King Arthur Myths

Bu kitap, kesin olarak kim olduğu çözülememiş olan ve hakkında onlarca teori ve senaryo üretilen Kral Arthur ve Merlin'e dair yeni bakış açıları sunmaya çalışmaktadır. Kral Arthur Efsanesi, Excalibur, Camelot ve Yuvarlak Masa Şövalyeleri gibi klasikleşmiş unsurlarının yanı sıra içinde barındırdığı gizemli öğeleriyle birlikte sıradan bir popüler kültür unsuru olmanın çok ötesindedir.

Kitapta efsanenin klasik anlatılarına yer verilmekle beraber efsaneye dair ortaya atılan hemen hemen bütün tahminler ifade edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Kitapta ayrıca efsanenin bugüne kadar pek dillendirilmeyen siyasi, toplumsal ve dinsel yönleri de anlatılmıştır.

The strong contaminations between Celts and Scythians, which occurred in the past, also attested by the latest archaeological researches and discoveries in Eastern Europe, indicate the possibility of a significant cultural-symbolic influence between Celts and Scythians, which may have been later transferred to Britannia following the Celtic invasion from the eighth century. BC, in multiple migratory waves. To this end, a review and synthesis of the most authoritative articles on the subject was carried out, confirming the hypothesis of the presence of Celts in Eastern Europe. From this the possible influence on the mythological aspects of the Arthurian legend with respect to the symbolism of the Nomads of the Steppes (Scythians), conveyed in British territory by the Celtic population.

Dans mon mémoire de licence, j’analyse le sujet de la conversion dans Le Haut Livre du Graal, roman médiéval anonyme de la charnière des XIIe et XIIIe siècles. Je considère les causes, les conditions et les objectifs de la conversion, ainsi que sa mise en œuvre. Le mémoire comporte deux chapitres. Dans le premier, je présente un large contexte de l’œuvre : historique, philosophique, culturel, mental et littéraire. Dans le deuxième chapitre, je me concentre sur des exemples concrets des conversions : en commençant par les protagonistes et en terminant par des personnages secondaires. Pour interpréter le processus de la conversion, je m’appuie sur la pensée de saint Bernard de Clairvaux. La transformation intérieure concerne non seulement les héros, mais aussi la matière arthurienne et le lecteur. C’est dans un chef-d’œuvre du moyen âge français que s’est opérée la réhabilitation de la chevalerie et la trasformation du vieux thème celtique en une histoire des commencements du christianisme.

In my Bachelor's thesis, I analyse the subject of conversion in Le Haut Livre du Graal: a medieval anonymous novel from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. I consider causes, conditions, purposes and methods of conversion. The characters of the novel, but also the reader and even the arthurian matter by-itself are surrendered to this interior transformation. The thesis consists of two chapters. In the first one, I show a large context of the masterpiece: historical, philosophical cultural, mental and literary. In the second chapter, I concentrate  on the specific examples of conversion. I start with  protagonists and I finish with background characters. To interpret the process of conversion I'm guided by thought of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. To sum up, the Breton tradition  has also become the subject of the process of Christianization. It’s in the masterpiece of the French Middle Ages that occured redeeming of the knighthood and transformation of the old celtic themes in history about the beginnings of the Christianity.

Scholars are familiar with the medieval romances concerning "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table". These tales are usually set in England and Wales, with perhaps a few located in Scotland or France. However one of the tales takes place in Ireland, with some of the action occurring in Breifne, a medieval name for an area roughly co-extensive with the Diocese of Kilmore, centered on the counties of Cavan and Leitrim. Breifne in this story seems to refer to that part located in County Cavan.

The Fall of Arthur is an alliterative poem inaugurated by J.R.R. Tolkien in the 1930s, but never concluded, where human pride moves the ranks of history. Moved by chivalric glory, by amorous tension or by the lust for power, King Arthur, the faithful Lancelot, the shining Gawain, the usurper Mordred and the fairy Guinevere ride the "tides of times" but collide with an ineluctable fate that will inevitably lead to the fall of the kingdom and their ambitions. In five cantos the Professor clashes and meets with the Matter of Britain, emptying the courtly and Christian contents, to direct the ships of the narration to a different landing, "to waft us westward".

Free, romantic, and individualistic, Britain’s self-image in the eighteenth century constructs itself in opposition to the dominant power of a Southern European aesthetics. Offering a fresh understanding of how the British intelligentsia created a ‘Northern’ aesthetics to challenge the European yoke, this book explores the roots of British Romanticism and its newly created past. In highlighting the often-forgotten link between so-thought 'harmless' aesthetics and politics, the invention of a Northern aesthetics is shown to be the rhetorical and eristic premise for direct political change. Literature, the arts, architecture, and gardening, all contributed to the creation of this national, ‘enlightened’, Northern cultural environment. With its emphasis on a home-grown legal tradition, on a heroic Celtic past, and on the imagined democracy of King Arthur and his Roundtable of Knights – interpreted as a prophetic precursor of Constitutional Monarchy – the invention of Northern aesthetics was set against the Southern aesthetics of order, harmony, and beauty. Challenging the European Grand Tour, the new aesthetics championed the Domestic and Picturesque Anti-Grand-Tour, the English garden, Hogarth’s new ‘line of beauty' and his 'shell-aesthetics', Francis Grose's revolutionary ‘aesthetic regionalism', and a, both old and new, more consonant 'Gothic' and rough, aesthetics of sublimity. This last there to defy the constant resurgence of an a-historical metaphysics of beauty. Intellectuals privileged thus the autochthonous tradition of British authors and British empiricism, against continental religion and superstition that sanctioned an authoritarian politics which they disclaim and which the Gothic Novel mocks.
    However, if empiricism, the Enlightenment, the Reformation, and common law were vital to this emerging tradition, so too was the other driving force of Britain’s medieval inheritance, the fantasy world of mythic heroes, magic creatures, and a celebration of what would come to be known as the ‘fairy way of writing', institutionalised by the creation of the first literary university canon of ‘English’ poets and authors (T. Warton).
  The mythological "invention" of an autochthonous past, nevertheless, produced  a sort of  “amnesia of the processes of ethnogenesis and migrations” (P.J. Geary p. 153) which, in the end, is what creates that engrafting of peoples on peoples that produce a new people (182). E. Brontë will, soon later, address exactly this topic and react to it, incisively speaking of the "North wind" that preoccupied her (see ch. 5.4:  Emily Brontë’s 'Wuthering Heights': “This North Wind that Chills Me” pp. 205-24).
First chapter for free download from the Editor's page, at Cambridge Scholars.

Caliber, Calibre, Calibur : the diameter of a round or cylindrical body
      (especially : the internal diameter of a hollow cylinder)
Ex : Middle English , borrowed ''from'' Middle French; from Latin ex “out of, from”
Ex-Calibur : From outside the circular body
ARTH-UR : EARTH-OLD King of the Circular (Round) Body (Table; Disc)

Le forti contaminazioni tra Celti e Sciti, avvenute in passato, attestate anche dalle ultime ricerche e scoperte archeologiche nell’ Est Europeo, indicano la possibilità di una significativa influenza culturale-simbolica tra Celti e Sciti, che può essere stata in un secondo tempo trasferita in Britannia in seguito alla invasione celtica dal VIII sec. A.C., in più ondate migratorie. Al tal fine si è proceduto ad una revisione e ad una sintesi dei più autorevoli articoli sul tema, giungendo ad avvalorare ipotesi della presenza nell’Est europeo dei Celti. Da questo la possibile influenza sugli aspetti mitologici della leggenda arturiana rispetto alla simbologia dei Nomadi delle Steppe (Sciti), veicolata in territorio britannico dalla popolazione celtica.

The Giant King With A Castle On His Head 
Is a novel written for both children and adults which also lifts a tip of the historic veil of the ruins in the Spanish interior.
The complete work has 282 pages and is available on request. (English / Dutch)

, and other such prominent Arthurian scholars. And yet, unlike Romero's other work, Knightriders has received very little critical attention-in fact, most Arthurian scholars, it seems, have never seen the film, and those that have are not always sure what to do with it. By exploring its relationship to other criticism and its place in a long line of Arthurian adaptations and appropriations, we can begin to see how Knightriders focuses on the creation and presentation of an Arthurian ideal that transcends a single king and becomes, as the film's own tagline states, "a state of mind." The study of Arthurian legends has provided one clear conclusion: there is no single, standardized story of Arthur. However, there are key, repeated elements of the Arthurian mythos that appear in most retellings and adaptations, and these key elements are what have allowed the story of Arthur to survive in its myriad guises throughout the ages, proving that Arthur's ideals, moral and physical character, and the fantastic narrative appeal to many different audiences.

This short draft paper is an extract from a forthcoming book, to get feedback on the analysis and translation of this difficult stanza. An attempt has been made to find a solution to the Welsh word ymnewais and a dating and a translation for the poem is given.

Arthur may have been real, or the stories based upon a real person, embellished up through the years, taking on characteristics and features coming from. .. . where? It appears from the collective consciousness tapped into by authors drawing-consciously? unconsciously? – on an archetypal lode deep within the human psyche.

For over a century now scholars have argued about the exact reading of the larger inscription to Lucius Artorius Castus, who has been proposed as the historical King Arthur, which is unclear because of a large break in the stone. In this paper we start with the assumption that the stonecutter made no mistakes and attempt to fill in the missing pieces using our knowledge of Roman history and other inscriptions to propose a new reading.

This chapter explores the way that King Arthur is adapted in very different ways for two limited run comics, Camelot 3000 and Dracula vs. King Arthur. Camelot 3000 (DC Comics, 1983) chronicles Arthur’s destined return and the consequences of such in the year 3000. Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland introduce aliens, reincarnation, a transgender knight, and other modern themes. In contrast, Adam and Christian Beranek’s Dracula vs. King Arthur is set in the Camelot known to those familiar with the tale. While Camelot 3000 introduces modern issues to the legends, Dracula vs. King Arthur (Silent Devil Comics, 2007) is a classic good versus evil story, pitting the Devil’s chosen, Dracula, against God’s champion, King Arthur. Though Arthur’s challenges are different in each of the comics, they are no less trying as they place Arthur and the Round Table in situations that test the classically held notions of Arthurian legend.

Thomas Malory’s ‘The Knight of the Cart’ episode is a crucial narrative in the unravelling of Lancelot’s morality. The truth about his infidelity is revealed in an episode that initiates the final roll-out of disaster when Lancelot’s reputation remains intact but, his morality is tarnished. The episode showcases the fraught relationship between moral obligations and desire when Lancelot’s alter-ego, Meliagaunt, accuses Guenevere of having an affair. Lancelot’s tainted moral is revealed when he defends Guenevere’s honour, a pattern often seen in the text, and kills Sir Meliagaunt. Nevertheless, Lancelot, who is morally undone, remains a formidable knight in protecting Arthur’s honour and prioritising the stability of the kingdom. Lancelot is locked into a system of patronage. He remains worshipful in his loyalty to the church, the king and his kin. However, as a complicated character, Lancelot has complicated loyalties with Arthur’s honour remaining a priority in both sets of loyalties. Lancelot survives ‘The Knight of the Cart’ episode with an undefiled reputation but, with a catastrophically besmirched and corrupted morality. He is forced to sacrifice his own morality in his love for Guenevere and violated the chivalric code in protecting the king and queen’s honour.

When talking about literature and King Arthur, the premise of the Arthurian legend is vague. The myth of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table might have been real or merely fairy tales. However, historical aspects of a questionable kingdom are one thing, and the fictional aspects of King Arthur and his knights in the realm of Camelot is another thing. Therefore, through literary myths, an intertextual analysis of Arthurian legacy will be applied to selected literary texts to display the radial transformation of the attempted meanings of King Arthur's legacy under the influence of history and pseudo-history. Öz Edebiyat ve Kral Arthur hakkında konuşurken, efsanenin öncülü görünen o ki belirsizdir. Kral Arthur efsanesi ve Yuvarlak Masa şövalyeleri gerçek ya da sadece bir masal olabilir. Bununla birlikte, şüpheli bir krallığın tarihi yönleri bir konudur, Kral Arthur'u ve onun şövalyelerini Kamelot Krallığında kurgulamak başka bir konudur. Bu yüzden, tarihin ve sözde tarihin gölgesinde, edebi efsaneler aracılığıyla, seçili edebi metinlere, yine bu eserlerde yüklenmeye çabalanan anlamların dairesel dönüşümünü göstermek adına Arthur efsanesinin metinler arası incelemesi uyarlanacaktır.

I suggest that Urobuchi's version of Arthur Pendragon - Artoria - represents an idea, one that subverts time-specific motifs and masculinized Arthurian narrative to update these concepts and principles for contemporary audiences. Despite representing a feminized gendering of Arthur, this does not detract from the audience's understanding of who Arthur was as a Western mythical figure or his associated, kingly traits. Instead, the idea of "decoding" the gender of Arthur to Artoria suggests that to be kingy, all one must be is chivalrous, kind, selfless, and true in pursuit of their goals.

The Anglo-Saxon world possesses an almost mythical ability to create and believe its own chimeras. From the rosy utopia of the American Dream represented in the “melting pot,” to the peculiar historiography of Britain as the “Good and Civilized Empire,” the Anglophone world often demonstrates its world hegemony by engaging in cultural imperialism. The phenomenon that the controversial American scholar Marian Combs calls “Making the Whole World England,” started centuries before the British and the American Empires jumped to center of the world stage, for one of the first literary utopian myths crossing national borders is the legend of the “medieval” King Arthur, that so enthralled the rest of Europe that by the year 1100 Italian citizens were naming their offspring “Arturo.” In spite of the dearth of historical evidence regarding the authenticity of the myth, the fabled King has “created” an imaginary world in which he becomes the king of his people and of the whole world. This essay analyses Arthur as a British national hero, tracing his path from early Welsh tales to the re-branding of the legend in the late nineteenth century, while it also contrasts this myth of glory, military might, utopian triumph and world domination with Spain’s national hero, Don Quijote de La Mancha, a dystopian myth that can be traced back to Arthur’s influence.

Martin L. West dates the Nostoi and the other stories of this Epic cycle to around the 6th century, during what he proposes to be the same time as the writing of the Odyssey. This makes the story of Medea and her magical life-restoring cauldron an exceptionally old story in the Greek mythological corpus, and much older than the story of King Arthur’s holy grail, which dates to the Medieval era. Similarly, the horn of Amalthea is also much older than that of the Holy Grail, but also shares striking similarities: these three stories all contain themes of restoring life
albeit in very different manners. Medea’s cauldron has the ability to restore youth, Amalthea’s horn provides endless food, and King Arthur’s graal contains the body of Christ in the form of the Eucharist. All three of these stories contain the formulaic idea of a magical dish that provides life. In this paper I examine the similarities and differences between Medea’s cauldron in the Nostoi, the Horn of Amalthea in Ovid’s Fasti, and the Celtic-French Holy Grail story of King Arthur’s and I propose that these three legends are related through a much larger shared Proto-Indo-European formula that is reconstructable as a cup or cauldron word and a description of the magical vessel as “life-giving”. Utilizing Dr. Watkins’ methodology in How to Kill a Dragon, I endeavor to demonstrate that
this formula can be clearly reconstructed for these three stories and give a starting point for expanding this poetic formula for other Indo-European cultures.


Watkins, Calvert. How to Kill a Dragon : Aspects of Indo-European Poetics. Oxford University Press, 2001.
West, M. L. “Nostoi.” In The Epic Cycle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.