THE KNIGHTS' MISSION, THE QUEST FOR THE HOLY GRAIL

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the quest for the Holy Grail, one of the most incredible and mystery legends. 

The Holy Grail is a vessel that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Different traditions describe it as a cup, dish or stone with miraculous powers that provide happiness, eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often in the custody of the Fisher King. The term holy grail is often used to denote an elusive object or goal that is sought after for its great significance.

A grail, wondrous but not explicitly holy, first appears in Perceval, le Conte du Graal, an unfinished romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Here, Chrétien's story attracted many continuators, translators and interpreters in the later 12th and early 13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who perceived the Grail as a stone. 

In the late 12th century, Robert de Boron wrote in Joseph d'Arimathie that the Grail was Jesus's vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ's blood at the Crucifixion. Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice, the Last Supper cup, a theme continued in works such as the Vulgate Cycle, the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Provençal grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal, or other various types of vessels in different Occitan dialects. The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via an earlier form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus, which was, in turn, borrowed from Greek krate, κρατήρ, a large wine-mixing vessel.

Alternative suggestions include a derivative of cratis, a name for a type of woven basket that came to refer to a dish, or a derivative of Latin gradus meaning by degree, by stages, applied to a dish brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal".

In the 15th century, English writer John Hardyng invented a fanciful new etymology for Old French san-graal or san-gréal, meaning Holy Grail, by parsing it as sang real, meaning royal blood. This etymology was used by some later British writers such as Thomas Malory, and became prominent in the conspiracy theory developed in the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, in which sang real refers to the Jesus bloodline.

The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal, The Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes, who claims he was working from a source book given to him by his patron, Count Philip of Flanders. In this incomplete poem, dated sometime between 1180 and 1191, the object has not yet acquired the implications of holiness it would have in later works.

While dining in the magical abode of the Fisher King, Perceval witnesses a wondrous procession in which youths carry magnificent objects from one chamber to another, passing before him at each course of the meal. First comes a young man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a beautiful young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal, or grail.

Chrétien refers to this object not as The Grail but as a grail, un graal, showing the word was used, in its earliest literary context, as a common noun. For Chrétien a grail was a wide, somewhat deep dish or bowl, interesting because it contained not a pike, salmon, or lamprey, as the audience may have expected for such a container, but a single Mass wafer which provided sustenance for the Fisher King's crippled father.  

Perceval, who had been warned against talking too much, remains silent through all of this and wakes up the next morning alone. He later learns that if he had asked the appropriate questions about what he saw, he would have healed his maimed host, much to his honour. The story of the Wounded King's mystical fasting is not unique; several saints were said to have lived without food besides communion, for instance Saint Catherine of Genoa. This may imply that Chrétien intended the Mass wafer to be the significant part of the ritual, and the Grail to be a mere prop.

In the modern era, a number of places have become associated with the Holy Grail. One of the most prominent is Glastonbury in Somerset, England. Glastonbury was associated with King Arthur and his resting place of Avalon by the 12th century. 

In the 13th century, a legend arose that Joseph of Arimathea was the founder of Glastonbury Abbey. Early accounts of Joseph at Glastonbury focus on his role as the evangelist of Britain rather than as the custodian of the Holy Grail, but from the 15th century, the Grail became a more prominent part of the legends surrounding Glastonbury. Interest in Glastonbury resurged in the late 19th century along, inspired by renewed interest in the Arthurian legend and contemporary spiritual movements centered on ancient sacred sites. 

Montségur, a medieval castle in Occitania, has become identified as the Grail castle in modern Grail lore. In 1906, French writer Joséphin Péladan identified Montségur as Munsalväsche or Montsalvat, the Grail castle in Wolfram's Parzival. 

Montségur was a fortress of the Cathars, a heretical Christian community in Occitania from the 11th-14th centuries. This identification has inspired a wider legend asserting that the Cathars possessed the Holy Grail. Similarly, the 14th-century Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, Scotland, became attached to the Grail legend in the 20th century. This idea began in the 1950s, but took new prominence in the 1980s when a succession of conspiracy books identified it as a secret hiding place of the Grail.

 

More information: History Cooperative 

Just because you can't understand something, 

it doesn't mean it's wrong!

King Arthur

THE SIEGE PERILOUS, A RESERVED SEAT FOR A HOLY CAUSE

Today, The Grandma has been reading an interesting chapter about the Siege Perilous, a special seat which only can be occupied by a special knight who had accomplished a special and sacred mission. 

In Arthurian legend, the Siege Perilous, also known as The Perilous Seat, is a vacant seat at the Round Table reserved by Merlin for the knight who would one day be successful in the quest for the Holy Grail. The English word siege originally meant seat or throne, coming from the Old French sege, modern French siège; the modern military sense of a prolonged assault comes from the conception of an army sitting down before a fortress.

In Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, in an account taken from the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal, the newly knighted Sir Galahad takes the seat in Camelot on Whitsunday, 454 years after the death of Jesus. 

The Siege Perilous is so strictly reserved that it is fatal to anyone else who sits in it. Another version of this story is related in Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King.

Originally, this motif about the seat and the grail belonged to Perceval, but the Lancelot-Grail Cycle transferred it to the new Cistercian-based hero Galahad. It appears, for example, in the earlier De Boron Didot Perceval, where Perceval occupies the seat at Arthur's court at Carduel.

According to many scholars, the motif of the dangerous seat can be further traced to Welsh, Cornish, and Breton mythology, where the bulk of the Arthurian legend was derived from. According to this theory, the Siege Perilous was a half-remembered version of a Celtic kingship ritual that has parallels in the Irish Lia Fáil.

The Siege, from the French siège, seat, Perilous is the seat at Arthur's Round Table in which only the chosen knight can sit. In the prose rendition of Robert de Boron's Merlin, the empty seat is reminiscent of the seat that Judas vacated.

There is also an empty seat at Joseph of Arimathea's Grail Table which destroys anyone unworthy of sitting there. In his Continuation to Chrétien's Perceval, Gerbert de Montreuil says that it was sent to Arthur by the fairy of Roche Menor.

Six knights tried to sit in it and were swallowed by the earth before Perceval sits it in and completes the adventure. When he does, the six are restored to Arthur's court.

In the thirteenth-century Vulgate Cycle, Merlin instructs Uther to build a table in commemoration of the Grail Table; at the table, there is an empty seat reserved for the Grail knight. 

In the Queste del Saint Graal, the Siege Perilous is said to parallel the seat of Christ at the Last Supper and the seat occupied by Josephus at the Grail Table. Two brothers, jealous of Josephus, objected to his having a special place, and one of them sat in it, only to be destroyed; so it came to be called the Feared Seat. 

Galahad is the knight for whom the Siege Perilous at Arthur's table is destined. In the Lancelot, a knight named Brumand, trying to perform an act that Lancelot never dared to do, sits in it and is burned to a crisp. Malory says that Merlin made the Siege Perilous for the greatest Grail knight. When Galahad arrives at Camelot, his name appears on the seat destined for him.

More information: King Arthur's Knights

 

 

No man could sit but he should lose himself...

Merlin

CHAPEL PERILOUS, LITERATURE BECOMES PSYCHOLOGY

Today, The Grandma is reading about the Chapel Perilous, an element very important in the Arthurian Cycle and in Psychology.

The term chapel perilous first appeared in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) as the setting for an adventure in which sorceress Hellawes unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Sir Lancelot. T. S. Eliot used it symbolically in The Waste Land (1922).

Students of the Grail romances will remember that in many of the versions the hero, sometimes it is a heroine, meets with a strange and terrifying adventure in a mysterious Chapel, an adventure which, we are given to understand, is fraught with extreme peril to life. The details vary: sometimes there is a Dead Body laid on the altar; sometimes a Black Hand extinguishes the tapers; there are strange and threatening voices, and the general impression is that this is an adventure in which supernatural, and evil, forces are engaged.

Such an adventure befalls Gawain on his way to the Grail Castle. He is overtaken by a terrible storm, and coming to a Chapel, standing at a crossways in the middle of a forest, enters for shelter.

The altar is bare, with no cloth, or covering, nothing is thereon but a great golden candlestick with a tall taper burning within it.

Behind the altar is a window, and as Gawain looks a Hand, black and hideous, comes through the window, and extinguishes the taper, while a voice makes lamentation loud and dire, beneath which the very building rocks. Gawain's horse shies for terror, and the knight, making the sign of the Cross, rides out of the Chapel, to find the storm abated, and the great wind fallen. Thereafter the night was calm and clear.

In the Perceval section of Wauchier and Manessier we find the same adventure in a dislocated form.

The earliest mention of a Perilous Cemetery, as distinct from a Chapel, appears to be in the Chastel Orguellous section of the Perceval, a section probably derived from a very early stratum of Arthurian romantic tradition.

The metaphorical Chapel Perilous traces back to the story, Le Morte d’Arthur, written by Sir Thomas Malory and published in 1485. In the dimly-lit chape, named Chapel Perilous by Malory, Sir Lancelot du Lake takes the liberty of purloining a sword and a scrap of shroud-silk from a dead knight, Sir Gilbert the Bastard, before encountering a beautiful sorceress, Hellawes, Lady of the Castle Nigramous. Refusing to kiss her, Lancelot avoids her seductive efforts and moves onward to the disastrous climax of his love for Queen Guinevere. Having loved Lancelot, Hellawes dies, broken-hearted. But had he given the sword to Hellawes, he would never have seen Guinevere again.

Chapel perilous is also a term referring to a psychological state in which an individual cannot be certain whether they have been aided or hindered by some force outside the realm of the natural world, or whether what appeared to be supernatural interference was a product of their own imagination.

It was used by the late writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) in his book Cosmic Trigger (1977). According to Wilson, being in this state leads the subject to become either paranoid or an agnostic. In his opinion there is no third way.

Did Lancelot choose wisely? Was the fair damsel and sorceress, who loved him, truly evil? Was he a loyal Knight of the Round Table or a betrayer of his friend and King? Was he a bastard or a fool, or a bastard, hero, and fool, or something else, a lost soul? Did Guinevere invite Lancelot into coital shelter from the storms of life or a carnal version of Chapel Perilous? The sword and silk are obvious sexual symbols, and precursors but, all decoding aside, the questions cannot be answered in simple terms of yea and nay.

Chapel Perilous denotes a state of consciousness wherein a person seems to encounter a supernatural magnetic force, the sense of which defies classification in terms of good and evil. In any case, ordinary faith in dogma is made impossible by inescapable recognition of the infinite kaleidoscope-like processing of multidimensional Omniverse. Neither running nor hiding is an option.

More information: Heritage History

Knights! The gift of freedom is yours by right. 

But the home we seek resides not in some distant land. 

It's in us! And in our actions on this day! 

If this be our destiny, then so be it. 

But let history remember that as free men, 

we chose to make it so.
 

King Arthur

MYRDDIN, THE MOST FAMOUS WIZARD IN LITERATURE

The Grandma is reading about Merlin, the most famous wizard in the universal literature and one of the most important characters in the Arthurian Cycle.

Merlin, in Welsh Myrddin, is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in Arthurian legend and medieval Welsh poetry.

 

The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures.

Geoffrey combined existing stories of Myrddin Wyllt, Merlinus Caledonensis, a North Brythonic prophet and madman with no connection to King Arthur, with tales of the Romano-British war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus to form the composite figure he called Merlin Ambrosius in Welsh, Myrddin Emrys.

Geoffrey's rendering of the character was immediately popular, especially in Wales. Later writers expanded the account to produce a fuller image of the wizard.

Merlin's traditional biography casts him as a cambion: born of a mortal woman, sired by an incubus, the non-human from whom he inherits his supernatural powers and abilities. Merlin matures to an ascendant sagehood and engineers the birth of Arthur through magic and intrigue. Later authors have Merlin serve as the king's advisor and mentor to the knights until he is bewitched and imprisoned by the Lady of the Lake. He is popularly said to be buried in the magical forest of Brocéliande.

More information: Britannica

The name Merlin is derived from the Welsh Myrddin, the name of the bard Myrddin Wyllt, one of the chief sources for the later legendary figure. Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinised the name to Merlinus in his works.
 

Clas Myrddin or Merlin's Enclosure is an early name for Great Britain stated in the Third Series of Welsh Triads. It's suggested that the Welsh name Myrddin was derived from the toponym Caerfyrddin, the Welsh name for the town known in English as Carmarthen.

This contrasts with the popular folk etymology that the town was named for the bard. The name Carmarthen is derived from the town's previous Roman name Moridunum, in turn derived from Celtic Brittonic moridunon, sea fortress.

Geoffrey's composite Merlin is based primarily on Myrddin Wyllt, also called Merlinus Caledonensis, and Aurelius Ambrosius, a mostly fictionalised version of the historical war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus. The former had nothing to do with King Arthur: in British poetry he was a bard driven mad after witnessing the horrors of war, who fled civilization to become a wild man of the wood in the 6th century.

Geoffrey had this individual in mind when he wrote his earliest surviving work, the Prophetiae Merlini, Prophecies of Merlin, which he claimed were the actual words of the legendary madman.

More information: Ancient Origins

Geoffrey's Prophetiae do not reveal much about Merlin's background. He included the prophet in his next work Historia Regum Britanniae, supplementing the characterisation by attributing to him stories about Aurelius Ambrosius, taken from Nennius' Historia Brittonum. According to Nennius, Ambrosius was discovered when the British king Vortigern was trying to erect a tower.

The tower always collapsed before completion, and his wise men told him that the only solution was to sprinkle the foundation with the blood of a child born without a father. Ambrosius was rumoured to be such a child but, when brought before the king, he revealed the real reason for the tower's collapse: below the foundation was a lake containing two dragons who fought a battle representing the struggle between the invading Saxons and the native Celtic Britons, which suggested that the tower would never stand under the leadership of Vortigern, but only under that of Ambrosius.

This is why Ambrosius is given the kingdom or the tower: he tells Vortigern to go elsewhere and says I will stay here. The tower is metaphorically the kingdom, which is the notional ability to beat the Saxons.

Geoffrey retells this story in Historia Regum Britanniæ with some embellishments, and gives the fatherless child the name of the prophetic bard Merlin. He keeps this new figure separate from Aurelius Ambrosius and, with regard to his changing of the original Nennian character, he states that Ambrosius was also called Merlin, that is, Ambrosius Merlinus. He goes on to add new episodes that tie Merlin into the story of King Arthur and his predecessors, such as bringing the stones for Stonehenge from the Preseli Hills in south-west Wales and Ireland.

Geoffrey's account of Merlin Ambrosius' early life in the Historia Regum Britanniae is based on the story of Ambrosius in the Historia Brittonum. He adds his own embellishments to the tale, which he sets in Carmarthen, Wales in Welsh Caerfyrddin. While Nennius' Ambrosius eventually reveals himself to be the son of a Roman consul, Geoffrey's Merlin is begotten on a king's daughter by an incubus demon. 

 More information: ThoughtCo

The name of Merlin's mother is not usually stated, but is given as Adhan in the oldest version of the Prose Brut. The story of Vortigern's tower is essentially the same; the underground dragons, one white and one red, represent the Saxons and the Britons, and their final battle is a portent of things to come. At this point Geoffrey inserts a long section of Merlin's prophecies, taken from his earlier Prophetiae Merlini. 

He tells only two further tales of the character. In the first, Merlin creates Stonehenge as a burial place for Aurelius Ambrosius. In the second, Merlin's magic enables the British king Uther Pendragon to enter into Tintagel in disguise and father his son Arthur with his enemy's wife, Igraine. These episodes appear in many later adaptations of Geoffrey's account. As Lewis Thorpe notes, Merlin disappears from the narrative after this; he does not tutor and advise Arthur as in later versions.

Geoffrey dealt with Merlin again in his third work Vita Merlini. He based the Vita on stories of the original 6th-century Myrddin, set long after his time frame for the life of Merlin Ambrosius. He tries to assert that the characters are the same with references to King Arthur and his death, as told in the Historia Regum Britanniae. In this story, Merlin survives Arthur.

Several decades later, the poet Robert de Boron retold this material in his poem Merlin. Only a few lines of the poem have survived, but a prose retelling became popular and was later incorporated into chivalric romances. In Robert's account, as in Geoffrey's Historia, Merlin is begotten by a demon on a virgin as an intended Antichrist. 

This plot is thwarted when the expectant mother informs her confessor Blase or Blaise of her predicament; they immediately baptize the boy at birth, thus freeing him from the power of Satan and his intended destiny. The demonic legacy invests Merlin with a preternatural knowledge of the past and present, which is supplemented by God, who gives the boy a prophetic knowledge of the future.  

More information: The Guardian

 

 

Camelot isn't built on magic, 

but on people, on their faith.

Merlin

QUEEN GUINEVERE, THE ADULTERY IN THE MIDDLE AGE

Today, The Grandma wants to talk about Guinevere, one of the main characters of the Arthurian saga.

Guinevere, often written as Guenevere or Gwenevere, is the wife of King Arthur in Arthurian legend. She first appears as Guanhumara in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, a pseudo-historical chronicle of British history written circa 1136.

In medieval romances, one of the most prominent story arcs is Queen Guinevere's tragic love affair with her husband's chief knight, Lancelot. This story first appeared in Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart and became a motif in Arthurian literature, starting with the Lancelot-Grail of the early 13th century and carrying through the Post-Vulgate Cycle and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

Guinevere and Lancelot's betrayal of Arthur preceded his eventual defeat at the Battle of Camlann by Mordred.

The original Welsh form of the name Gwenhwyfar or Gwenhwyvar, which seems to be cognate with the Irish name Findabair, can be translated as The White Enchantress or The White Fay/Ghost, from Proto-Celtic.

Geoffrey of Monmouth rendered her name as Guanhumara in Latin, though there are many spelling variations found in the various manuscripts of his Historia Regum Britanniae. The name is given as Guennuuar in Caradoc's Vita Gildae, while Gerald of Wales refers to her as Wenneuereia. In the 15th-century Middle Cornish play Bewnans Ke, she was called Gwynnever. A cognate name in Modern English is Jennifer, from Cornish.

 

More information: King Arthur Knights 

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, she is described as one of the great beauties of Britain, descended from a noble Roman family and educated under Cador, Duke of Cornwall.

In one of the Welsh Triads, there are three Gwenhwyfars married to King Arthur. The first is the daughter of Cywryd of Gwent, the second of Gwythyr ap Greidawl, and the third of (G)ogrfan Gawr the Giant. In a variant of another Welsh Triad, the daughter of Gogfran Gawr is mentioned. Two other Triads mention Gwenhwyfar's contention with her sister Gwenhwyfach, which was believed to be the cause of the Battle of Camlann. In the mid-late 12th-century Welsh folktale Culhwch and Olwen, she is mentioned alongside Gwenhwyfach.

Guinevere is childless in most stories, two exceptions being Perlesvaus and the Alliterative Morte Arthure. In the latter text, Guinevere willingly becomes Mordred's consort and bears him two sons, though this is implied rather than stated in the text. There were mentions of Arthur's sons in the Welsh Triads, though their exact parentage is not clear.

Other family relations are equally obscure. A half-sister and a brother play the antagonistic roles in the Lancelot–Grail and the German romance Diu Crône respectively, but neither character is mentioned elsewhere.

 

More information: Arthurian Legend

Welsh tradition remembers the queen's sister Gwenhyvach and records the enmity between them. While later literature almost always named Leodegrance as Guinevere's father, her mother was usually unmentioned, although she was sometimes said to be dead; this is the case in the Middle English romance The Awntyrs off Arthure, The Adventures of Arthur, in which the ghost of Guinevere's mother appears to her daughter and Gawain in Inglewood Forest. Other works name cousins of note, though these do not usually appear in more than one place.

Guinevere has been portrayed as everything from a weak and opportunistic traitor to a fatally flawed but noble and virtuous lady. In Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, she is praised for her intelligence, friendliness, and gentility, while in Marie de France's Lanval, and Thomas Chestre's Middle English version, Sir Launfal, she is a vindictive adulteress, disliked by the protagonist and all well-bred knights.

 

Early chronicles tend to portray her inauspiciously or hardly at all, while later authors use her good and bad qualities to construct a deeper character who played a larger role. 

The works of Chrétien were some of the first to elaborate on the character Guinevere beyond simply the wife of Arthur. This was likely due to Chrétien's audience at the time, the court of Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, which was composed of courtly ladies who played highly social roles.

More information: Early British Kingdoms

 

 

Respect is to be earned.

It cannot be bought with blood.

Queen Guinevere

EXCALIBUR, THE LEGENDARY SWORD OF KING ARTHUR

The Grandma is reading about the myth of Excalibur, Arthur's sword, which legend says that was freed from a stone by Arthur. It is sometimes also attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Britain.

Excalibur is one of the most famous swords in Literature and The Grandma wants to talk about it and about its source of inspiration: the story of the knight of Montesiepi in Siena.

Excalibur or Caliburn, is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes also attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Britain. Sometimes Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone, the proof of Arthur's lineage, are said to be the same weapon, but in most versions they are considered separate. Excalibur was associated with the Arthurian legend very early. In Welsh, it is called Caledfwlch; in Cornish, Calesvol; in Breton, Kaledvoulc'h; and in Latin, Caliburnus.

The name Excalibur ultimately derives from the Welsh Caledfwlch, and Breton Kaledvoulc'h, Middle Cornish Calesvol, which is a compound of caled hard and bwlch breach, cleft.

More information: Ancient History

Caledfwlch appears in several early Welsh works, including the poem Preiddeu Annwfn and the prose tale Culhwch and Olwen, a work associated with the Mabinogion and written perhaps around 1100. The name was later used in Welsh adaptations of foreign material such as the Bruts, chronicles, which were based on Geoffrey of Monmouth.

It is often considered to be related to the phonetically similar Caladbolg, a sword borne by several figures from Irish mythology, although a borrowing of Caledfwlch from Irish Caladbolg has been considered unlikely by recent studies that suggest instead that both names may have similarly arisen at a very early date as generic names for a sword; this sword then became exclusively the property of Arthur in the British tradition.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his Historia Regum Britanniae, The History of the Kings of Britain, c. 1136, Latinised the name of Arthur's sword as Caliburnus, potentially influenced by the Medieval Latin spelling calibs of Classical Latin chalybs, from Greek chályps [χάλυψ] steel. Most Celticists consider Geoffrey's Caliburnus to be derivative of a lost Old Welsh text in which bwlch had not yet been lenited to fwlch.

In Old French sources this then became Escalibor, Excalibor, and finally the familiar Excalibur. Geoffrey Gaimar, in his Old French L'Estoire des Engles (1134-1140), mentions Arthur and his sword: this Constantine was the nephew of Arthur, who had the sword Caliburc, Cil Costentin, li niès Artur, Ki out l'espée Caliburc.

In Wace's Roman de Brut (c. 1150-1155), an Old French translation and versification of Geoffrey's Historia, the sword is called Calabrum, Callibourc, Chalabrun, and Calabrun, with alternate spellings such as Chalabrum, Calibore, Callibor, Caliborne, Calliborc, and Escaliborc, found in various manuscripts of the Brut.

In Chrétien de Troyes' late 12th-century Old French Perceval, Arthur's knight Gawain carries the sword Escalibor and it is stated, for at his belt hung Escalibor, the finest sword that there was, which sliced through iron as through wood, Qu'il avoit cainte Escalibor, la meillor espee qui fust, qu'ele trenche fer come fust. 

This statement was probably picked up by the author of the Estoire Merlin, or Vulgate Merlin, where the author, who was fond of fanciful folk etymologies, asserts that Escalibor is a Hebrew name which means in French 'cuts iron, steel, and wood, c'est non Ebrieu qui dist en franchois trenche fer & achier et fust; note that the word for steel here, achier, also means blade or sword and comes from medieval Latin aciarium, a derivative of acies sharp, so there is no direct connection with Latin chalybs in this etymology. 

It is from this fanciful etymological musing that Thomas Malory got the notion that Excalibur meant cut steel, the name of it, said the lady, is Excalibur, that is as moche to say, as Cut stele.

 

In Arthurian romance, a number of explanations are given for Arthur's possession of Excalibur. In Robert de Boron's Merlin, the first tale to mention the sword in the stone motif, Arthur obtained the British throne by pulling a sword from an anvil sitting atop a stone that appeared in a churchyard on Christmas Eve. In this account, the act could not be performed except by the true king, meaning the divinely appointed king or true heir of Uther Pendragon. 

As Malory's writes: Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born. This sword is thought by many to be the famous Excalibur, and its identity is made explicit in the later Prose Merlin, part of the Lancelot-Grail cycle. The challenge of drawing a sword from a stone also appears in the Arthurian legends of Galahad, whose achievement of the task indicates that he is destined to find the Holy Grail.

However, in what is called the Post-Vulgate Cycle, Excalibur was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake sometime after he began to reign. She calls the sword Excalibur, that is as to say as Cut-steel. 

More information: The Vintage News

In the Vulgate Mort Artu, Arthur is at the brink of death and so orders Griflet to throw the sword into the enchanted lake; after two failed attempts, as he felt such a great sword should not be thrown away, Griflet finally complies with the wounded king's request and a hand emerges from the lake to catch it. This tale becomes attached to Bedivere instead of Griflet in Malory and the English tradition. Malory records both versions of the legend in his Le Morte d'Arthur, naming both swords as Excalibur.

In Welsh legend, Arthur's sword is known as Caledfwlch. In Culhwch and Olwen, it is one of Arthur's most valuable possessions and is used by Arthur's warrior Llenlleawg the Irishman to kill the Irish king Diwrnach while stealing his magical cauldron. 

Irish mythology mentions a weapon Caladbolg, the sword of Fergus mac Róich, which was also known for its incredible power and was carried by some of Ireland's greatest heroes. The name, which can also mean hard cleft in Irish, appears in the plural, caladbuilc, as a generic term for great swords in Togail Troi, The Destruction of Troy, the 10th-century Irish translation of the classical tale.

In the late 15th/early 16th-century Middle Cornish play Beunans Ke, Arthur's sword is called Calesvol, which is etymologically an exact Middle Cornish cognate of the Welsh Caledfwlch. It is unclear if the name was borrowed from the Welsh, if so, it must have been an early loan, for phonological reasons, or represents an early, pan-Brittonic traditional name for Arthur's sword.

Geoffrey's Historia is the first non-Welsh source to speak of the sword. Geoffrey says the sword was forged in Avalon and Latinises the name Caledfwlch as Caliburnus. 

When his influential pseudo-history made it to Continental Europe, writers altered the name further until it finally took on the popular form Excalibur, various spellings in the medieval Arthurian romance and chronicle tradition include: Calabrun, Calabrum, Calibourne, Callibourc, Calliborc, Calibourch, Escaliborc, and Escalibor.

The legend was expanded upon in the Vulgate Cycle, also known as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, and in the Post-Vulgate Cycle which emerged in its wake. 

Both included the work known as the Prose Merlin, but the Post-Vulgate authors left out the Merlin continuation from the earlier cycle, choosing to add an original account of Arthur's early days including a new origin for Excalibur. In several early French works, such as Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail and the Vulgate Lancelot Proper section, Excalibur is used by Gawain, Arthur's nephew and one of his best knights. This is in contrast to later versions, where Excalibur belongs solely to the king.

In many versions, Excalibur's blade was engraved with phrases on opposite sides: Take me up and Cast me away, or similar. In addition, when Excalibur was first drawn, in the first battle testing Arthur's sovereignty, its blade blinded his enemies. Malory writes: thenne he drewe his swerd Excalibur, but it was so breyght in his enemyes eyen that it gaf light lyke thirty torchys.

Excalibur's scabbard was said to have powers of its own. Loss of blood from injuries, for example, would not kill the bearer. In some tellings, wounds received by one wearing the scabbard did not bleed at all. In the later romance tradition, including Le Morte d'Arthur, the scabbard is stolen from Arthur by his half-sister Morgan le Fay in revenge for the death of her beloved Accolon and thrown into a lake, never to be found again. This act later enables the death of Arthur at the Battle of Camlann.

More information: Ancient Origins

One day, a King will come, 

and the Sword will rise... again.

King Arthur

KING ARTHUR & THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE

The Grandma loves Middle Age and she likes medieval legends. One of her favourite is King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
 

King Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians. The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.

Arthur is a central figure in the legends making up the Matter of Britain.

The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae, History of the Kings of Britain. In some Welsh and Breton tales and poems that date from before this work, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn. How much of Geoffrey's Historia, completed in 1138, was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown.

Although the themes, events and characters of the Arthurian legend varied widely from text to text, and there is no one canonical version, Geoffrey's version of events often served as the starting point for later stories. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons and established an empire over Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul.

More information: Biography

Many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey's Historia, including Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, the wizard Merlin, Arthur's wife Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's conception at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann, and final rest in Avalon.

The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. 

In these French stories, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table. Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a major resurgence in the 19th century. In the 21st century, the legend lives on, not only in literature but also in adaptations for theatre, film, television, comics and other media.

The historical basis for the King Arthur legend has long been debated by scholars. One school of thought, citing entries in the Historia Brittonum, History of the Britons, and Annales Cambriae, Welsh Annals, sees Arthur as a genuine historical figure, a Romano-British leader who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons some time in the late 5th to early 6th century.

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The Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century Latin historical compilation attributed in some late manuscripts to a Welsh cleric called Nennius, contains the first datable mention of King Arthur, listing twelve battles that Arthur fought. These culminate in the Battle of Badon, where he is said to have single-handedly killed 960 men. Recent studies, however, question the reliability of the Historia Brittonum.

The other text that seems to support the case for Arthur's historical existence is the 10th-century Annales Cambriae, which also link Arthur with the Battle of Badon. The Annales date this battle to 516–518, and also mention the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut, Mordred, were both killed, dated to 537–539. These details have often been used to bolster confidence in the Historia's account and to confirm that Arthur really did fight at Badon. 

Problems have been identified, however, with using this source to support the Historia Brittonum's account. The latest research shows that the Annales Cambriae was based on a chronicle begun in the late 8th century in Wales. Additionally, the complex textual history of the Annales Cambriae precludes any certainty that the Arthurian annals were added to it even that early. They were more likely added at some point in the 10th century and may never have existed in any earlier set of annals. The Badon entry probably derived from the Historia Brittonum.

The origin of the Welsh name Arthur remains a matter of debate. The most widely accepted etymology derives it from the Roman nomen gentile, family name, Artorius. Artorius itself is of obscure and contested etymology, but possibly of Messapian or Etruscan origin.

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Linguist Stephan Zimmer suggests Artorius possibly had a Celtic origin, being a Latinization of a hypothetical name *Artorījos, in turn derived from an older patronym *Arto-rīg-ios, meaning son of the bear/warrior-king. This patronym is unattested, but the root, *arto-rīg, bear/warrior-king, is the source of the Old Irish personal name Artrí.  

Some scholars have suggested it is relevant to this debate that the legendary King Arthur's name only appears as Arthur or Arturus in early Latin Arthurian texts, never as Artōrius, though Classical Latin Artōrius became Arturius in some Vulgar Latin dialects. However, this may not say anything about the origin of the name Arthur, as Artōrius would regularly become Art(h)ur when borrowed into Welsh. Another commonly proposed derivation of Arthur from Welsh arth bear + (g)wr man, earlier *Arto-uiros in Brittonic, is not accepted by modern scholars for phonological and orthographic reasons.

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Notably, a Brittonic compound name *Arto-uiros should produce Old Welsh *Artgur, where u represents the short vowel /u/, and Middle/Modern Welsh *Arthwr, rather than Arthur, where u is a long vowel /ʉː/. In Welsh poetry the name is always spelled Arthur and is exclusively rhymed with words ending in -ur—never words ending in -wr—which confirms that the second element cannot be [g]wr man.

An alternative theory, which has gained only limited acceptance among professional scholars, derives the name Arthur from Arcturus, the brightest star in the constellation Boötes, near Ursa Major or the Great Bear.  

Classical Latin Arcturus would also have become Art(h)ur when borrowed into Welsh, and its brightness and position in the sky led people to regard it as the guardian of the bear, which is the meaning of the name in Ancient Greek, and the leader of the other stars in Boötes.

The popularity of Geoffrey's Historia and its other derivative works, such as Wace's Roman de Brut, is generally agreed to be an important factor in explaining the appearance of significant numbers of new Arthurian works in continental Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries, particularly in France. 

It was not, however, the only Arthurian influence on the developing Matter of Britain. There is clear evidence that Arthur and Arthurian tales were familiar on the Continent before Geoffrey's work became widely known, see for example, the Modena Archivolt, and Celtic names and stories not found in Geoffrey's Historia appear in the Arthurian romances. 

From the perspective of Arthur, perhaps the most significant effect of this great outpouring of new Arthurian story was on the role of the king himself: much of this 12th-century and later Arthurian literature centres less on Arthur himself than on characters such as Lancelot and Guinevere, Percival, Galahad, Gawain, Ywain, and Tristan and Iseult.

More information: History Extra

I must ride with my knights to defend what was, 
and the dream of what could be.

King Arthur