasteland so if you're looking for a place to read about King Arthur
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  which picks up this feeling of melancholy and loss Keats is definitely one to go for
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  but of course the poet of the 19th century that came after Keats who is most famously associated
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  with the stories of King Arthur is Tennyson and there's a really interesting connection between
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  Tennyson and Tolkien because of course he is the writer that was the most famous poet of that era
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  and would have been in in the bones of all of Tolkien's generation he wrote of course the lady
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  of shallots and poems like that you know I left she left the web she left the loom she made
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  freepaces through the room you know the one with the mirror cracked from side to side so famous
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  it's become used for titles of books like Agatha Christie but a longer cycle of poems
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  that he wrote the Idols of the King is a very ambitious re-telling a bit like
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  Mallory of pretty much the span of Arthur's life I'm going to read you Arthur's passing
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  and tell me if you feel there's a resonance here about something that happens in Tolkien
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  Arthur announces that he is going to the island valley of Avilon to be healed of a grievous wound
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  so said he that's Arthur and the barge with awe and sail move from the brink like some full
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  breasted swan that fluting a wild carol air her death ruffles her pure cold plume and takes the
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  flood with swarthy webs long studs a bed of ear revolving many memories till the hull looked
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  one black dot against the verge of dawn and on the mere the wailing died away
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  but when that moan was passed for evermore at the stillness of the dead worlds winter dawn
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  amazed him and he groaned the king is gone and therewithal came on him the weird rhyme
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  from the great deep to the great deep he goes so that standing watching the boat sailing west
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  with the man left on the shore who is the one to go home and tell the tale it's
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  can't help but remembering into the west and Sam and Pippin and Mary watching the boat sailing off
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  to the undying lands and that architecture of the lands of the west being the places of healing
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  of course is something which is taken from the Arthurian legend but is passed through
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  Tolkien's own imagination to become the land of the elves the undying lands
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  so there is Tennyson who sits you know he is the colossus poet of things Arthurian in the 19th century
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  but we shouldn't forget that someone who Tolkien admired that is William Morris and he is very
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  interesting when it comes to the world of King Arthur because he actually gives it a feminist
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  bin some of his early poetry is a defense of Grinevere her defense when I say feminist I mean
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  the defense is that of the defiant crane actually able to have her own voice and it's an interesting
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  one in that she's posing a problem to the lords who are accusing her and she's asking them to
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  imagine that someone comes someone comes to them one night and says one of these classes heaven
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  and one is hell now choose one cloth forever which they be I will not tell you you must somehow tell
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  it's also it's sort of saying the impossibility of making right choices in life
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  William Morris also writes other poems from the Arthurian cycle but he is part of the visual world
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  of Arthur in the pre-Raffer light and in the paintings that you've probably seen much reproduced
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  there was the enjoyment of the whole world of heraldry that surrounds the bigger world
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  the universe in our modern world it's the Arthurian universe so going on from the time of the Victorians
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  who had great fun with the Arthur stories and they became an important part of the island story
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  and you move into the more cynical 20th century but what you get there is a change in tone but
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  some very interesting runs at Arthur and one of which of course is T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland
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  one of the stories which is an important part of the Arthurian cycle is that of the quest for the
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  Grail and the Fisher King's castle is surrounded by a wasteland and it's that wasteland that T.S. Eliot
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  is nodding to when he calls his impressively revolution the wasteland so it's using everybody's
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  familiarity with Arthur to have that as a heartbeat underneath his poem his poetic contemporary takes
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  us into the world of the Inklings and that is Charles Williams who is the most bizarre and intriguing
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  of the Inklings the London-born publisher who became friends with first C.S. Lewis and then Tolkien
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  and spent some of the war years in Oxford taking full part in the Inklings but sadly died
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  during an operation in 1945 and he regarded Arthur as his main theme really it appears as the main
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  theme of his own poetry Italian through Logres Logres being a word for England in the Arthurian
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  cycle and regions of the summer stars which are an unusual take on the Arthurian stories but he
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  also uses the quest for the Holy Grail as the main theme in his fabulous fantasy work The War in
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  Heaven and he was also working on an Arthurian piece as he died so just to give you a little taste of
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  how Charles Williams sees King Arthur I thought I'd read you a little bit from his poetry they're
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  very dense and quite hard to understand so I'm going to take one of his most unusual ones which is
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  where Lancelot turns into a werewolf now bear with me it's hand strange but there is a source for
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  this in the story which is that Lancelot comes to Pellez's castle Pellez's carbonic where the
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  Grail is kept the wounded King the Fisher King and he is tricked into sleeping with
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  the King's daughter Elaine believing her to be Grinevere and finding out this double betrayal is what
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  drives him mad and he turns into this warfish character and it's referred to in the legends as
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  him running mad and Williams gives it this particular spin so here we are Pellez the wounded King
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  Laying carbonic bound by the grating pain of the dollarous blow his flesh from dawn star to
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  noon tide day by day ran as a woman's under the moon in mid-sun he called on the reckless heart of
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  God and the emperor he commended to them and commanded himself and his land now in the wolf month
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  nine moons had waned since Lancelot Britain on a merciful errand came that night to the house
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  their drugged and blurred by the medicated drink of Bryson Merlin's sister he lay with the princess
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  Elaine supposed Grinevere in the morning he saw he sprang from the tall window he ran into a
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  delirium of lycanthropy he grew backward all summer layered in the heavy wood in autumn King
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  Pellez's servants brought him news of a shape glimpsed on the edge of brosilandi a fear in the forest
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  a foe by the women's well all the winter the wolf haunted the environs of carbonic
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  now what was left of the man's contrarious mind was twinned and twined with the beast bent to feed
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  now it crept to swallow the seed of love's ambiguity loves taunt and truth man he hated
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  beast he hungered both stretched his sabers and strained his throat rumble of memories of love in
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  the gaunt belly told his instinct only that something edible might come slavering he crouched by
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  the dark arch of carbonic head high howling lusting for food living for flesh a child's flesh
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  his son's flesh now a bit of a plot spoiler his son by that strange happens dance
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  turns out to be galahad who later saves the day and heals everybody by achieving the grail quest
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  so that is the extraordinary world of Charles Williams and Arthurian tales and of course at
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  this time we're getting films taking on King Arthur but the kind of Arthur you get in the films
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  is more of the romance as in the medieval romance version it's taken away from its intensely
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  christian roots of the grail quest and those kind of stories and concentrating more on the court
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  drama and of course over in america you've got mark mark twain writing a yanky in the quarter
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  king Arthur and things like that so it's just shifting the story in a more sort of commercial
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  in that case comedic version so you can see how the king Arthur story is reinvented at all times
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  in many places moving to Tolkien himself i mentioned the echo at the end of lord the rings
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  of the the ships leaving for the west but all throughout Tolkien there are echoes of the Arthur
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  story with us the special swords the return of the king Arthur is obviously faded to return in
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  Tolkien's version it isn't the same king who returns it's his heir elendilzer who is returning but
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  that idea of the king coming back in the hour of need is underpinning arrogant story
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  and Tolkien himself was working on his own Arthur stories and so going in the green night was a
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  huge area of scholarly interest to Tolkien and he did his own translation moving over to
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  c s Lewis he too loved the Arthur stories and where I find it most apparent in c s Lewis's work
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  is in prince caspian because the children Peter Lucy Susan and Edmund are basically king Arthur
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  they are summoned back to nania like king Arthur and come to the rescue of prince caspian
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  so Lewis is doing his own little version of the Arthurian tale but it runs all throughout
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  the Arthur stories including the way people behave in nania with with the quest for the white
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  stag and things like that they are all Arthurian themes and the way they are imagined as
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  dressed in the regalia of a knightly court and the balance of the shared power structure and if
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  put it like that is quite round table in in nania but there is a another version of the Arthurian
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  tale which comes in Lewis's ransom trilogy the space trilogy which is that hideous strength
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  the ransom trilogy is a very uneven work in many ways because it shifts around from different
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  genres really the first being more of a kind of flash Gordon out out into space version and then
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  you've got this meditative milltonic visit to paralandra and then in the last one very
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  influenced by Charles Williams you've got the matter of Arthur coming up and so taking over the
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  story and ransom our philologist hero becomes the fisher king the wounded king you've got merlin
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  returning and you've got the replaying of many of the Arthur stories in that book I find that
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  one a hard read so I wouldn't suggest this is the first thing you you start to read if you are
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  doing an Arthur reading for your talking celebration there was a very recent and excellent adaptation by
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  the BBC radio drama of that which I end out some of the judicious editing and reinterpretation of
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  some of the less happy parts of that story and I really enjoyed it and in fact the more to when I
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  go back to that hideous strength the more I like it from those books which I really didn't like
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  first reading and then when I've gone back I found more things in it to like I think one of the
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  problems is the married relationship in jane and mark in it which feels pretty I don't like it
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  and if you read it you'll see why very odd version of how a successful marriage would work
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  I haven't mentioned t h white of course the once-in-future king a brilliant retelling of the Arthur
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  story which underpins the Disney versions of the story and then you've got the Roger Danesling
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  green retellings which as a young inkling he should be mentioned he was one of the people who
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  Arthur stories to young people in a easier form to read than Mallory I've also had a go at doing
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  my own retellings in some ways and when I first was trying to think up a story for my sons I wrote
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  a trilogy called Young Knights of the Round Table it came out came out in 2013 and it was followed
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  by Penn Dragon has a magnificent dragon on the front and Merlin and in here the idea is
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  the Arthurian characters when they go to when Arthur goes to Avalon he is out of time
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  but Merlin is still in time so Merlin is actually hiding in Silicon Valley as a sort of tech
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  tech wizard and Arthur is in a sort of time capsule and the children who are fighting the
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  Faye folk in the story have to go and gather the team in classic fashion to fight the battle with
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  them but it has a sort of time slip element so one of my favorite scenes in it is they bring back
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  they've got King Arthur they bring him back and they end up at blend and palace where one of these
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  show joust is happening and Arthur thinks finally and my kind of people and he actually is taking
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  it seriously and trying to do damage which of course isn't at all the idea of those show
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  turnips so it's a clash of expectations between the past and the present in that
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  and so I've had fun with the story myself and that's for the most successful screen adaptations
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  of the Arthurian story there have been many attempts at this including some films one of the
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  problems for filmmakers is what do they choose as a story the beginning the setup is the easiest
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  but the end is sad and sour and the bits in between are really Arthur isn't the main character
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  anymore it's everybody else so in fact I think one of the most successful attempts at this was
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  the BBC TV program Merlin which decided to feature Merlin and look at the story from the young
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  wizards point of view in a world where magic is banned and outrolled so he's sort of in hiding
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  and it's dangerous to reveal that as a long journey but if you stay with the series there's
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  actually a very sweet coda right at the end of the characters in the modern world which I love so
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  do look that up if you haven't found that BBC series BBC doesn't have a huge budget for special
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  effects but they had enough to do a dragon which has the voice of John Hurt a famous actor also
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  played on Evander in the Harry Potter series so nice little connection there anyway so how better
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  to celebrate Tolkien reading day than dipping into some of the Arthurian stories because you'll
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  see filter through a different world and a different light many of the ideas that actually inspired
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  Tolkien's so it's a good place to celebrate Tolkien when you're choosing your next read thank you
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  very much for listening thanks for listening to MythMakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford
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