Finding Arthur Read Online Free Page B

his history of Britain.)
    These early attempts to portray Arthur as a villain were unsuccessful. No one really believed that Arthur was a villain, they pretended to believe it but they didn’t, not really . A heroic Arthur continued to thrive in the oral tradition, although these stories increasingly lost touch with their historical roots as romance and magic were added to make them even more popular (just as today we add romance and special effects to films). Since Arthur wasn’t going away, something needed to be done to bring him into the fold. Arthur needed to become a Christian, an Englishman, and, for good measure, a king.
    Geoffrey of Monmouth, a twelfth century Welsh cleric who worked for much of his life in the schools of Oxford, made Arthur even more popular with his wonderful book The History of the Kings of Britain , written in 1136. While much of Geoffrey’s History is obvious nonsense, “history keeps popping through the fiction,” Lewis Thorpe writes. “What nobody who has examined the evidence carefully can dare to say is that Geoffrey … simply made-up his material.” 11
    It is clear that while writing his history Geoffrey had popular opinion in mind. “I had not got thus far in my history,” he writes, “when the subject of public discourse happening to be concerning Merlin, I was obliged to publish his prophecies.” 12 Knowing and liking Merlin from the oral tradition Geoffrey’s audience insisted that he write more about Merlin, despite the fact that his work was ostensibly a history of kings. In any event, in the middle of his History , Geoffrey rather awkwardly inserted a tedious catalog of what are said to be prophecies by Merlin.
    Geoffrey was not a man to miss an opportunity, however, and so, in the late 1140s he followed up on the success of his History with his Life of Merlin . The Merlins portrayed in these two works are very different characters. The Merlin of the History is a more magical figure than the Merlin of the Life , who is more firmly rooted in history. This suggests that Geoffrey did not simply invent his Merlin; if he had, it is unlikely he would have so radically changed the nature of his invention between books. It also suggests that Geoffrey gained access to a morehistorical source material sometime between writing the History and the Life .
    Geoffrey had three main sources: “a certain very ancient book written in the British language” (that is, in a Celtic language) given to him by his patron, Walter Archdeacon of Oxford; Walter himself was “a man most learned in all branches of history” 13 ; and the oral tradition.
    Geoffrey’s History contains most of what is commonly known today as the story of “King Arthur.” He writes of Arthur’s conception, which he says took place when Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon, raped Arthur’s mother, Ygerna (Igraine); of Arthur’s sister Anna, mother of Gawain and Mordred; of Arthur’s defeat of the “Saxons” at Mount Badon, which he places in Bath, in the south of England; of Ganhumara’s—that is, Guinevere’s—adultery with Modred [ sic ]; and of the Battle of Camblan [ sic ], where Geoffrey says Arthur killed Modred.
    According to Geoffrey, Merlin magically changed the shape of Uther, Arthur’s future father, to the shape of Gorlois, the husband of Arthur’s future mother, and by this deception facilitated Arthur’s conception. This is, of course, obvious nonsense. Geoffrey’s Arthur becomes king without a sword or a stone and goes on to unite the kings of Britain. Then Guinevere, who is said to have been of noble Roman birth, makes an appearance, marries Arthur and commits adultery, not with Lancelot, as is popularly supposed, but with the treacherous Mordred. Geoffrey also makes one of the earliest references to Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, which he calls Caliburn, and to the Isle of Avalon, where he says Arthur was taken after being mortally wounded by Mordred at the climactic Battle of Camblan [ sic