Camelot Clearinghouse: Sources for Arthur, Merlin &c. up through AD 1600

[svalbard]

Einion Offeiriad was a Welsh poet from the middle 14th century. His patron was a powerful Welsh noble Rhys ap Gruffydd. In his poetry he compares Rhys to Arthur referring back to a Golden Age.

His poetry is amongst the first in Welsh to use 'llyfr cerddwriaeth' which is(and I am no expert here) incorporating Latin into a strict Welsh metre of poetic composition called the 'cerdd dafod' which literally means 'tongue craft'. A title that may hark back to the days of Aneirin and Taliesin in the 7th century and maybe quite older.

Again I am no expert, do not speak Welsh but truly enjoy the translations.

 

[svalbard]

'A second Arthur, a lord praised in verse,
A second Gwalchmai, faultless, his nobility is without stain,
A Peredur with a steel blade, a rampart guarding riches'

Einion Offeiriad in praise of his patron Sir Rhys. We recognise Arthur, Gwalchmai is Sir Gawain and Peredur is Sir Percival.

 

[Extollager]

Michaelmas 2023

It turns out that Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote not only the famous book about the British Kings, but, it seems, an accomplished Latin poem written between 1148 and 1151. This is the Vita Merlini, which begins with an account of how, beholding a savage battle, Merlin is overcome by devastating grief and flees the company of human beings, living as a wild man with forest animals.

A messenger finds him at last and sooths him with music and arouses him to concern about his wife, friend of the queen. His reason returns to Merlin and he goes to take up his life again. However, in the midst of so many people, Merlin can't endure them and his madness returns. He longs for the forest.

It's evidently the great Caledonian forest, and I wondered if anyone's read this book & thought it was good:

The great wood : the ancient forest of Caledon : Crumley, Jim, 1947- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xvii, 173 p. ; 20 cm

archive.org

 

[svalbard]

I haven't read the poem. However it is based on the Legend of Myrddin Wylt. He also fled to the Great Wood after the m death of his King, Gwenddoleu at the Battle of Arfderydd. Both the king and battle are historical and involved Northern British kingdoms fighting each other.

Myrddin appears in the Life of St Kentigern where he relates the above events and prophesies that he is going to die by the Triple Death and asks for the Sacrament. The following day or days Myrddin is murdered by some Shephard's by means of bludgeoning, strangulation and drowning. A very pagan death. There is a theory that Gwenddoleu was one of the last pagan king's of the North and hence his destruction.

 

[hitmouse]

I think Myrddin Wyllt is discussed in the In Our Time episode on Merlin which I linked to in a parallel thread earlier this week.

 

[Extollager]

1 March 2024 St. David of Menevia

Baring-Gould was a Victorian, but I'm placing the link to his Lives of the British Saints here because he reviews medieval sources. He has quite a few pages on today's saint!

The lives of the British Saints : the Saints of Wales and Cornwall and such Irish Saints as have dedications i n Britain : Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine), 1834-1924 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Vol. 1. A-B -- Vol. 2. C-E -- Vol. 3. F-M -- Vol. N-Z

archive.org

Arthur Machen thinks there may be an important connection between St. David/Dewi and the Grail romances:

Arthur Machen, the Pilgrim

The following article was published in the February 27, 1926 edition of T. P.’s & Cassell’s Weekly. A short commentary follows. March 1: St. David’s Day It rained all the day …

darklybrightpress.com

 

[svalbard]

Great article on Machen.

"Indeed, Machen viewed the wandering Celtic saints as “monks-errant,” the source of the great Arthurian Legends that “leavened the literature of all Europe.”

The above extract is interesting. In early Welsh legend Arthur is portrayed as an enemy of the Church, a plunderer of monasteries. From memory I think there is such an episode in the Life of St Cador.

 

[Extollager]

9 May 2024 The Ascension of Our Lord

For many months I've been thinking about reading Caxton's edition of Malory (1485) again, and today began that second reading at last, once again in my venerable orange-spine Penguin paperbacks, bought almost 46 years ago as used copies at Powell's Books in downtown Portland, Oregon.

Caxton begins:

After that I had accomplished and finished divers histories, as well of contemplation as of other historical and worldly acts of great conquerors and princes, and also certain books of ensamples and doctrine, many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England came and demanded me, many and ofttimes, wherefore that I have not do made and imprinted the noble history of the Sangreal, and of the most renowned Christian king, first and chief of the three best Christian and worthy, King Arthur, which ought most to be remembered among us English men tofore all other Christian kings.
Isn't that a splendid opening! It reminded me of Harpo's map, posted earlier this week, showing the diffusion of printing presses in Euope:

Maps

Even nowadays I’m actually nearer to Reykjavik than I am to Brighton.

www.sffchronicles.com

Caxton is a conscious pioneer printer among the English.

Caxton alludes to the Three Christian Worthies, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, and King Arthur whom he mentions by name. Arthur is our Worthy, of we the English people; so printing Malory's account of him will enhance English national dignity. This history is part of the history of the Holy Grail or Graal, Caxton reminds us, which links up with St. Joseph of Arimathea, who either sent the Graal to England with his followers or brought it there himself.

But Caxton doesn't claim credit for this enterprise for himself, but assures us he was urged to undertake it by many worthy gentlemen. Perhaps they subsidized him during the long period it would take to edit the work from Malory's manuscripts and to set the type and pay for the materials required. If there were anonymous investors involved, why, we owe them a lot!

I intend to post notes here from time to time as I read Malory, at whatever rate that turns out to be. Company on the journey would be welcome, especially if we're all reading Caxton's unabridged edition.

 

[Extollager]

Uther is referred to as being the anointed monarch. This raised the question in my mind about European monarchs today: Charles was anointed, but are any other monarchs (of Sweden or wherever) anointed these days? Does anyone know?

 

[Extollager]

10 May 2024 St. Isidore the Farm-Servant of Torrelaguna, Madrid

The resolution of the question regarding the young Arthur as pretender or as rightful king depends on his unique ability to withdraw the Sword from the Stone. He withdraws it, when no one else can, on festivals of the Church calendar: New Year's Day (the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus), Candlemas, Easter, and Pentecost, the latter three days publicly.

His first withdrawal of the Sword is not an action undertaken by him for his own benefit but for the sake of another, his foster-brother, Kay. He does this, then, as a humble servant. The incident is then a manifestation not only of a marvel -- the Stone that mysteriously appeared, who knows how, on Christmas Day, yields up the Sword -- but of Arthur's nature.

 

[Extollager]

13 May 2024 St. Euthymius the Enlightener

I'm now into the second Book of Malory's Morte as prepared by Caxton, 1485. Anyone with any interest in King Arthur should read these early chapters with their definitive literary romance. One of the strengths of Book I is the sense hovering over the pages of intriguing parallels with the account of David in the Old Testament book(s) of Samuel. (It's one book in Hebrew.) Chrons policy discourages me from taking any risk and elaborating even though this is a matter of literary study rather than religious controversy. I guess send me a private message if you're interested in some examples. These pages are also a major element in Malory's presentation of Merlin. Here one of the things that intrigues is that Malory leaves so much about Merlin mysterious. Why, for example, does Merlin engage in what seem to be pointless disguises? One gets the sense that Merlin is playing a game (if that is the right word) of his own, but if so, what is it? Malory doesn't spell it out.

The last chapter in Book I tells how Arthur arranged for the boy infants born within a certain range of time to be placed in a boat and pushed out to sea. All perish but one. I found myself wondering if Milton might have made use of this, if he had gone ahead and written that proposed poem about "Arthur's wars under the earth." What, what did Milton have in mind? I found a strange speculation come to mind that Arthur had to go under the earth where there were the spirits of the drowned boys, but perhaps they were now grown men down there. This is fascinating to me and I wonder if one couldn't drive himself crazy with surmise about what Milton had in mind. I looked in the index to my multi-volume biography of Milton by David Masson and I didn't even find a reference to King Arthur. Could anyone now alive write this story? It seems to me that such a one would need to be steeped not just in medieval literature but in traditional poetic art (because this a theme for poetry, for its full realization, not prose). C. S. Lewis might have been able to do it. One of the great unwritten literary works, like that poem about Nebuchadnezzar that I think Coleridge should have written.

 

[Extollager]

I ran down the place where I first read of Milton considering an Arthurian poem -- C. S. Lewis's A Preface to Paradise Lost. Lewis writes that Milton was thinking of writing about "Arthur's wars 'beneath the earth'. I do not know whether this means strange adventures experienced by Arthur in some other world between his disappearance in the barge and his predicted return to help the Britons at their need, or adventures in fairyland before he became king, or some even wilder Welsh tale about the caldron of Hades" (p. 7). This is actually bothering me a bit -- I want to know more but I don't think I can find out more. Was it a passing fancy of Milton's or did he write notes, sketch something out, write some lines? But what would it have been?

 

[Extollager]

19 May 2024 Pentecost/Whitsunday
Feast of St. Celestine V

Pope Celestine is "the most pathetic figure in the history of the papacy," according to The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. "Celestine was unfitted for the papal office in every respect except his holiness." He abdicated after five months.

I've come to the end of Book II of the Caxton edition of Le Morte d'Arthur. Merlin sometimes seems to be pursuing ends of his own that are not recognized and understood by people around him or by the reader, anyway. "And Merlin let make there a bed, that there should never man lie therein but he went out of his wit, yet Launcelot le Lake did forbid that bed through his noblesse."

 

[Extollager]

25 May 2024 St. Bede's Day

Celebrate we today the Venerable Bead,

Who wrote a book, the which learned clerks should make haste to read.

It telleth of happenings that the author had not seed

Yet keepeth in our minds and his, that we all might be edifeed.

†​

Of moment greatest, however all the rest goes,

Was the debate concerning tonsure, about which the barber who less knows,

More likely errs. It was by Holy Rome’s Petrine frescoes

That there was shown and shorn the blessed uniformity that today the West shows.

†​

This book telleth of early times in the British nation

That should not be left to the imagination;

Of kings, and bishops and priests in convocation,

And of how the date of Easter may be established by a right calculation.

†​

Of Merlin and of Arthur it telleth naught,

And of chivalry and venery it likewise is not fraught.

Yet of Badon Hill’s battle it some sentences hath got,

Where Aurelius Ambrosius with the invaders fought.

 

[hitmouse]

I was reading Cad Goddeu (The Battle of the Trees), an enjoyable and quite peculiar poem collected in the 14th century Book of Taliesin, in which the magician Gwydion summons an army of trees to battle Arawn, lord of the underworld. Apart from wondering if Tolkein might have got some ideas from this, I was struck by a reference to Arthur towards the end of the poem.

The Battle of the Trees

www.ancienttexts.org

 

[svalbard]

It is a strange poem, as are so many of the Welsh ones. The mention of Arthur is obscure and also common. He crops up a lot, but are they referring to a legendary figure or a historical one. Earlier in the poem we have Guletic mentioned, which is a latinised version of the Brythonic Wledig. Overlord, Supreme Ruler, Ruler of the Land. This could refer to Arthur as well, but as far as I am aware he is not one of the men to have held this title. Arthur is sometimes given the title of amherawdr(emperor).

Always fascinated by the Battle of the Trees.