Latest / Mythmakers / Galahad and the Grail: Malcolm Guite Is on a Quest

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Galahad and the Grail: Malcolm Guite Is on a Quest · 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 and
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  today I am joined by a friend to the Oxford Centre for Fantasy and also a friend to all
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  things Tolkienian, a CS Lewis and much in between. That is Malcolm Guight and for those of
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  you who are watching us on YouTube we'll see that Malcolm is following in Tolkien and
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  CS Lewis's footsteps and Gandalf and Billbert. He's smoking a rather splendid pipe. So welcome
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  Malcolm. Hello Julia, nice to see you again and thanks for having me on this podcast
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  so try and enjoy. So we've summoned you back because you have just published a fantastic,
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  well it's sort of a metrical story called Galahad and the Grail with illustrations by Stephen
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  Crottes. So it's a lovely book in just a hold it's a lovely book but you are at the beginning of a
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  retelling of Arthurian tales and you have chosen to go in on Galahad for your Arthurian epic. So
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  we've known you as a poet and we've known you as literary critic and we've known you as
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  someone who writes thought pieces for an essays. So how did Arthur nibble away at you and get you
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  wanting to tell his story? Well I can probably answer that question best inverted. This is literally
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  this is the prelude to the poem but this is pretty much how it happened. People think I'm being
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  metaphorical but I'm not. Okay let's go on the adventure with you then. As I walked out one
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  morning all in the soft fine rain it seemed as though a silver veil was shining over hill and
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  as though some lovely long lost spell had made all new again and through that shimmer in the air
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  I seem to hear a sound as though a distant horn were blown in some lost land that I had known
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  that seemed to speak from tree and stone and echo all around and with the music came these words.
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  Poet take up the tale take up the tale this land still keeps in earth and water magic sleeps
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  the dry-out size the nigh ad weeks you can left the veil from where the waves wash cornwalls caves
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  out to the white horse male the land still hold the tails of old like hidden treasure buried gold
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  once more the story must be told poet take up the tale tale of the king who will return
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  tell of the holy grail tell of old knights and shivery tell of the pristine mystery of Merlin's
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  Isle of Grammarie poet take up the tale take up the tale of courtesy take up the tale of grace
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  revive the land's long memory some in the fair folk let them be something of fairy wild and
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  free still lingers in this place lift up your eyes to see the light on Glastonbury tour then come
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  down from that far green hill to wear the sacred waters spill and shine within the chalice well
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  and listen to their law yay listen well before you start be still are you begin see through the
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  surface round about the noise the rush the fear the doubt though modern Britain lies without
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  fair logres lives within you you may yet walk through Merlin's Isle by oak and ash and thorn
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  the ancient hills do not forget and you might wake there wisdom yet who knows what wonders might
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  be met on this midsummer morning so I have taken up the tale to tell it full and free the tale
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  makes my heart rejoice I tell it for I have no choice I tell it till another voice takes up the tale
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  from me well sitting here in the white horse veil I'm particularly late they're not to my local
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  landmarks are not not any to the white horse veil but the kind of most recent example at least
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  for me is that works of telling a story in this ringing singing ballad form is in fact
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  Chesterton's ballad of the white horse so there was a little nod there yes so that takes me to
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  the first question I've had for you which is I'm a I love the long tales of Arthur I've read most
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  of the sources that you probably read but I couldn't think of anything really much after well Charles
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  Williams is a little bit on his own but let's say you know sort of Tennyson really as opposed to
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  retellings for kids I'm thinking about more in the sort poetic form what did you feel like answering
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  that call to stop thinking then start to tell the tale again and how did you persuade a publisher
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  to go with you well yes indeed I mean well first of all I wanted to do this for years and years
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  ever since my mother told me the stories and I was little but I was in fact mentioning Charles
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  Williams on those kind of high modernist lyric cycles of talisman through Lugres and I was a bit
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  daunted I knew I didn't want to do the big tennis only in blank verse thing I think the problem
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  is is so my problem was formed really I knew I wanted it to be poetry but Tennyson a it had already
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  been done and B I think after Milton it's almost impossible to write a long blank verse poem without
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  kind of blundering into kind of ponderous sub-miltonics it's just been done so well by Milton you
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  you can't get out from under his shadow as early observed um so I had a problem of form I mean I
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  loved David Jones but you know then again this is very high modernist praise poetry that's kind of
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  kind of um an absolute thicker to footnotes everywhere and four or five languages I didn't
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  want it to be recession like that eventually I realized the answer was staring me in the face
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  that I just I'd written a long meditation and reflection on Coleridge's rhyme of the ancient
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  Mariner in a book called Mariner in which of course I just looked at how he took the common ballad
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  form and turned it into this really delicate instrument he kept its vividness and its
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  directness and its repetitions and its strong rhythm but he would occasionally extend the standards
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  or shorten it or do various things that heighten the effect and um so I just thought
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  I think I'll have a go in the ballad form and make it much more accessible my original
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  plan was to do combination of prose and poetry I thought I'd do it as a travelogue around great
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  Britain with a naprozeneration in the modern day the surface roundabout and then invoke each
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  Arthurian place in poetry and have the place set so so the matter of Britain was like literally
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  the matter the physical matter but then I thought that's two tricks here in postmodern and double
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  matter I just don't I'm really going for a second naivete here I think I'm done with that
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  you know I really think we need wonder and enchantment and that was the other side of of course
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  because you know the word chant is inside the word enchantment and um I think I wanted this
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  I have a little note at the beginning saying read this aloud you know then you'll get it um
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  so anyway uh persuading a publisher now there you put your finger on to me because I mean
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  you're right tenison is the last really long treatment of this as an epic poem in 12 books
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  so we're talking 1850s and 1860s there is a rather extraordinary little book in between in the
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  20th century by John Heath Stubbs called Latorius which is in 12 books in varied
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  magical forms but they're they're little books I mean it's once you know fairly slim volume
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  and unfortunately I mean it's full of brilliant things but unfortunately also like TH white
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  he can't resist being being satirical or ironic and I just wanted no satire or iron iron
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  anywhere in this I wanted it to be cleansed of that we've had more than enough of that um so I
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  this is the first really big retelling so I mean you know they say to publishes you're or anything
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  you're supposed to have what they call a usp a unique selling point so my unique selling point was
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  this hasn't been done for the last 150 years but I had to point out that might also be the unique
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  sinking point in that there might be a reason for that but I was willing to bet that the time might
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  be right for this kind of retelling again the sense of the need for reenchantment lots of things
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  coming together and I thought nobody else literally nobody else is going to do this I'm you know I've
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  spent you know decades learning the art and craft of of metrical writing and and you subrime
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  without torturing the syntax that kind of thing I know I mastered the sonnet which is obviously
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  much shorter form but I thought if I don't do it nobody will and if I don't do it now starting as
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  the thing says on that mid summer morning when I did indeed walk out one morning I I'm not going
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  to finish it because you know I'm in my 60s so so it was now or never and I decided to go for
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  unfortunately rabbit room in America got totally got what I was doing and we're going to do it
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  beautifully I mean I think they said you an advanced reader's copy which is paperback that the
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  real thing is hardback and glorious and then obviously I didn't want to write a British epic
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  without it being published in Britain as well so I got rabbit room and can't be pressed into
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  conversation with each other and then can't be pressed jumped on board as well so I ended up with
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  two publishers you know taking a chance on me as the as I would say yeah that I didn't pick up any
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  other abba references in what's the network of references but in that I was a reference to
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  the rhyme scheme of in memoriam a bba but they go in in the little prelude extract you just read
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  there is actually a sort of reference to a very current theme so and there's a beautiful part of
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  the episode sort of the episodic adventure that Gala had goes on which is about
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  repairing the land renewal refreshing the rivers the kind of stories that you see in the press
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  every day healing of the wasteland yeah so there's a sort of modern applicability but we're
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  yeah in fact I've just been reading I mean I would already start in fact I'd already written the
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  sort of probably the most I try not to be overtly allegorical but there is one episode called
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  Galaad in the night which is very much about ribbons and improvisation and things and I wrote
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  that before I got Robert McFarlane's is a river alive but you know it is pretty topical actually
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  and in fact I sent that to him you know say because we nature the slightly yeah so for people outside
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  the UK Robert McFarlane is well known beautiful prose writer about landscape and travel
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  fantastic one of the great nature writers of our age I think yeah and the reference here is to the
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  ongoing debate in this country about what's happened to our rivers and to the lack of investment
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  in keeping them clean even places that look clean as there are dead rivers because of too much
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  nitrates and things so it's a very hot topic here as it probably is in many other countries
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  so I advise I've sort of mentioned I heard all sorts of echoes as I went through and I sometimes
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  would note them when they were really strong when yet and then I picked up like very strong
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  I noted it in the margins but you know obviously there was some Tolkienian moments and there was
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  some CS Lewis moments and there was Milton there was Kohler Ridge Tennyson and other obviously
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  Mallory and the further back sources so how did you cope with this I don't know the anxiety
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  of influence or whatever it is we supposed to call it well I don't I mean I don't believe in
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  that whole literary critical line about the anxiety of influence which sets the whole of literary
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  life in the endeavor of competition okay yeah one of the great literary critics who does all that
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  name as Templars gave me American critic who wrote the anxiety of influence anyway I've read those
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  books but I don't go along with them I think we are in the realm of creative collaboration I think
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  you know people say are you afraid of the blank piece of paper when you sit down to write and for
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  me as a poet in the full square English tradition there is no blank piece of paper there's a long
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  beautiful conversation which I've been listening to for years and which I now have the
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  temerity to chip into and join occasionally so Elliot brilliantly says in his essay on tradition
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  and the individual talent but that although we have to perceive at one sense writers coming in
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  a chronological order that's mere historicity in fact because we don't necessarily read writers
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  in chronological order they're all contemporary to our minds he says they also have a simultaneous
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  order and everything that anybody writes kind of subtly affects whatever reels writes now Elliot
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  of course takes that to the end to green a thing like the wasteland which but the problem is that
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  you don't get it you know if you don't you don't really get the fullness of it until you know the
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  illusions I do want to write like that but I did want every so often to tip my cap to other writers
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  or to put in an illusion which will be a pleasure to anyone who gets it but no diminishment to
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  anyone who doesn't so my sense must be absolutely clear as a writer I don't think
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  much is is a is a pattern of obfuscation I think it's meant to be lucid of course it doesn't give you
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  everything on a first reading there's always more to find so some of them are you know just
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  light little tips of the hat some of them are more significant I mean the I have a direct
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  quotation for example from the rhyme of the ancient marina when lance lot having had his dream in
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  which he's convicted of sin repent and turns to nasian and I give him exactly the the ancient
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  marina's lion oh shrieve me shrieve me holy man I mean it works in valid form it works as a
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  piece of language of that age but I also wanted to communicate something of the transformation
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  that's on offer from nasian the way and I tell you what's this is brilliant I mean
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  Stephen Cross the illustrator is absolutely brilliant and he's my ideal reader and illustrator
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  really like he not only got that but but in his illustration of that moment just as I'm quoting
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  Coleridge he quotes visually Dore's engraving for the rhyme of the ancient marina of the
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  repentance of the marina so sometimes those are moments of deep connection and I mean sometimes
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  it's more yeah no there's a reason for for example when guinevere is revealing both to to the young
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  and still not you know fully aware gala had first of all revealing that that lance lot is his father
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  but also revealing her her love you know her guilty love for lance lot and asking somehow for some
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  kind of prayer or renewal or pagation to come out of all of this and I have she says something
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  like all I've been has is caught between the dove and the fire you know and I'm obviously
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  thinking of that great passage in in a little getting where you know we only live only
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  suspire redeemed by either fire or fire you know and the fire of all the medieval sources make it clear
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  that that that that gala had as the pentacostal night he's completely associated visually in in
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  other ways and he arrives on the feast of pentacostal you know so so there's something about
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  the coming of the spirit and the redemptive but pegative qualities of the sort of flaming
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  presence of the spirit I wanted I wanted you know you can read that without knowing the elite but if
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  you do know the Elliott it gives you a deeper sense of the the the pagation that is to come literally
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  pagation by fire for lance lot later I think I I really like that idea that you said of in fact
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  that it's not chronological that everything is present to you as a writer because I sometimes find
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  myself when I'm writing something reaching for a moment which is very different from a context
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  where I may have come across it but I suddenly see it's got the same rhythm yeah so I lean into that
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  thinking I really like that and it really works here there's a sort of yeah no as you said a
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  nod of the cap you're not copying you're still so it's just thanking and it's actually saying thank
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  you yeah the double elution so I create a lot I mean obviously I'm telling a lot of the stories as
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  they are but I'm also developing them I'm looking for gaps I'm foregrounding things that the
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  medieval mindset didn't bring it to foreground most obviously I'm giving lots more kind of agency
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  and heroism to dandrain the the grail maiden who you know she is since has her own quest and has
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  her own gifts and I really want to make much more of her but I do a double tip of the cap well
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  when I'm so I tell a much more of her story than is in the sources and really bring her out as a
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  character and I have a bit where she's at the top of a cliff and can't get down but she knows she
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  has to get to the sea and somehow from the sea to someone solemn and ship the grail ship and I
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  have her praying for aid and then I have a thing which is both an elusion to the rhyme of the ancient
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  but also specifically an elusion to Lewis's elusion to the rhyme of the ancient
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  marriage the voyage of the dawn treader when Lucy is at the top master and they're in the
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  going into the dark island and she sees what she first thinks is across and then realize it's an
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  albatross and the albatross flies close to Lucy and it's the only time Lewis ever gives the
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  voice of of Aslan to anything on the line or a lamb the albatross says to Lucy in that moment
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  courage dear heart and I quote that directly when the albatross comes to lift my dandrain
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  and that's partly saying dandrain is my Lucy dandrain is is the person who has natural
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  spiritual insight and gifts and and it's you know Lucy's always the person to see Aslan first
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  and so she's you know I so it's in a way I'm saying thank you yes Lewis but in another way I'm
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  saying to my readers who might know that story when you're thinking of dandrain think of Lucy
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  yeah it's and also it's a wonderful picture just to go back to the illustrations
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  why not actually ride an albatross how cool that really went for that forget dragons albatross is
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  the way to go much softer yeah whatever riding the albatross like a throne you know and
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  I have the albatross singing to her and telling her to sing to the city and you know I really
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  go for it I grateful it's one of my favorite episodes because it's the poem is a poem of
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  episode so if you are going to buy it and read it it's something definitely to relish in like
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  little pearls as well as the narrative thread particularly if you're really going to laugh it's
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  quite hard to sit and read the whole thing in why did you do this but volume is divided into
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  three books but each book is divided into what are called staves partly boring from from
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  Dickens use of that term in a Christmas character but Dickens of course is boring from the
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  ballad tradition of a ballad is divided into staves so one of the things I was thinking about as I
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  was reading it is one of the problems that Gala had gives a writer is that he is known as the perfect
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  night he is pretty much almost weighs very Christlike isn't he and we are also told because of the
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  nature of the sort of prophetic feel of the piece that he's going to achieve the quest but yet we
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  also have to be in the midst of the adventure yeah feeling that he's going to lose and it's going
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  to be some jeopardy what did you do about that or how did you do all the prophetic stuff but I did
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  you know so you kind of know you know you're a proctor boiler this is Gala how do you choose the
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  graph but I do think there is there is I think there is danger I think there is genuine
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  jeopardy because all them well they're all told before they set off by nasian that this will work
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  if they win through if they stay true that they all have trials and temptations to deal with
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  and possibilities just as Christ has the temptations in the wilderness now the specific place where I
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  make that really clear is when they're getting towards the end of the wasteland each of the three
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  nights has a different kind of trial which is particular to their calling so Percival is tried
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  because he's in love with Blanche Flare and part of his story is that he will meet Blanche Flare
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  again in the in the grail castle so his his trial is is the temptation to despair of love to be told
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  that love is nothing but lust to be to be introduced to to kind of corroded forms of
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  of love in the person of this particular kind of ice demon and Gala had trial comes when they go
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  into a kind of it's a bit of a mind's of more of a thing really they get into this dark sort of
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  passage and he suddenly he he turns back and tries to use the key to get them out of them and it
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  doesn't work and he then has complete despair and his despair is about having failed as a leader
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  and he's younger than the other nights have written near and partly says just a lad you know
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  says he's just a lad and so he is this is the great challenge of the growing boy becoming a man
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  as to what it is to be trusted by other people and to be trustworthy so I do introduce a piece
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  of genuine hazard and I have to have boars you know actually help Gala had get himself back together
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  again and tell him no no you misunderstood you must go forward not backwards and you know
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  sort of fair forward voyages so I did a little bit of that the other thing which I thought might
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  bring some interest to Gala had is I'm there is as it were a spiritual kinship between Gala had
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  and Dandran from the get go I've various plots across reference what's happening to them when she
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  has a sort of kind of spiritual ordination to go forward is it is just when he's being knighted
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  and there is a kind of almost you know I don't want to go too far down a child's Williams or
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  even a Yates road down here but there is a kind of spiritual man they're both pure they're both
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  chased they both represent the sort of lost virtues of chastity considered as a positive
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  brother than a mere negation in the way that say Milton and others did mystically but they precisely
• 24:34
  that that setting aside of the whole appetitive part of sex allows for a new and deeper spiritual
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  intimacy which is kind of untrammeled and so there is a kind of spiritual bond between the two of
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  them and I have them to you know together at the end so I wanted that I want to see how I could
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  develop that how I could develop you know a story of that intimate spiritual friendship
• 25:03
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• 25:32
  to sleep number dot com sleep number to a good life sleep yeah I mean the one another defense is
• 25:41
  if you're setting out to write a romance you know that it you know they're going to live
• 25:48
  well sort of happily ever after some sort of couple Elizabeth and Darcy there's going to be
• 25:53
  some resolution at the end and it's the journey to get there that's where you suspend your
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  your sort of awareness of the likely outcome and of course I have the tragedy of the death of
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  Dandrein how partly clear the story yes yes exactly so there are surprises even though you may feel
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  it's all foretold it doesn't I know people do find galahad very sort of it's like painting white
• 26:16
  on white you know you can't see the outlines in the character and I did try to address that but I
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  think it is a that's partly why I think all the narrators they never have galahad on his own
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  except perhaps at the very end the tradition of the three grail nights is very strong
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  yes because he's almost impossibly ideal is more than personal and then of course we bring
• 26:39
  onslaught in as well so that gives us enough variety to be I really like the onslaught I mean he
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  always he has he is that bit of human failing that you kind of need yeah exactly I mean interestingly
• 26:52
  the feedback I've had so far quite a lot of people have told me that one of them things that
• 26:56
  move them most was the kind of crisis and repentance of onslaught and they felt really
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  manised him so you made it clear that the communion is the center center of this grail quest which
• 27:09
  of course it always has been and I but I also loved your echo of something that appears in a Charles
• 27:15
  Williams novel boring heaven which is whether the grail itself isn't really that important
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  the grail matters when people are using it for the purpose it's been set aside exactly so that's
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  what makes it holy not so well I should acknowledge a big debt to Charles Williams here and it
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  turns out in the end it wasn't the Charles Williams Arthurian poetry that I was indebted to I
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  decided to take a different path except for bringing Taliesin in which I do very strongly in the
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  same but here's here's what I owe Charles Williams first of all he was going to write this book the
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  figure of Arthur and he died we completed it so Lewis published Arthurian torso which has what his
• 27:57
  Arthur book was up to that point I think it's a brilliance of every material and it's a huge
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  vindication of the fact that these medieval poets intended this to be the grail and it wasn't just
• 28:09
  a pagan thing with a light Christian glass it's a pagan thing meeting the gospel and being
• 28:14
  transformed and radically so I and he says time and again in that prose piece that the
• 28:24
  Camelot exists for the grail and not the other way around and he specifically critiques Tennyson
• 28:29
  for making the grail into a kind of unfortunate side quest for religious types that ends up just
• 28:34
  draining everybody off from Camelot you know he's much more in forming the kind of late 19th century
• 28:40
  Christian gentleman go and run the empire and he sees the kind of grail as a bit of a distraction
• 28:48
  so Williams resists that with full force and I'm with him 100% there but the second debt is
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  specifically to the novel you mentioned war in heaven which is a fascinating novel because it's
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  set in what was for Williams his own contemporary time so it's more like Elliott showing that the
• 29:07
  old Joyce that the fundamental mythic pattern can reassert itself again and again in in modern
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  circumstances so he has three grail nights they're not called galahad personal and boys but they
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  are the equivalent of it and you know so now the great challenge for me the thing that actually
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  quite apart from the difficulty persuading a publisher to do this the thing that held me in all
• 29:31
  and held me back and daunted me was precisely this question of the achievement of the grail the
• 29:37
  apotheosis at the end when the load veil is lifted from the grail how can I rise to that you know
• 29:43
  to have I got enough spiritual insight to begin to do it now Williams in war in heaven does an
• 29:50
  absolutely brilliant thing because when they have the grail mass as it were his three protagonists
• 29:57
  all give their own account a bit and the anglican guy hears it as book of common prayer and the
• 30:03
  Roman Catholic guy hears it as the Latin mass so they all get something of it but they don't
• 30:09
  they each get something of it but the whole of it is not you know they have to hear each other's
• 30:13
  version of it so I did that they're not really helped me at the moment when I give you what
• 30:19
  Percibel saw what Boris saw and then I finally give you galahad's view which which includes both
• 30:24
  of them that was very so I felt you know Williams I mean I'm very keen on Williams and Williams was
• 30:31
  a sort of more of a benign influence at the ideas and structure level rather than as with almost
• 30:41
  all the other poets I directly quote at that sort of echoed conversational level yeah absolutely
• 30:51
  I think I find the actual reading of a Williams novel a bit stilted but thinking about it afterwards
• 30:57
  it's full of riches for me exactly so exactly so they're flawed novels but he had brilliant ideas
• 31:03
  I don't the executioners was great though yeah they're clunky in places and they're really weird
• 31:09
  you have to be in the mood for weird they are they are really weird that was another way of
• 31:14
  describing him is a very weird inkling um yeah yeah well I mean it wasn't serena higgins I think
• 31:19
  calls him the oddest inkling yeah yeah so you were talking about not taking anything from him in terms
• 31:27
  of form and you touched on this um decision early on that you're going to use the ballad form
• 31:35
  and mentioned how the ancient mariner had sort of helped you navigate when you were setting off
• 31:41
  with a long ballad like this if you look at the sort of per se's relics or something the ballads
• 31:47
  that come out are in the dupty dupty they're the same all the way through with perhaps a little
• 31:50
  refrain that's just how they were done as a song um but yours isn't like that at all so
• 31:57
  was this something you composed whilst walking or did you claim it how did you get that that sort of
• 32:02
  thing well yeah mine didn't it certainly your mind seems so first of all ballads go back a long way
• 32:09
  with me would because my mother constantly resided poetry including ballads and also sometimes
• 32:16
  sang them so my mother would sing you you banks and razor-bony do you can you bloom so fresh and
• 32:22
  say but she would recite ballads I mean she would recite Thomas the Rhymer to me or or really quite
• 32:29
  dark ballads like the twire Corby's all those kind of you know so I thought we're glued to that but the
• 32:35
  the I quote it directly when when we hear about the death of Perseval's father and how the
• 32:41
  the crows the birds took his head to think their nests I don't use a Scotts dialect word that
• 32:47
  so I had that rhythm in me quite early um and I as I say I mean my mother resided the ancient
• 32:53
  mariner to me many times when I was a young boy before I ever and while we were out at sea in fact
• 32:59
  so before I ever I ever read it but I realized you can't do a long poem in you know strictly
• 33:07
  four stress three stress four stress three stress understands a rhyme a b c b even if you have
• 33:16
  the odd internal rhyme so I noticed that Coleridge extends the sands are every so often and adds
• 33:23
  more internal rhymes and chimes and then I saw and and Chastatin uses one of those extended forms
• 33:30
  for ballad of the white horse but then he doesn't vary it so I thought I'm going to vary it but I'm
• 33:36
  also going to let myself go occasionally when I'm when I'm when I'm trying to lift you and I'm
• 33:40
  really trying to enchant you I'm going to do long strings of chimes rather like
• 33:48
  tense and does in the shallot but even more one of the most beautiful I mean I used to ask myself
• 33:53
  when I started reading contemporary poetry in the seventies because I wanted to be a poet and it
• 33:58
  was just flat dull chopped prose I thought what happened you know where did all the good stuff go
• 34:03
  and the answer was of course it went on to records it was being done by Dylan and Leonard Cohen
• 34:08
  and people like that so there's a great bit in about the experience of that kind of chiming rhyme
• 34:16
  in Dylan's Mr. Tambourine man which is very much about the kind of rhyming poet so I didn't
• 34:22
  remember the line triggers if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme to your tambourine
• 34:28
  in time I wouldn't pay it any mind it's just a ragged cloud behind it's just a shadow you're seeing
• 34:35
  that he's chasing and then that enchant you see already at that great moment in the in the song
• 34:41
  to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free silhouetted by the sea circled by the
• 34:47
  circus sounds with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves I mean it so I occasionally
• 34:53
  and particularly when I want to hide in things I I I I I'll expand the four line very often to six
• 35:00
  but I'll sometimes expand it to 10 if I really want to do something distinct and I think
• 35:06
  and then now the times I'll keep it absolutely tight in my in my seven part story which is
• 35:13
  completely original and it's not in the material of gall out in the night I keep the form very
• 35:18
  strictly so I hope there's enough variety would you like to read us one of those sections so we
• 35:25
  can hear it as we've mentioned is is that I've really made much more of a of a figure out of
• 35:35
  Dundrain and she becomes becomes very much a figure in her own right and I also draw a lot out of
• 35:46
  you know one of the things I love about George McDonald is he re draws your attention to the
• 35:50
  wisdom of older women and you know we told at one point in Mallory that one of the hermits that
• 35:57
  Percival meets his is aunt just as we're told that this grail maiden unnamed in Mallory's his
• 36:02
  sister so I thought what's the backstory there you know I imagined you know this poor widow
• 36:09
  has sons gone off which she didn't want him to and then the sister gently telling her look your
• 36:14
  daughter has gifts to and I imagine the two women going off into the woods to learn prayer
• 36:20
  together at the the older woman's hermitess's cell and I that gave me a chance I mean who am I
• 36:26
  as a man to do this but I tried to imagine this passing on of wisdom from one woman to another
• 36:32
  and I what I did was I was partly thinking about what I know about Celtic spirituality but also
• 36:38
  I was actually channeling my inner hildegard of Bingen um hildegard's whole interest in nature and
• 36:45
  her belief that everything is a word from God you know and that you know God is speaking to us through
• 36:50
  I put all that in so I'll read you this bit and you'll hear me really let myself go on the um
• 36:57
  on on the internal rhymes here so I'll just read you a couple of stanzas
• 37:03
  she taught Dandrain the way of prayer the way to steal her soul the way to woo each beast and bird
• 37:11
  and know each creature as a word breathed into being by our Lord for God himself is the true part
• 37:19
  and sings creation through his word and Dandrain learned from all she heard and knew each star each
• 37:26
  stone each bird as parts of one great hole by night she kept pure vigil there and morning came
• 37:35
  too soon for she would see the stars wheel by and hear their music from on high and feel their
• 37:42
  influence and cry in ecstasy when she'd destroy a sphere of silver light draw night then she would
• 37:50
  lift her eyes and spy above the valley's chalice spy the wafer of the moon for those of you who
• 38:00
  listening or watching this on YouTube there's a fantastic illustration which was one of those
• 38:07
  toploi ideas where you can see the valley but you can also see the chalice with the moon as the
• 38:12
  way so the stem of the chalice is actually the reflection of the moon on the water
• 38:17
  and as soon as Stephen Crock sent me that like I've got the right guy here like he said
• 38:23
  that's what I'm doing yeah so yeah that gives you a bit of the sense of incantation kind of
• 38:29
  enchanted incantation that I'm trying to get but also where some of the spirituality is in the
• 38:35
  in the poem so you've gone straight in at the ultimate quest in a sense of the grail quest
• 38:44
  but yeah that's quite a radical decision yeah this isn't the the end of Arthur for you
• 38:53
  what other plans do you have for I mean Aristotle says in his poetics that if you're writing an
• 39:01
  epic you should begin in medias res you know you've done that back so I partly do that but to be
• 39:08
  honest when I because of that what I was so convinced by Williams that the grail is the heart of
• 39:14
  the whole matter of Britain that in a sense come a lot this broadened to existence that the grail
• 39:18
  might be manifest it's not that the grail is manifest because Camelot is you know great you know
• 39:23
  the the grail is the heart of it so when I first you know when I did walk out that meant some
• 39:29
  a mourn I I'm gonna add some health issues I really didn't know I actually thought I may not
• 39:35
  live to complete this and I also thought I'll never persuade a publisher to do the entire thing
• 39:40
  as I envisage it you know in four volumes maybe I'll just have to write the grail as a single
• 39:46
  separate volume and then if that floats and gets a fair wind then they'll let me do the rest in
• 39:53
  fact by the time I'd shown this to rabbit room they just were on it and they said we want to do
• 39:58
  the whole thing and we want you to guarantee the whole thing and we want to say this is four volumes
• 40:03
  so I'm beginning as it were almost two-thirds of the way through so what's going to happen next is
• 40:09
  we're gonna I mean there is precedence for this um both aspects I mean even in the Lewis
• 40:16
  there are nine out here people are going to have the arguments about which order to read the books in
• 40:20
  so this is basically this volume as you have it now is going to have two prequels in a sequel
• 40:29
  so next up is going to be we're going to go back to the coming of Arthur you know in Arthur's
• 40:34
  conception and fostering and we're going to bring him right up in that volume through the
• 40:39
  sword in the stone and next caliber and the founding of the round table marriage are going to be
• 40:43
  the first question to the round table then after that there's going to be a more general
• 40:49
  night to the round table where we can bring in a you know going in the green night and and
• 40:55
  and Tristan and his old and and a whole section on Morgan and the fan all that sort of thing
• 41:01
  and then we'll have the final volume which will be the passing of the Arthur and the kind of tragic
• 41:06
  outworking of the effect of of um launched on whenever is it also and so on so you know tragedy
• 41:13
  but not complete tragedy because the whole thing is you know it's it's a it's a light that's
• 41:17
  been kindle that'll never be forgotten and of course there is the promise of the return of Arthur
• 41:22
  and um so that's going to be the shape of it and the second volume coming of Arthur has already
• 41:30
  been finished I'm doing the last edits and so I'm stuck writing the appendices because I'm
• 41:35
  going to have an appendix on Merlin and one on Taliesin and one on Fairy more generally and I've
• 41:41
  got so much I want to say I'm kind of stuck on the account yeah so I am hoping that by the end
• 41:48
  four volumes each with three books it will be your actual 12 book epic but also I mean people
• 41:56
  I mean the way I'm writing it now when people read the backstory I hope there'll be a certain
• 42:01
  free song as they see what's coming you know when in in volume two in the the next one that's
• 42:07
  coming out I tell the story it's alluded to throughout here but I tell the story of the
• 42:12
  dollarous stroke and the the the the the the wounding of the Fisher King and the the wasting of the
• 42:19
  land as it happens as it were but they will already know how hard it was to get through the wasteland
• 42:26
  for the for the nights and but that the wasteland will be healed in itself and there are marvelous
• 42:33
  stories and I think perhaps what what I find really exciting is that they have been sort of
• 42:40
  dumbed down isn't quite that they've been simplified and stupid yeah I mean I've seen
• 42:45
  tellings which don't mention the dollarous stroke or the wasteland at all which seems to be to
• 42:48
  miss almost all the way to them and everything and there's been quite a few that are sort of flavor of
• 42:54
  I was very fond of the BBC version which took Merlin as their main character
• 43:01
  yeah there's some lovely things in it but it didn't really have any narrative structure to it
• 43:06
  of any sort it was that they're my daughter enjoyed it yeah no we we enjoyed it watching it
• 43:11
  of my kids it was it was great fun and particularly because it thinking of what a young Merlin might
• 43:17
  have been like was and how he how he was struggling in a kingdom which didn't like magic that
• 43:21
  was all great it was like a prequel read it concentrated on that that that element of his life
• 43:27
  well of course one month tells us first about the young Merlin when he's nearly sacrificed to put
• 43:32
  his blood on the foundations of Vortigan's tower I don't remember them doing that in the
• 43:38
  BBC version I got I got a loot that various ways I'm probably in before I'm going to have
• 43:45
  talliesin tell Merlin's backstory along after Merlin has departed from the narrative but we're
• 43:51
  going to you know it's called Merlin's Island I've got to keep bringing Merlin anymore where and
• 43:55
  yes well Merlin it's always such a huge privilege and pleasure to talk to you particularly I love
• 44:03
  hearing you read your own verse I always ask like guests to expand their minds beyond their own
• 44:10
  world that they're working in but take an element into other fancy worlds and I thought it would
• 44:15
  be fun to ask you and I'll have a think about this myself where would be the best place to go
• 44:21
  on a quest for the Grail think you about the Grail as an element that's for all time in all places
• 44:27
  um obviously Indiana Jones has already done it but where would you go for a quest?
• 44:33
  I would take it well if it was going to take into the realm of another great um you know mytho
• 44:38
  parake writer yeah exactly I think I would be with CS Lewis on the on the um and with with
• 44:46
  Reaper cheap and all the others on the voyage of the dawn treader my favorite of the
• 44:50
  nonion chronicles partly because of the ship in fact it although the only mention of Arthur by name
• 44:57
  is in Prince Caspian when when the kids come back and he says it's like Arthur was coming back
• 45:03
  for the nonions and and I say there's some say he will and I say the sum of the better says
• 45:08
  that says Lewis but actually at the deepest level there's all kinds of grail motifs going on
• 45:16
  they're going closer and closer to the utterly holy Reaper cheap is finally on a quest
• 45:23
  you know for Aslan's country which has been prophesied as a you know uh over him as a
• 45:31
  bait that he would make this quest we even he's the kind of the good night I mean and he's
• 45:36
  totally shiv alric and of course Paul in veins gets it all and then when they when they finally
• 45:41
  get to Aslan's table it's Reaper cheaper picks up a chalice obviously it's not the grail but
• 45:46
  you have the image of the good night who will go on the who leave all the companions behind and
• 45:51
  go into the heart of heaven itself and there he is holding a chalice on the table I mean you know um
• 45:57
  so I could imagine another voyage of the dawn treader as it were in which you know I would
• 46:05
  sail you know with Chosen there is Chosen Heroes and we would we would it would the dawn treader
• 46:10
  would become the grail ship and that would suit me absolutely fine yeah so I think one of the
• 46:16
  problems about thinking about the grail quest in other contexts is because it is specifically
• 46:22
  about Christ and Christ sacrifice there's sometimes dropping it into another world oh yeah I
• 46:27
  wouldn't I mean oh yeah it kind of deletes it doesn't it because I was thinking I'll be really
• 46:31
  interesting to sort of have it as a as a plot in Doctor Who or something I don't know exactly
• 46:36
  you know that with the trouble is I mean that's why you know I mean I haven't seen me in
• 46:41
  down in the other Jones thing and nor have I seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail for me it's just
• 46:45
  too sacred I just don't want to go yeah but yeah because it is it is you know the I make you
• 46:53
  know it is the meeting of heaven and earth in and through the body and a lot of Christ so it's like
• 46:57
  massive thing and that sense you can't but you can still the humility of Christ as the human I mean
• 47:04
  one of the in coming in anything form at all let alone you know simply this chalice I mean
• 47:11
  I rather love in war in heaven in with the Williams where you know the Holy Grail turns up just in
• 47:16
  you know in the in the cupboard of a parish church and the best thing there's the art like he
• 47:21
  makes the hero an archdeacon probably the single most unglamorous role you can have in the one
• 47:28
  of things archdeacons visitations eyes for checking the silverware of parish churches and making sure
• 47:33
  they're all there and he takes that totally mundane thing and makes it a grail quest it's fantastic
• 47:40
  you might not dislike the Indiana Jones version because though it has slightly
• 47:46
  multiply the nest elements at the end with the way they did their night who's been guarding this
• 47:51
  thing forever but it was in Petra so that would be worth seeing Petra and of course there's loads of
• 47:58
  goblins all lined up and you have to choose the one it's like that merchant's tale
• 48:07
  yeah yeah yeah don't choose the one diamond in cross did you choose the battered
• 48:14
  don't use the bling yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so I mean you might quite like it it's not too bad
• 48:18
  and and it's sort of reverential about the the sort of religious context of it
• 48:24
  oh yeah so not not a complete disaster from that point of view um but yes so I think I've only come
• 48:30
  up with faces I wouldn't put it um so I have to go and think about that a bit more thank you so much
• 48:36
  Malcolm and um for those of you who now want to rush out and get your copy of Gallahad and the
• 48:41
  grail um if you're in the US look up um rabbit room is that the rabbit room melons out they've got a whole
• 48:49
  site about it and they've got they've done a really cool thing actually they're recognizing that
• 48:54
  book clubs and book groups might want to do this and they've created a whole free sort of um
• 49:01
  set of resources you know including like dramatizing the wasteland section you read that in parts
• 49:07
  and even like coloring sheets for kids that might be hanging around the book group and the
• 49:11
  suggestion is that you know some book groups you read the chapter and then you discuss it
• 49:16
  but in others you read out loud to each other and they think this would really work well for that
• 49:20
  so there in the states and then here in in England it's good old Canterbury press my my usual
• 49:25
  poetry publisher and they've got it uh and in both cases it's a wonderful you know solid hardback
• 49:36
  with as I say these beautiful illustrations I I love booked physically as objects and I
• 49:42
  read beautiful objects and it really is yeah so and that makes it a great present as well so you
• 49:47
  know yeah yeah for yourself or for someone else and so thank you very much Malcolm and we look
• 49:53
  forward if you've got a title for part two the coming of Arthur one yeah we should call the coming
• 49:59
  of Arthur well there you go yeah and that's um that'll be out in November I think so quite soon
• 50:06
  and then the other the final two will be one in 27 and one in 28 um my aim is to finish writing
• 50:14
  it all before I turn 17 and I'm 68 okay so that's that's the that's the goal that's it's just to
• 50:21
  talk to you again um I I mentioned joyd our collaboration together on our lent book yes wardrobe
• 50:29
  rings yes I rather miss those trips to Oxford yes so um we we must um if you didn't catch it this
• 50:36
  lent um everybody and there will be another lent coming around so look out ball doves and rings
• 50:42
  which includes Malcolm myself and Simon Horobin um sort of picking sort of lovely moments from
• 50:50
  Tolkien um or CS Lewis or their influences and connecting them to lend and to the Easter story
• 51:00
  so anyway thank you very much Malcolm and thank you very much for introducing us to Galahad and
• 51:07
  the Grail thanks for listening to myth makers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Center for
• 51:22
  Fantasy visit Oxford Center for Fantasy.org to join in the fun find out about our online courses
• 51:30
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