In which I ramble about poetry, Arthuriana, aroace stuff, etc. In theory. In practice, it's almost all Arthuriana.
215 posts
I hadn’t noticed that, but I think that you’re right and that that was the artist’s way of reminding us it’s made of Percival’s sister’s hair. Neat. Or not neat. There’s a lot to be said of hair belts as a fashion choice and most of it is negative, but you can’t say it’s not bold.
The Grail Heroine leading Galahad to the ship, where Percival and Bors wait
Stained glass by Veronica Whall for King Arthur’s Great Halls at Tintagel
The Grail Heroine leading Galahad to the ship, where Percival and Bors wait
Stained glass by Veronica Whall for King Arthur’s Great Halls at Tintagel
As an Arthuriana junkie who tried to secede from the United States of America in fourth grade, this made my month.
I was looking something up and I found this.
Normal so far, but wait... is that Molossia? As in parody micronation Molossia?
Yes. Yes it is.
Morvran/Sanddef (Sanvran)
I am not only the only person who has tagged a work for Morvran/Sanddef (Arthurian). I’m the only person who has ever tagged for either of those characters on Ao3. They’re both minor knights who are known for surviving Camlann due to their appearances: Sanddef is so handsome that people mistake him for an angel and won’t fight him and Morvran is so hideous/odd-looking (covered in hair like a stag) that people mistake him for a demon and won’t fight him. (Morvran’s anppearance also plays a role in Taliesin’s origin story, inspiring Cerridwen’s actions, though Taliesin gets the awen instead of Morvran and Morvran then disappears from the narrative.) Admittedly, they’re rather obscure and the details about them are sparse, but I feel like they have potential, platonically or romantically. I’d like to think that they fight side by side at Camlann and have no idea why no one is fighting back.
Reblog and put your rare pair in the tags/comments! I want to see the depths people will go to create, for the most random two characters in the most obscure media.
Bedivere (to Arthur): I just fought in a battle for you, most of my friends are dead, you’re dying, I’m unemployed, the land is in turmoil and potential anarchy, Kay is I-don’t-know-the-heck where, you just killed my brother by hugging him, and I don’t even get to keep the darn sword?
Fun fact: the musician who sang “Puberty Love” in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Of course, he’s also the drummer for Pearl Jam, but it’s less entertaining when you put it that way.
My new job is making people’s often ill-advised wishes come true on a resort island which might actually be Purgatory but no one knows because the premise of the show was never adequately explained to anyone, including the stars.
If one-appearance knights are allowed, then Tyolet (from the Lai of Tyolet) has a similar but superior skill set to Percival’s. He too grew up in the forest and he can control wild animals to some degree, like a Disney princess. If he got the mockingjays and/or the mutts on his side, he’d be a force of nature.
Come to think of it, Disney princesses would do really well in the Hunger Games.
Ok if characters from arthuriana were placed in the hunger games arena who do you think would make it out? My controversial opinion is that Perceval would do well because of his survival skills (grew up in forest) and his javelin throwing would give him an advantage
Apparently, Camelot of Staten Island Inc. is a branch of a counseling service for people whose lives have been impacted by addictions, either their own or their loved ones’. I would say that some of the people of Arthurian Camelot could have used the services of their Staten Island counterparts were it not that the reviews are very few and several are terrible. I have no more intention of finding out whether Google’s exclusively one-star reviews are accurate than I have an understanding of why someone chose to name a street Arthur Kill Road.
This is a crime.
Funny story: the way I got into this fandom was a seventh-grade assignment to write an alliterative paragraph using the letter G. Something clicked (or snapped, however you want to look at it) and though I’d never given much thought to the Round Table before, I wrote a paragraph about Gawain, which spiraled into a chapter, which spiraled into an attempt at a novel, which spiraled into a neverending research wormhole and long term fixation. Older and at least a little wiser, I give you ten of my original takes on the characters and how they seem in retrospect.
Guinevere doesn’t really do anything. In my defense, my knowledge of her mostly came from watching the first half of an amateur production of Camelot, which is bound to give anyone the wrong idea.
Mordred is a socially awkward evil wizard. In my book, he made a number of cartoonish villain speeches, mostly to his long-suffering familiar, since no one else would listen. No, I have no idea why I thought he had magic… Is it awful that I kind of like him that way?
Arthur is perfect. Uh…
Gawain is perfect. Uh….
Lancelot is an absolute monster. My version of him was a mix of a guy who bullied me and the god Ares as depicted in D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. Needless to say, he did not have an affair with Guinevere, because she would never cheat on Arthur, because only morally pure characters are good, and she is secretly awesome, even though most people think she doesn’t do anything… Uh… Yeah. I was wrong.
Agravaine is mildly aggravating. Gareth and Gaheris are just sort of there and uninteresting. This opinion was derived entirely from their names.
Morgause is an evil witch but has great style. That sounds more like Morgan.
Morgan is a terrible name. I debated renaming her Marianne or Meredith. Yes, I have seen the error of my ways.
Galahad is a rustic himbo. That was the vibe I got from the name “Gallahad”.
The Lady of the Lake is awesome. I stand by this one and always will.
Note: the speaker is Galahad; the elder knight is Lancelot. This poem is one of my favorites. It’s unusual in that its version of Galahad is really, really spiteful, and the ending is unforgettable. I.
I have met you foot to foot, I have fought you face to face,
I have held my own against you and lost no inch of place,
And you shall never see
How you have broken me.
You sheathed your sword in the dawn, and you smiled with careless eyes,
Saying "Merrily struck, my son, I think you may have your prize."
Nor saw how each hard breath
Was painfully snatched from death.
I held my head like a rock; I offered to joust again,
Though I shook, and my palsied hand could hardly cling to the rein;
Did you curse my insolence
And over-confidence?
You have ridden, lusty and fresh, to the morrow's tournament;
I am buffeted, beaten, sick at the heart and spent.—
Yet, as God my speed be
I will fight you again if need be.
II.
A white cloud running under the moon
And three stars over the poplar-trees,
Night deepens into her lambent noon;
God holds the world between His knees;
Yesterday it was washed with the rain,
But now it is clean and clear again.
Your hands were strong to buffet me,
But, when my plume was in the dust,
Most kind for comfort verily;
Success rides blown with restless lust;
Herein is all the peace of heaven:
To know we have failed and are forgiven.
The brown, rain-scented garden beds
Are waiting for the next year's roses;
The poplars wag mysterious heads,
For the pleasant secret each discloses
To his neighbour, makes them nod, and nod—
So safe is the world on the knees of God.
III.
I have the road before me; never again
Will I be angry at the practised thrust
That flicked my fingers from the lordly rein
To scratch and scrabble among the rolling dust.
I never will be angry — though your spear
Bit through the pauldron, shattered the camail,
Before I crossed a steed, through many a year
Battle on battle taught you how to fail.
Can you remember how the morning star
Winked through the chapel window, when the day
Called you from vigil to delights of war
With such loud jollity, you could not pray?
Pray now, Lord Lancelot; your hands are hard
With the rough hilts; great power is in your eyes,
Great confidence; you are not newly scarred,
And conquer gravely now without surprise.
Pray now, my master; you have still the joy
Of work done perfectly; remember not
The dizzying bliss that smote you when, a boy,
You faced some better man, Lord Lancelot.
Pray now — and look not on my radiant face,
Breaking victorious from the bloody grips—
Too young to speak in quiet prayer or praise
For the strong laughter bubbling to my lips.
Angry? because I scarce know how to stand,
Gasping and reeling against the gates of death,
While, with the shaft yet whole within your hand,
You smile at me with undisordered breath?
Not I — not I that have the dawn and dew,
Wind, and the golden shore, and silver foam —
I that here pass and bid good-bye to you —
For I ride forward — you are going home.
Truly I am your debtor for this hour
Of rough and tumble — debtor for some good tricks
Of tourney-craft; — yet see how, flower on flower,
The hedgerows blossom! How the perfumes mix
Of field and forest! — I must hasten on —
The clover scent blows like a flag unfurled;
When you are dead, or aged and alone,
I shall be foremost knight in all the world —
My world, not yours, beneath the morning's gold,
My hazardous world, where skies and seas are blue;
Here is my hand. Maybe, when I am old,
I shall remember you, and pray for you.
"Puis comence le iengleor Bloys
Deslaiaux de mort du roy:
Mais porquoi on dit.
Sanz fin james laisser çi."
I
"The sun sank red, the moon as red
As blood did rise o'er Caerbrë town;
The King," he sang. "But Bloys," I said,
"Come tell me where is Caerbrë town?"
II
"The Haut King, red with blood, returned
From Barendown's fire, and came therein
To die," he sang. "What in him burned,
Dark Mordred's death? or Gwenevere's sin?"
III
"They buried in his blood the dead;
But One bore water there to save
The King," he sang. "But Bloys," I said,
"Where lies indeed the Haut King's grave?"
I‘ve been wondering about something. Last year, I found out that being asexual was a thing, not just a quirk of mine… then realized that five of my friends already privately or publicly identified as such. Consider that: asexuals are estimated to make up about 1% of the population yet account for about 40% of my friends. Is that just a weird coincidence, are ace people more likely to gravitate toward each other (due to their likely disinterest in certain topics of conversation or general vibes or goodness knows what), did the experts significantly underestimate how many asexuals there are, or some combination of the three? I suspect it’s the third but I’m not sure to what extent each thing is a factor. Any thoughts?
They call me "little man," "King Arthur's fool,"
And "simpleton," those lackeys at the court,
But this fool's mother had the Second Sight,
And sometimes when I caper for the king
I see more than Taliesin the bard
And Merlin the enchanter can, combined.
I stand before the dais, juggling:
The red balls first, then yellow, green and blue,
And when I add the gold and silver spheres,
The oval blur between my hands takes form.
A glowing, rainbow mirrow it becomes
Through which I see the king an older man.
His beard is shot with grey. Astride his horse
He sits up straighter than he would on land
When all the kingdom's cares, some awful guilt,
And the death of all his dreams lie on his back.
I see two rows of soldiers and a snake,
A sword unsheathed to kill it, turned on him--
I drop the balls and stammer out some jest,
A wish for pardon, while the courtiers roar.
He does not laugh. He sees my face go grey
With terror. Arthur thinks I fear his wrath.
He hands me the gold ball, rolled to his feet,
Says, "Dagonet, all people make mistakes."
He glances at his wife; she looks away.
Fool I may be, but even I can tell
There's something wrong when Guinevere looks down
Among the milling courtiers at one knight,
The tallest, bravest, handsomest in spurs:
At Lancelot, who never makes mistakes.
I scramble for the balls. He looks at me,
Then looks away, and shrugs his lion's mane.
Dismiss me as a fool, Sir Lancelot.
Better a fool in small things all my life
Than a great lord who, with one folly alone,
Casts all he loves to ruin at life's end.
Palestinians see Israel as a colonial project that tore them away from their homeland and Jews see Israel as a decolonial project that brought them back to their homeland and we can sit here and argue about who is “right” for 7 billion years or we can hold two narratives at once and recognize that the strip of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is a homeland for both Jews and Palestinians so we need to find some common ground and a way for both groups to live their freely
…and it all took place in Boca Raton.
Going from left to right and down, the symbols stand for Galahad, Percival, Ragnell, Blanchefleur, the Grail Heroine, the Lady of the Lake who gives Arthur Excalibur, Guinier, Gawain, Dinadan, Ector de Maris, Morgan le Fay, Caradoc Briefbras, Griflet, Isolde, Vivian, Taliesin, Tristan, Brunnisend, the Nine Witches, Laudine, the Three Queens or Morgause, Kay, Dagonet, Merlin, Palamedes, Sebile, Guinevere, Igraine, Melora, Yvain, Mordred, and Arthur.
If you’re confused about some or all of them, here’s my rationale/what the symbols are:
Galahad and Percival have slightly different Grails. I think Ragnell is found sitting under a tree, and another story has Gawain in a relationship with the queen of Avalon, isle of the apples. Blanchefleur means “white flower”. The square with the spiral in it is the Grail Heroine’s box of hair. The sword under the wave is fairly obvious. That is the drinking horn from Guinier’s chastity test. Gawain’s is a SGatGK reference. Dinadan’s is an aro ring. Ector de Maris, Griflet, Kay, and Palamedes all have symbols or patterns from their attributed arms. Morgan le Fay takes Arthur to Avalon on a boat. Caradoc has to be saved from a serpent which is wound around his arm. The torch is a Wagner reference. Nimue traps Merlin, whose symbol is the bird who shares his name, so she is represented by a birdcage. Taliesin got his wisdom from a cauldron, and there’s a cauldron in the Preideu Annwfn. Tristan plays a harp. The formation of the relationship between Brunnisend and her eventual husband is defined by their dire yet mutually exclusive needs for a good night’s sleep. The Nine Witches’ symbol seemed cool and has a threefold element. Laudine has a magic fountain. The evolution of the nature and deeds of Anna/Morcades/Morgause/etc. seemed to sort of go with the Maiden, Matron, Crone archetype and I really couldn’t think of anything else. Dagonet eventually became a jester. Yblis, who has a magic mantle, is Sybil scrambled, and there is a strong modern association between magic and capes. Guinevere is sometimes given authority over the knights of the vergescu. My justification for Igraine’s is particularly weak and would take too long to explain. Melora wields the Lance of Longinus. Yvain befriends a lion. Mordred has a broken table because he helped break the Round Table. Arthur is King.
Alan Lee’s illustration of the enchantress in Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson
Wolves in the roadways, brothers at war,
The sword a tool to be bought and sold,
Savages raiding the eastern shore
And the King old, old.
"Newest of all my knights, now ride,
Quarter my kingdom, search moor and fell.
Find me the mage who stood at my side
When the world was well."
A crazed knight dodders across the hills
Blear-eyed, mumbling and listening at stones.
His armour is rusted away. He feels
Ice in his bones.
The last King lies in a secret grave.
His Caer is sacked and his kingdom gone
Under the savages' conquering wave.
But the search goes on.
Where? Which outcrop on what blank moor?
They swore there was something that could not die.
It might sleep, but would wake when needed . . . Or
Is it all a lie?
On a cliff which the ravens swoop beneath
(He does not see them, but hears their calls)
He lies exhausted and waits for death.
Mild sunlight falls
On limbs and turf . . . There is something there,
Not heard like the calling birds, but felt . . .
A presence filling the tingling air,
Seeming to melt
Times into Time . . . In this Time, this Place
A boy lies watching the ravens' flight,
Not outside, but filling the self-same space
As the dying knight . . .
And others whose times are still to be
Here in this instant, layer within layer,
Mind within mind, like the rings of a tree
Grown fresh each year
Till it holds the centuries, age within age . . .
The last knight dies in the evening dew
Knowing the tale of the sleeping mage
Was a lie, but true.
Nowhere, ever, for him to find
Under any boulder on moor or hill
But buried in minds fresh born that mind
Dreams on, dreams still.
This is a fic for Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, so it isn't wholly about Oscar Wilde and A.E. Housman, it's more about Stoppard's heavily fictionalised, definitely surreal take on them.
Fog. Twilight. A boat, with two men sitting back to back, gazing statue-still in opposite directions.
The world awakens, the fog is lit by a greenish glow. Sounds of sloshing water, birdsong, faraway churchbells, maybe baa-ing sheep, whatever is necessary to give the impression of a nondescript but idyllic English dawn.
One of the men startles, then the other. They both stand up, the boat rocks, they both hurry to sit down.
A moment of silence as they consider their situation.
One of them moves carefully, and without fully straightening up, turns around, and sits back down, on the other bench. Then the other – they are now on opposite ends of the boat, staring at one another. WILDE is dressed in somewhat ostentatious velvets, HOUSMAN in a deliberately boring suit. They are of a similar, but indeterminate age.
WILDE Mr Housman?
HOUSMAN Yes, I believe so. Mr Wilde?
WILDE Delighted to make your acquaintance again. We’ve met before, but we may not quite have been ourselves, that is to say, not these selves, and not in this place.
HOUSMAN This place?
WILDE Just a moment.
He peers around. Shields his eyes with his hand, looks again.
The light is morning light, but it comes from no particular direction.
Sniffs the air.
Sage and fresh-cut grass.
Licks his finger and holds it up to feel the wind.
The breeze is fresh, and westerly.
Dips his hand in the water to feel the current, then as an afterthought, brings his hand to his mouth and takes a sip, then splashes the remainder on his neck.
The waters of Isis, but clearer than they ought to be.
HOUSMAN Where are we then?
WILDE I would say we are where all writers end up sometime after they’re dead.
HOUSMAN (sceptical) Elysium?
WILDE I’m afraid not. We are in the Public Domain.
HOUSMAN
Why do you reckon?
WILDE I’ve been here before, many times. Mostly miserable biographies, and even more miserable fictionalized biographies, but not exclusively. It is fortunate that my creation, Dorian Grey, stands in for me when the writer merely wants to make a point about beauty or decadence or carnal sin, and I am left in peace. I am only here when they want me in person. A clever young man made an exquisitely drawn comic book about my final days before moving on to woefully mischaracterize Hemingway. I’ve been here in a story about Bosie wearing a green carnation, fighting for my last lost book against a host of batlike tyrants who have stolen the very city of London. There was a radio play of sorts that gave me a government job, impressive magical powers, and a handsome young man in plate armour to grovel at my feet. EMPIRE STAR And of course there was the business with young Mr Stoppard, where unless I am mistaken we last met.
HOUSMAN We did. It has been a long time.
WILDE It has been no time at all. HOUSMAN Maybe not for you – my sleep is deeper. I am not here unless they sing one of my poems, and even then, I only walk these hills as if in a dream. Most days I am only here to the extent the Shropshire Lad is myself, that is to say, hardly at all.
WILDE So we are in Shropshire?
HOUSMAN The Shropshire I wrote is not the Shropshire you may have been to.
WILDE I have been to your Shorpshire more times than I have been to the Shropshire outside your pages. I have no objection to this Shropshirish, Oxfordish, Arcadia-ish place. It is a little dull, maybe, a little too pastoral, but there are worse places to be.
HOUSMAN What- ah, Reading.
WILDE And Paris, and Naples, and Berneval-le-Grand, and every jewel-bright city one visits as an exile and not as a guest.
Silence.
WILDE Don’t be quite so glum, you are souring the English countryside for me, although I suppose that is the highest and truest aim of all your poetry. To hang murderers from every tree, bury suicides at every crossroads and fill the churchyards with dead heroes, which ultimately seem to be the only sort of hero you really care about. To hell with it, show me what’s in that basket!
Housman looks around, and finds a wicker basket underneath his seat. Brings it out, looks into it, slides the whole thing over to Wilde. He rummages through it.
WILDE Cheese sandwiches. Sponge cake. Strawberries. What are these supposed to be?
He holds up a red metal cylinder.
HOUSMAN (glad to have something to explain) This is an anachronism. A deliberate one at that. I’ve seen prototypes at the Patent Office, but they didn’t start manufacturing stay-tab drinking cans like this until the sixties. Nineteen-sixties, that is.
Wilde still looks nonplussed. Housman takes it from his hand.
HOUSEMAN Here, you push the tab, and you drink from there.
Hands it back. Wilde takes a careful sip from the can, considers it, then takes a longer pull.
WILDE Gin and lemonade, with some spice to it. Pimms, maybe. I suppose absinthe would be too much to ask for.
He picks up a piece of sponge cake, eats it. Housman has not yet touched the food.
HOUSMAN There remains the question of why we’re here.
WILDE Someone clearly thinks we have something of relevance to say to one another. Or at least that my fictionalized, much-distorted form has something to say to your fictionalized, much-distorted form.
HOUSMAN So you have noticed.
WILDE What.
HOUSMAN That you’re not quite yourself.
WILDE I feel like myself, but I cannot do myself justice. I am slower, my words less exact. We are diminished, flattened in the hands of an inferior author.
HOUSMAN A corrupted text?
WILDE Worse. An interpolation.
HOUSMAN We might escape the worst of the corruption by limiting ourselves to things we have said before – things we had the time and means to edit beforehand, whenever possible.
WILDE Agreed. Now, why do you suppose you are here with me?
HOUSMAN I cannot think of anything. Not that I mind this boat on this river in this early morning light…
WILDE But you would much prefer to share it with someone else, or, failing that, much rather spend it alone.
HOUSMAN Quite. I am a textual critic first and a poet only by chance. You are an aesthete first and a poet only by circumstance. We have very little common ground.
WILDE You are too polite to mention that I whole-heartedly believe in a Christ that you find at best slightly ridiculous. I am rude enough to remind you that you declare your devotion to a queen and country that I can no longer bring myself to even jest about.
HOUSMAN So it is going to be…
WILDE There’s nothing else.
HOUSMAN It’s not what I wanted to be remembered for. I do not deny it, but I do not want my life’s work overshadowed by one quirk of my temperament. You too deserve better than to have your name tied permanently to scandal.
WILDE I don’t. I gave my own name to scandal, so now people have something to call it, the poor unnameable thing.
*
And that is how far I got with this story - if you want to get a sense of how it would have continued, I suggest you read all of Housman's poems (there aren't very many, it's three slim volumes), read the Ballad of Reading Gaol and De Profundis, they say anything I could have wanted to say much better than I can say it.
The Melora + Orlando ship should be called Valor. I can think of a few reasons why:
It’s a biblical reference, which seems in keeping with the story’s themes, considering that Melora has the Lance of Longinus. “A woman of valor who can find? She is to be valued above rubies” is quite fitting, given Melora’s association with a carbuncle (another red stone).
Both of their names contain “or”.
Melorlando is a bit of a mouthful. Valor, on the other hand, is easy to say and sounds adventurous.
Kwame: Earth!
Wheeler: Fire!
Linka: Wind!
Gi: Water!
Kwame: Uh, didn’t we forget someone?
It is too late. They watch in confusion as a figure in antiquated armor rises from the ground.
Kay: With your powers combined, I am Sir Kay!
Linka: Who are you?
Kay: I am one who may endure Fire and Water like no other and grow as tall as the treetops.
Gi: We were trying to summon Captain Planet. Not that we’re not glad to see you. Um. Will you still fight with us?
Kay: Yes, but I will complain constantly and bully the younger ones.
Kwame: Heart. We forgot Heart. HOW ON EARTH DID WE FORGET HEART?!?
A few hours later…
Wheeler: Has it ever occurred to you that you’re a jerk?
Kay: Has it ever occurred to you that you’re me?
Dagbert Endless’ mother should look like this.
Mermaid’s Face by David Delamare (American artist, 1951-2016)
Here are a few characters who I interpret as aspec:
Dinadan!!! He is an absolute aroace icon. In a source whose name has slipped my mind, Isolde comments on how he ought to be in a relationship and his reaction is something along the lines of, “Yeah, hard pass. How’s that working out for you, by the way?” (Read it with sarcasm).
Galahad, Bors, and the Grail Heroine all seem quite happy about the eternal chastity thing. None of them have any close calls with demon ladies, unlike poor Percival, the one allo person in the friend group. (Yes, Bors has a son, but a cursed ring was involved there, which is why as much as I do not stand Bors’ Morte misogyny, I will always pity him).
Kay is very rarely ascribed romantic relationships, and in one Welsh source, his father prophesies that Kay’s heart will be “eternally cold”, which could be interpreted as never enflamed by love.
Any others who come to mind?
Bors is supposedly the person who comes back and tells the story of the successful Grail questing party, so all that’s known of it is what he’s willing to say, and he makes at least one omission: the name of the Grail Heroine, Percival’s sister. After she sacrifices herself for the group, Galahad, Percival, and Bors feel immense guilt. In particular, Percival and Galahad realize that as maiden knights, they too could have given blood, and if all three chipped in, they would have had enough blood to cure the lady without anyone dying. They all miss her terribly and decide never to say her name because it’s too painful a reminder.
Since Bors won’t say her name, she previously lived in a cloister (where she might have used another name), and her parents and siblings are already dead or will die young, her name ends up being forgotten.