[fic masterpost] The Ivy Crown
Title: The Ivy Crown
Pairings/characters: Merlin/Arthur; Gwaine, Leon, & the other knights; characters from Arthurian legend (e.g. the Green Knight, Ragnelle)
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Word Count: 251k
Warnings: past minor character deaths, violence & slight gore on occasion, drinking, intoxication, sexual situations
AO3: here (← downloadable in various formats)
Summary: [Post-S3 crossover with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle.] Merlin couldn't have picked a worse time to finally tell Arthur about his magic. In the wake of the battle against the immortal army, a strange visitor disrupts the court, calling himself the Green Knight and proposing a test of the court's integrity. Although Uther turns him away, several of Camelot's northern allies end up mysteriously beheaded over the next few months, and Arthur, Merlin and the knights set out to investigate. They encounter more than they'd bargained for on the way-a reckless young boy, a lady in search of a husband, a centuries-old fairytale that holds more than a grain of truth... and a challenge that ends up being more than just a game.
A/N: Written for the paperlegends challenge of 2011, and oh my God, I can't decide what I find harder to believe-that I really managed to finish this story, or that it's over now. I keep expecting someone to jump out from behind a corner and go, "Fooled you! You still have 4,528 scenes left to write!" xD A note about the dates: All parts of this story were posted on August 30, as per my posting date, but I backdated them to August 20 to avoid spamming my wonderful f-list too much. ♥
There is a giant list of people without whom this story would not exist. They are, in no particular order (AND YES I KNOW I AM A GIANT SAP SHUT UP):
❦_ First off, the amazing, kind cruentum & paragraphs, whose weekly write-in chats made this a wonderfully (and unexpectedly) social experience for me. When I first signed up for this challenge I never thought I would meet so many new people through the chats alone, and I certainly never guessed how much fun the 30-minute word wars would be! At first I thought that my shyness would turn me into the odd one out as it has done so many times, but I instantly felt so welcome that that never became an issue. Each and everyone of the people I met there were so genuinely supportive and kind that it just overwhelmed me! ♥
❦_ Everyone on paperpushers, particularly yue_ix (who might not even remember our conversation now, but it honestly inspired and encouraged me so much!), and fuzzytomato02 for organizing the snippet posts because I got such a kick out of seeing bits and pieces of everyone else's work, as well as posting my own, once I'd gotten past some initial nervousness! And I would also like to thank every single person who ever left comments on my story's snippets, in particular lachatblanche-your kind words of encouragement meant so much to me while I was still a little doubtful about the whole thing!
❦_ the_muppet, who made this possible in the first place by being such a patient, fantastic mod. ♥ Never once did she lose her cool with me when I panicked at her again and whined once more about how I'd never be able to finish. She sent me the kindest, most supportive replies and was just such an all-around wonderful person to work with-I could always tell that she hadn't created this challenge to make copious use of her mod hammer, but to support all of us in whatever way she could. I'm just so glad that she had faith in me whenever I didn't think I would finish, because that's what drove me to complete this monster of a story in the end. ♥
❦_ maya_freyja, my awesome, unfailingly supportive cheerleader! She offered to cheer for me even before I had fully made up my mind if I even wanted to sign up, and that's what basically gave me the last push I needed to head over to the writer sign-up post for real. She read through a long, rambly summary of the story, she found the perfect balance between pompom-waving and butt-kicking whenever I whined at her during the middle of a very busy semester. Hell, she even let me rant at her about my research and was so genuinely enthusiastic about everything that I could hardly believe it! There were so many times when, while talking to me about this story, she came up with things that just had me flabbergasted with their epicness-and she did it so casually, all like, "oh, but maybe you could do that," and, "this might work here as well," like those ideas were just afterthoughts to her. And I was left wondering about three things: (1) Her ideas are perfect, (2) Why didn't I come up with that myself?, and (3) How is she so awesome??! ♥ I haven't come up with a satisfying answer to that last one, but I'm so, so glad and grateful that she put all of that awesomeness into cheering for me! ♥
❦_ My parents (as "uncool" as it probably seems to mention one's parents on the Internet), in particularly my mother, who I could always, always come to when I needed to whine about this story (or when I needed a gentle kick forward to get me out of my funks). She patiently listened to me whenever I outlined the plot for her or went on and on about a certain character's motivations. And I will never forget that one evening when a dear friend of our family was visiting, and he, along with my parents, coaxed the plot of this story out of me bit by bit because he was curious about what I was working on so feverishly. I was quivering inside the entire time, but none of them ever batted an eye at the slash, and they all encouraged me to keep writing, which made me feel so appreciated and supported. <3
❦_ And finally, my unspeakably amazing beta, kura_tan, who was the first person I ever told about the idea for this. To be honest, when I first signed up I knew I wasn't going to be able to do it without her, and I'm just so relieved and honored that she was happy to be there for me from start to finish. She got her teeth into this story with an enthusiasm that left me humbled, and never even blinked when it kept growing plot point after plot point. Not once did she complain about its size, although she probably didn't quite see that coming (but well, maybe she did-she has a way of knowing things!). She supported me through my ridiculous amounts of research when all I wanted to do was headdesk in frustration, and she was so excited even about that that I could hardly believe it. If I was the writer giving birth to this story, she was the fondly exasperated, eager, loving midwife who helped it into existence, and who was not above shouting, "Push, damn you! Push!" every time I nearly despaired of its size. Even the idea would have gotten scrapped long ago if it hadn't been for her, and I'm more grateful for her unending faith and support than I can say. :D ♥ ♥ ♥
Part 1: The Summoning (a)
Part 2: The Journey (a) (b) (c)
Part 3: The Man of the Summer Day (a) (b)
Part 4: The Challenge (a) (b) (c)
Part 5: Of Truces and Trials (a) (b) (c)
Part 6: Three Ravens (a) (b) (c) (d)
Part 7: Hide and Seek (a) (b) (c)
Part 8: Derry, Derry Down (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)
Part 9: The Green Chapel (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)
Notes + References
❦_ Disclaimer: Merlin is owned by the BBC and Shine. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle belong to their respective anonymous authors. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made. (Additionally, both briar_pipe and I are aware that our Big Bangs share a title. This didn't happen on purpose, and I assure you that no form of plagiarism was involved. And through her story (which you can find here), I even found out that "The Ivy Crown" is also the title of a beautiful poem by William Carlos Williams!)
❦_ The little art stuffs-like the scene breakers-were created by me, but I didn't think they'd warrant an art post of their own, so I just embedded them in the story. I'm sad that the previous/next/masterpost navigators didn't make it into the AO3 version, but oh well! At any rate, I'm all nervous about the art, and I hope you like it, especially the masterpost navigator, which ended up taking way more time and energy than the other pictures combined. :D You can see a larger version of it here.
❦_ Some general notes first: laydeekay's resource post about Arthur's armor was invaluable to me, especially since it helped me realize that I'd had so many parts mixed up in my head! Wikipedia was a great help with details like medicinal herbs, the anatomy of horses' hooves, medieval measures of length, and which greens people liked to hang above their doors at Beltane. Any and all references to the round table in episode 3x13 were done with the help of this wonderful look behind the scenes, provided by gealach_ros. Along with my lecture notes, the Old English Translator helped me find the right words for the spells. (On that note, I'm aware that many people use accents on Old English words, but at uni we always used lengthening marks, so I went with what I used to beat into my head for two semesters.)
❦_ A short word about the names: I found Sir Ricbert & Caedmon on some random site with Old English names, but Sir Gromer Somer Joure's name (although I did change his character quite a bit) was borrowed from The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, as was his sister. Sir Gilbert de Venables was actually a real person (more on that below). As stated in the credits, Iseldir is the name of the druid who handed over the Cup of Life in the S3 finale. In addition, according to etymonline.com, Grænn is Old Norse for "green".
❦_ The villages (particularly their names) and the geographical details of the journey are as historically accurate as I could make them in such a short amount of time. For instance, all of the villages that are mentioned in this story still exist today, though they go by different names. I took their Old English (and Welsh, in one case) names from the Domesday Book, as well as their lords, if I had to (such as Sir Gilbert). I do realize that the Domesday Book was only compiled about 600 years after my story supposedly takes place, but as I said, this was much historical accuracy as I could muster up within six months. :) For those of you who are interested, here are the villages and their Modern English names: Treffynnon = Holywell; Torpelei = Tarporley; Watenhale = Wettenhall; Maneshale = Minshull Vernon; Sanbec = Sandbach; Cogeltone = Congleton.
❦_ In search of something I could use to map out the journey (which, by the way, is also roughly the route that Gawain takes in search of the Green Chapel in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), I turned to Early British Kingdoms.com and found this map of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms around 550 AD. (I would have preferred to use the one from 525 AD, as it would have been closer to my supposed timeframe, but Mercia's expansion by 550 AD won me over!) Basically, Gwynedd & a part of South Rheged make up the Northern Plains, and most everything from Luitcoyt down to Gwent is "my" Camelot.
❦_ The song Three Ravens is a folk ballad, from the 17th century or older, and you can take a look at the full lyrics (with 1611 orthography!) here. (I realize that it's by far not old enough to have been known around ~520 AD, but I love it so much that I wanted to use it anyway :D) I've listened to a couple of modern recordings, but my favorite by far-and the one that was on top of my writing playlist as well-is the version by Brocelïande.
❦_ As far as I know, scholars still argue about the true location of the Green Chapel today. At first I thought about using Lud's Church, as has been done by many, since it does kind of fit the descriptions in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. But I thought that to capture the atmosphere of such a place, I would have to have been there myself, and decided against it in the end. Instead I chose Wetton Mill (although I haven't been there before either), in accordance with the wonderfully enthusiastic scholars from Travels with Sir Gawain.
❦_ There are about 800 more tons of references I could drop on you now, but since I'm not trying to write another Big Bang about my research, I'll leave it at that! Feel free to ask me if there's a particular aspect you're curious about! ♥
I can't believe I'm done, OMFG. *collapses in a heap*
And if you haven't run away screaming from the size of this story yet, that raven down there will take you to the first part! :D
Pairings/characters: Merlin/Arthur; Gwaine, Leon, & the other knights; characters from Arthurian legend (e.g. the Green Knight, Ragnelle)
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Word Count: 251k
Warnings: past minor character deaths, violence & slight gore on occasion, drinking, intoxication, sexual situations
AO3: here (← downloadable in various formats)
Summary: [Post-S3 crossover with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle.] Merlin couldn't have picked a worse time to finally tell Arthur about his magic. In the wake of the battle against the immortal army, a strange visitor disrupts the court, calling himself the Green Knight and proposing a test of the court's integrity. Although Uther turns him away, several of Camelot's northern allies end up mysteriously beheaded over the next few months, and Arthur, Merlin and the knights set out to investigate. They encounter more than they'd bargained for on the way-a reckless young boy, a lady in search of a husband, a centuries-old fairytale that holds more than a grain of truth... and a challenge that ends up being more than just a game.
A/N: Written for the paperlegends challenge of 2011, and oh my God, I can't decide what I find harder to believe-that I really managed to finish this story, or that it's over now. I keep expecting someone to jump out from behind a corner and go, "Fooled you! You still have 4,528 scenes left to write!" xD A note about the dates: All parts of this story were posted on August 30, as per my posting date, but I backdated them to August 20 to avoid spamming my wonderful f-list too much. ♥
There is a giant list of people without whom this story would not exist. They are, in no particular order (AND YES I KNOW I AM A GIANT SAP SHUT UP):
❦_ First off, the amazing, kind cruentum & paragraphs, whose weekly write-in chats made this a wonderfully (and unexpectedly) social experience for me. When I first signed up for this challenge I never thought I would meet so many new people through the chats alone, and I certainly never guessed how much fun the 30-minute word wars would be! At first I thought that my shyness would turn me into the odd one out as it has done so many times, but I instantly felt so welcome that that never became an issue. Each and everyone of the people I met there were so genuinely supportive and kind that it just overwhelmed me! ♥
❦_ Everyone on paperpushers, particularly yue_ix (who might not even remember our conversation now, but it honestly inspired and encouraged me so much!), and fuzzytomato02 for organizing the snippet posts because I got such a kick out of seeing bits and pieces of everyone else's work, as well as posting my own, once I'd gotten past some initial nervousness! And I would also like to thank every single person who ever left comments on my story's snippets, in particular lachatblanche-your kind words of encouragement meant so much to me while I was still a little doubtful about the whole thing!
❦_ the_muppet, who made this possible in the first place by being such a patient, fantastic mod. ♥ Never once did she lose her cool with me when I panicked at her again and whined once more about how I'd never be able to finish. She sent me the kindest, most supportive replies and was just such an all-around wonderful person to work with-I could always tell that she hadn't created this challenge to make copious use of her mod hammer, but to support all of us in whatever way she could. I'm just so glad that she had faith in me whenever I didn't think I would finish, because that's what drove me to complete this monster of a story in the end. ♥
❦_ maya_freyja, my awesome, unfailingly supportive cheerleader! She offered to cheer for me even before I had fully made up my mind if I even wanted to sign up, and that's what basically gave me the last push I needed to head over to the writer sign-up post for real. She read through a long, rambly summary of the story, she found the perfect balance between pompom-waving and butt-kicking whenever I whined at her during the middle of a very busy semester. Hell, she even let me rant at her about my research and was so genuinely enthusiastic about everything that I could hardly believe it! There were so many times when, while talking to me about this story, she came up with things that just had me flabbergasted with their epicness-and she did it so casually, all like, "oh, but maybe you could do that," and, "this might work here as well," like those ideas were just afterthoughts to her. And I was left wondering about three things: (1) Her ideas are perfect, (2) Why didn't I come up with that myself?, and (3) How is she so awesome??! ♥ I haven't come up with a satisfying answer to that last one, but I'm so, so glad and grateful that she put all of that awesomeness into cheering for me! ♥
❦_ My parents (as "uncool" as it probably seems to mention one's parents on the Internet), in particularly my mother, who I could always, always come to when I needed to whine about this story (or when I needed a gentle kick forward to get me out of my funks). She patiently listened to me whenever I outlined the plot for her or went on and on about a certain character's motivations. And I will never forget that one evening when a dear friend of our family was visiting, and he, along with my parents, coaxed the plot of this story out of me bit by bit because he was curious about what I was working on so feverishly. I was quivering inside the entire time, but none of them ever batted an eye at the slash, and they all encouraged me to keep writing, which made me feel so appreciated and supported. <3
❦_ And finally, my unspeakably amazing beta, kura_tan, who was the first person I ever told about the idea for this. To be honest, when I first signed up I knew I wasn't going to be able to do it without her, and I'm just so relieved and honored that she was happy to be there for me from start to finish. She got her teeth into this story with an enthusiasm that left me humbled, and never even blinked when it kept growing plot point after plot point. Not once did she complain about its size, although she probably didn't quite see that coming (but well, maybe she did-she has a way of knowing things!). She supported me through my ridiculous amounts of research when all I wanted to do was headdesk in frustration, and she was so excited even about that that I could hardly believe it. If I was the writer giving birth to this story, she was the fondly exasperated, eager, loving midwife who helped it into existence, and who was not above shouting, "Push, damn you! Push!" every time I nearly despaired of its size. Even the idea would have gotten scrapped long ago if it hadn't been for her, and I'm more grateful for her unending faith and support than I can say. :D ♥ ♥ ♥
Part 1: The Summoning (a)
Part 2: The Journey (a) (b) (c)
Part 3: The Man of the Summer Day (a) (b)
Part 4: The Challenge (a) (b) (c)
Part 5: Of Truces and Trials (a) (b) (c)
Part 6: Three Ravens (a) (b) (c) (d)
Part 7: Hide and Seek (a) (b) (c)
Part 8: Derry, Derry Down (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)
Part 9: The Green Chapel (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)
Notes + References
❦_ Disclaimer: Merlin is owned by the BBC and Shine. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle belong to their respective anonymous authors. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made. (Additionally, both briar_pipe and I are aware that our Big Bangs share a title. This didn't happen on purpose, and I assure you that no form of plagiarism was involved. And through her story (which you can find here), I even found out that "The Ivy Crown" is also the title of a beautiful poem by William Carlos Williams!)
❦_ The little art stuffs-like the scene breakers-were created by me, but I didn't think they'd warrant an art post of their own, so I just embedded them in the story. I'm sad that the previous/next/masterpost navigators didn't make it into the AO3 version, but oh well! At any rate, I'm all nervous about the art, and I hope you like it, especially the masterpost navigator, which ended up taking way more time and energy than the other pictures combined. :D You can see a larger version of it here.
❦_ Some general notes first: laydeekay's resource post about Arthur's armor was invaluable to me, especially since it helped me realize that I'd had so many parts mixed up in my head! Wikipedia was a great help with details like medicinal herbs, the anatomy of horses' hooves, medieval measures of length, and which greens people liked to hang above their doors at Beltane. Any and all references to the round table in episode 3x13 were done with the help of this wonderful look behind the scenes, provided by gealach_ros. Along with my lecture notes, the Old English Translator helped me find the right words for the spells. (On that note, I'm aware that many people use accents on Old English words, but at uni we always used lengthening marks, so I went with what I used to beat into my head for two semesters.)
❦_ A short word about the names: I found Sir Ricbert & Caedmon on some random site with Old English names, but Sir Gromer Somer Joure's name (although I did change his character quite a bit) was borrowed from The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, as was his sister. Sir Gilbert de Venables was actually a real person (more on that below). As stated in the credits, Iseldir is the name of the druid who handed over the Cup of Life in the S3 finale. In addition, according to etymonline.com, Grænn is Old Norse for "green".
❦_ The villages (particularly their names) and the geographical details of the journey are as historically accurate as I could make them in such a short amount of time. For instance, all of the villages that are mentioned in this story still exist today, though they go by different names. I took their Old English (and Welsh, in one case) names from the Domesday Book, as well as their lords, if I had to (such as Sir Gilbert). I do realize that the Domesday Book was only compiled about 600 years after my story supposedly takes place, but as I said, this was much historical accuracy as I could muster up within six months. :) For those of you who are interested, here are the villages and their Modern English names: Treffynnon = Holywell; Torpelei = Tarporley; Watenhale = Wettenhall; Maneshale = Minshull Vernon; Sanbec = Sandbach; Cogeltone = Congleton.
❦_ In search of something I could use to map out the journey (which, by the way, is also roughly the route that Gawain takes in search of the Green Chapel in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), I turned to Early British Kingdoms.com and found this map of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms around 550 AD. (I would have preferred to use the one from 525 AD, as it would have been closer to my supposed timeframe, but Mercia's expansion by 550 AD won me over!) Basically, Gwynedd & a part of South Rheged make up the Northern Plains, and most everything from Luitcoyt down to Gwent is "my" Camelot.
❦_ The song Three Ravens is a folk ballad, from the 17th century or older, and you can take a look at the full lyrics (with 1611 orthography!) here. (I realize that it's by far not old enough to have been known around ~520 AD, but I love it so much that I wanted to use it anyway :D) I've listened to a couple of modern recordings, but my favorite by far-and the one that was on top of my writing playlist as well-is the version by Brocelïande.
❦_ As far as I know, scholars still argue about the true location of the Green Chapel today. At first I thought about using Lud's Church, as has been done by many, since it does kind of fit the descriptions in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. But I thought that to capture the atmosphere of such a place, I would have to have been there myself, and decided against it in the end. Instead I chose Wetton Mill (although I haven't been there before either), in accordance with the wonderfully enthusiastic scholars from Travels with Sir Gawain.
❦_ There are about 800 more tons of references I could drop on you now, but since I'm not trying to write another Big Bang about my research, I'll leave it at that! Feel free to ask me if there's a particular aspect you're curious about! ♥
I can't believe I'm done, OMFG. *collapses in a heap*
And if you haven't run away screaming from the size of this story yet, that raven down there will take you to the first part! :D