Anhur’s father was Uther Pendragon (‘Chief Dragon’), King of all Britain. Uther was at odds with Gorlois, the rebellious Duke of Cornwall, and killed him in battle near Tintagel, on the north Cornish coast. Uther ordered his prophet and magician. Merlin (Myrddin), to make him look like Gorlois for one night, so that he could sleep with Gorlois’s widow, Ygraine (Ygern). Uther appeared in Ygraine’s bedchamber in the guise of her husband, whom she believed to be still alive, and slept with hei; siring Arthur. Gorlois and Ygraine already had one child, a girl called Morgan, now Arthur’s half-sister, who, because of her skill as a sorceress, later became known as Morgan Le Fay.
When the child Arthur was born, Merlin took him and gave him secretly into the care of Sir Fetor, a knight, who raised him alongside his own son, Kay (Cei). In childhood, there was great jealousy between the two foster brothers, but in later years Kay became the Royal Seneschal and one of Arthur’s most loyal knights.
Uther Pendragon died while Arthur was still a young child, and the kingdom fell into chaos and disarray. The Archbishop of Canterbury, on the advice of Merlin, summoned all the nobles and petty kings of the land to
London on Christmas morning, where they discovered a beautiful sword stuck firmly in an anvil on a marble stone. On the anvil was inscribed in letters of gold: Whoso pulleth oute this swerd of this stone and antryld is rightwys kynge borne of all Brytaygne. Kay had forgotten his sword for a tournament, and sent Arthur to fetch it. Arthur, not understanding what he
A young Arthur, accompanied by Merlin, is met by the Lady of the Lake, who, according to some versions of the legend, gives Arthur his magical sword Excalibur. Print by Aubrey Beardsley.
Was doing, removed the Sword in the Stone, a feat which no other was able to repeat. (This sword is named as Caledfwlch or Excalibur in some versions of the legend; in others, it is the Lady of the Lake who gives Excalibur to Arthur.) Merlin declared Arthur rightful King of Britain, to which the other nobles and kings assented.
In early manhood, Arthur committed incest and adultery with his aunt. Queen Margawse (Morgeuse), begetting his bastard son Modred (Mordred, Medraut). He later married the daughter of King Lodegreaunce, Guinevere (Gwenhwyfar, meaning ‘White Goddess’), but the marriage was childless. Guinevere brought with her, as a wedding gift, a Round Table, which came to symbolize the equality of the knights who served Arthur and the British cause. Arthur established his court at Camelot. After Arthur’s marriage to Guinevere, Merlin fell in love with a sorceress, Nyneve (Nimue, Vyvyan), who imprisoned him for ever in an enchanted sea cave below the headland of Tintagel in Cornwall.
Queen Margawse married King Lot of Orkney, leader of the rebel kings of the north and west. Four of their children became Knights of the Round Table: Gawain (Gawan, Gwalchmei Gwyn), Aggravayne, Gaheris and Gareth. King Lot was killed in battle by King Pellinore, Arthur’s ally and hunter of the Questing Beast, a creature with the head of a serpent, the body of a leopard, the buttocks of a lion, and the feet of a hart. Gawain avenged his father’s death by killing King Pellinore. The pursuit of the Questing Beast was then taken up by Palomides the Saracen. Eventually, Gawain became Arthur’s favourite nephew, while his younger brother Gareth became a favourite of Sir Lancelot du Lac.
Lancelot was the son of King Ban of Benwick in France. He was appointed Guinevere’s champion by Arthur, but became her lover. Under an enchantment, he slept with Elaine, daughter of King Pelles, and sired Galahad. Guinevere’s jealousy drove him to madness for two years.
Arthur set his knights many tasks to perform and feats to achieve. One was the pursuit and capture of Twrch Trwyth, a legendary boar of great courage and ferocity, which kept a magical comb and pair of scissors in its bristling mane. Twrch Trwyth had once been a king, but he had been turned into a boar by sorcery.
After many such battles and challenges, Arthur established a greater cause for the Knights of the Round Table to pursue: it was to seek and find the Sangraal, or Holy Grail, the chalice in which Joseph of Arimathea had collected drops of blood from Jesus Christ at the Crucifixion. A vision of the Grail appeared before all the knights. The quest was pursued by Galahad and Bors, but principally by Perceval (Percival, Parsifal), who was protected by his virginity from temptations by the Devil.
Perceval had been raised by his mother, Acheflour, who was Arthur’s sister, in a deep forest near Snowdon, in Wales. She deliberately kept him innocent of all knowledge of the world, including even his own name. He was merely called Fair Son. His father, Bliocadrans, had been crippled by a wound in the thighs during a tournament, and died while Perceval was a child. Acheflour deliberately raised Perceval in the forest so that he would avoid the same fate, but one day he met some of Arthur’s knights. Their splendour was so great that he thought they must be angels. When they explained who they were, Perceval determined to leave the forest and join Arthur at his court. During his quest for knowledge about the world, Perceval was granted a vision of the lance which had pierced Christ’s side at the Crucifixion, and of the Grail, but he was too innocent to ask what the visions signified. Later, he met a girl (his cousin, although he did not know it) cradling the headless corpse of a knight, her lover. She had spent the night at the castle of the rich Fisher King, who had been wounded in battle by a javelin thrust through both thighs, and who was so crippled and in such constant pain that fishing was his only recreation and occupation. (In some versions of the legend, the first Fisher King was Alains le Gros, who performed a miracle like Christ’s feeding of the five thousand, and was thereafter called the Rich Fisher. All keepers of the Grail were thereafter given the title Fisher King. The most famous of the Fisher Kings, and the one whom Perceval meets, is called Amfortas.)
In the end, the only knight to see the full vision of the Grail was Galahad, who took the Siege Perelous (Seat of Danger) at the Round Table, the only knight able to do so and still live. Bors, son of King Bors of Gaul, survived both Perceval and Galahad, and ordered their burial in the Spiritual Palace at Sarras.
Arthur defeated many enemies of the realm in a series of battles. One defeated enemy was King Angwyshaunce of Ireland, who had taken King Mark of Cornwall into bondage. Mark was released by Tristram of Lyonnesse (Tristan, Drustanus). To cement the treaty, a marriage was arranged between King Mark and King Angwyshaunce’s daughter, Iseult the Fair (Ysolt Wynn, Ysolde, Isolde), but Tristram and Iseult accidentally drank a love potion together and became inseparably devoted to each other. After their deaths while being pursued by Mark, they were buried in adjoining graves, from which two rose trees grew and entwined themselves into a single tree.
Lancelot’s passion for Guinevere also intensified, until the insult to Arthur could no longer be borne. Modred, Arthur’s bastard son by Queen Margawse, took advantage of the strife between Arthur and Lancelot and tried to seize the throne. He exposed Guinevere’s adultery and publicly denounced her and Lancelot. During the open fighting which broke up the Round Table, Lancelot killed forty knights, including Gaheris and Gareth. Arthur exiled him to France, where, breaking out of the siege imposed by the knights loyal to Arthur, he also mortally wounded Gawain.
While Arthur was in France, Modred attempted to marry Guinevere, who fled to seek refuge in a nunnery. Arthur returned to Britain, and engaged in battle with Modred. Arthur killed Modred, but simultaneously received from his son a single, mortal blow. Arthur ordered his faithful knight Bedivere (Bedwyr) to cast his sword Excalibur (Caledfwlch, ‘Hard Handle’) back into the lake from which the mysterious Lady of the Lake had appeared to give it to him. Bedivere finally threw the sword into the lake, where it was caught by a hand which appeared from beneath the waters.
Lancelot returned from France to find Arthur dead and Guinevere in a nunnery. He became a monk, and died of a broken heart shortly after Guinevere. He was buried at his own castle. Joyous Garde.
Bedivere casts away Excalibur, which is caught by the Lady of the Lake. Print by Aubrey Beardsley.
As Arthur lay dying, four queens appeared in a mysterious boat. They carried him aboard, and sailed westwards to Avalon (Avallen, Avallon, ‘Apple Orchard’) in the Isles of the Blessed which lay beyond the western horizon. Arthur was commemorated as Arturius quondam rex futurusque (‘Arthur; once and future king’). Now, in folklore, Arthur and his knights lie sleeping beneath Britain’s hills and mountains, and will rise at a trumpet call in the hour of Britain’s greatest need.
World History
