Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Saying I have an interest in the history and mythos surrounding King Arthur is an understatement beyond my ability to briefly describe!

I was born in 1960. My first memorable encounter with the mythos was the 1967 multiple-Oscar-winning musical "Camelot". As a result, my childhood was spent imagining Arthur as a entirely historical (as it would be many years before I clearly distinguished historical fiction from historic fact) 15th Century king of England. Among my most treasured childhood toys was a 12” articulated plastic doll that could be dressed entirely in snap-together pieces of plastic 15th century plate armor, each with its name printed on the inside, a same-scale plastic horse with small wheels in it hooves, also with a full set of snap-together plastic armor (almost certainly from the 1968 Marx Noble Knight line), and a pair of corded remote control vehicles that looked like horses, on which a pair of lance-clutching knights could be mounted on spring-loaded mechanisms that ejected them when a lance stuck their shield (or when they stuck a rough spot on the floor, or for no apparent reason )

In my teens and later, I read a lot of fiction and history related to Arthur, from the traditional (eg: Mallory and White) to some truly bizarre works. I can’t recall the title and author, but one novel involved a clubbed-footed, psychopathic Arthur manipulated by a scheming charlatan Merlin, thwarted by an Irish mercenary and his Welsh witch companion!

Historically, we know that the Arthur legend is almost certainly derived from an amalgamation of dark-age British and European warlords spanning centuries, and the classic “Death of Arthur/Camelot” cannon (The drawing of Excalibur from a stone or anvil, the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot love triangle, adversaries Mordred and Morgana, etc.) , on which the novel “The Once and Future King”, and loosly derived movies such as “Camelot” and “The Sword in the Stone”, etc. are based, is a modern dramatic invention. The afactuality of the cannon is, IMHO, of almost no consequence to its power or popularity – it is a class of stories so compelling that history must be adapted to fit it, not vice versa.

Attempting to provide a recommended reading list would be a novel-length undertaking, I fear, so I’ll just toss out one that I believe stands out as managing to adhere loosely to the cannon, while being as historically accurate as any fiction author has yet, in my experience, achieved: Steven Baxter’s 2003 novel “Coalescent”. It’s 5th Century authenticity is especially remarkable, as its present-day story is wildly fabulous. As with nearly all of Baxter’s work, I highly recommend this novel – though, for people confining their reading to only the Arthurian, only this one of his novels. It’s one of the few novels touching on Arthur from the exclusive perspective of Guinevere - though a very different character than the traditional one.