Arthurian literature and other stuff
Today is the first day of Spring, and the first day of the ecclesiastical year, and it also marks the end of an enforced web holiday, after being cut off for more than a week in the end-of-the-month Broadband Blues. Makes we wonder what we did before there was the World Wide Web!
Well one of the things we did was read books, and I rediscovered a book on my shelves with stories about King Arthur, provenance unknown. A Puffin paperback, published in 1953, price 2/6, compiled by Roger Lancelyn Green (who's he? can't access Wikipedia to find out, but something in the back of my head whispers "right-wing nut"). Perhaps it was one my mother left. I knew it was around in the house somewhere, but couldn't find it when I looked for it. It was filed under G for Green, but I couldn't remember the author's name.
But anyway I found it, and read it, and having finished it, started it again. My knowledge of the Arthurian stories has always been rather jumbled, and Green tells the stories in such away as to unjumble them, as far as it is possible to do so when the sources contain so many contradictions.
But once I've got it a bit straight in my head, and can associate the names with the exploits, I'll have another go at reading Charles Williams's Arthurian poetry, and some of the other literature. It helps to know the plot, sometimes.
That reminds me of an Anglican bishop some years ago, who took his nephew and niece to see Jesus Christ, Superstar, and was quite shocked to discover that they didn't know the plot. Well, I'm a bit like that with the Arthurian stuff. I knew about the sword in the stone at the beginning, and the sword in the lake at the end, and the malicious sisters, but the bits in between were a rather weird jumble.
Well one of the things we did was read books, and I rediscovered a book on my shelves with stories about King Arthur, provenance unknown. A Puffin paperback, published in 1953, price 2/6, compiled by Roger Lancelyn Green (who's he? can't access Wikipedia to find out, but something in the back of my head whispers "right-wing nut"). Perhaps it was one my mother left. I knew it was around in the house somewhere, but couldn't find it when I looked for it. It was filed under G for Green, but I couldn't remember the author's name.
But anyway I found it, and read it, and having finished it, started it again. My knowledge of the Arthurian stories has always been rather jumbled, and Green tells the stories in such away as to unjumble them, as far as it is possible to do so when the sources contain so many contradictions.
But once I've got it a bit straight in my head, and can associate the names with the exploits, I'll have another go at reading Charles Williams's Arthurian poetry, and some of the other literature. It helps to know the plot, sometimes.
That reminds me of an Anglican bishop some years ago, who took his nephew and niece to see Jesus Christ, Superstar, and was quite shocked to discover that they didn't know the plot. Well, I'm a bit like that with the Arthurian stuff. I knew about the sword in the stone at the beginning, and the sword in the lake at the end, and the malicious sisters, but the bits in between were a rather weird jumble.