Seriously...

In the quest of the Holy Grail, we learned that as perfect as Lancelot seems he is a sinner like the rest of us. I feel like every text we read about Lancelot, his behavior remains the same and he never learns from his mistakes. He is dishonorable for having relations with Queen Guinevere, lying, fighting and injuring his fellow knights' of the Round Table. Lancelot did not deserve the prize. His incomparable fighting ability has rotted roots that are decaying. I know I am not without flaws or sins, but at least I attempt to correct my wrongs.

I realize I may be a very arrogant knight but at least I am loyal. At least I have not broken (repeatedly) the vow between the knights' of the Round Table to fight one another and the universal vow to not fight ones’ relatives.

To Lancelot specifically--

Lancelot, you knew that Elaine, the Fair Maid of Astolat, would fall in love with you. Instead of deflecting her, as Sir Gawain deflected Morgan le Fay in the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, you led her on. You accepted her token knowing what it symbolized. I grieve for this beautiful, virgin's death. Stepping back I realize that if you had deflected her attempts at seduction she may have moved on. Instead you used her and left her, uncaring of the consequences of your actions. You cared more for what Queen Guinevere thought of your actions than the serious consequences that occurred. Although you take responsibility for these actions, it is simply not enough to apologize and pay for her proper burial.

Queen Guinevere is right to be angry with you Lancelot, but not for the reasons she believed. Yes, she was angry that you wore another woman's token. Yes, she stated that you are a traitor and should be tried for treason. Yet, she has committed a similar offense. She has cheated on King Arthur many, many times, which is called adultery, and is illegal.

Stop making the same mistake! Stop betraying your lord and fellow knights' of the Round Table! I do not care if you are the "best" knight in King Arthur's court or the world; you are a dishonorable fool who will never learn from his mistakes no matter how many times you make them.

If the crossing of the stream represents the honorable path a knight should choose, guess which horse represents you...

-Sir Kay

Sir Kay breaketh his sword at ye Tournament, by Howard Pyle from The Story of King Arthur and His Knights. (1903)

In Which Sir Gawain ships Launcelot and Astolat

            Poor Lancelot may have lost his one chance at true love, and by his folly caused the fall of an innocent maiden.

            Be not mistaken by my words, fellow gentry. Lancelot du Lac is the finest warrior I know, and among the noblest of knights. True, at my Lord Arthur’s behest I have abstained from any tournament from him, but this is merely to spare the kingdom of the weary spectacle of us crossing lances. From the many quests and feasts we have enjoyed together, I can attest that his courage and charisma knows no end. But in the times we spent together, as if we had been brothers from birth, I have also ascertained the qualities which he still lacks, namely the control over his fleshy passions.

            The Queen Lady Guinevere, as I’ve always known, is the mistress of Sir Lancelot, but I have remained suspicious if this love is true. With all due respect to her majesty, the Queen has a very childish temperament, and often appears to merely coax this sire along with her malevolent charms until she obtains what she desires. Therefore, I hoped and continue to hope that Lancelot would befall into the passions of a maiden who could truly love him unconditionally.

            And indeed such a maiden appeared.

            Now of course, I am not dismissing the great stress that Lancelot’s body was forced to endure, having accidentally received a blow from Sir Bors almost to the doorstep of death itself. However, I know that the Knight of the Cart is as sturdy as a rock, and although the wound was deep it only served to render him immobile for several weeks at the Castle Astolat. After all the smiting the rest of the knights have received over the years, even myself at the hands of Sir Galahad, it is only fitting that Lancelot should have to endure a similar wound at some point.

Lancelot is the original Captain Hammer

            Nevertheless, ever concerned for fellow knight, I began searching for Lancelot after the beginning of his disappearance. After many days I arrived at the Castle of Sir Barnard of Astolat. It was here, so I ascertained, that Lancelot recovered from his wounds by the aid of Lady Elaine. But what struck me as most peculiar was the implied intimacy between this knight and Lady Astolat. Clearly she loved Lancelot with all her heart, and even offered him the red token to wear at the tournament. And what did Lancelot do? He accepted the token! I say, there have been many, many ladies to offer immense gifts to this knight, but never in all my years have I known him to accept one.

            I even attempted to dissuade the advances of Guinevere by reporting what I found, but alas she would not hear any word of it. Inevitably, Lancelot would break Elaine’s heart by forsaking her at Astolat and returning to Camelot, leaving her to take her own life as tragically as Lucretia. I only hope this death does not cause any lasting erratic effects on Lancelot’s behavior. 

Hello again to all of you beautiful people,

These stories were definitely interesting to hear about, am I right? I mean we have heard these stories all before but Sir Thomas Malory did tell us about these tales in such an interesting way. We all knew that King Uther slept with Igraine and Arthur was made between these two. What we did not know was that Uther and the Duke were not on friendly terms. So how did he think it was okay to sleep with her when he wasn't even friendly with her husband.

However, I don't mean to be cocky but I do believe that one of the best stories that Sir Malory told us was the Knight with the two Swords. This story was interesting to hear because we got to hear how forgiving King Arthur is. Fortunately he let me out of prison to help the lady. Interestingly enough I was the only knight who was able to pull the sword off of the woman. I don't know about any of you, but I think this sounds a lot like King Arthur and the stone.

King Arthur was the only person who could pull that sword out of the stone. They even put the sword, Excalibur, back into the stone and Sir Kay did not have enough strength to pull it out.

But back to me, thank the lord he let me out of prison so that I could go on a journey to a castle. Unfortunately what I failed to inform you all about the first time was the fact that I had to fight my own brother. And in the end, this tale turned out to be a tragedy when I killed my brother and he killed me. Not everything is parties and glitter in Camelot.

Until next time everyone,
Sir Balin

Family or Foe?

Greetings everyone,

The other day, I was promised the best of the best hospitality.  And as a polite knight should always, I accepted her offer and stayed the night.  Who wouldn't have? Little did I know because of that coward Sir Damas and his brother Sir Outlake, I would find myself waking up in a dark dungeon next to a bunch a prisoners complaining about their fate.  Then soon later accepting a challenge to fight a battle against an unknown opponent who was a very tough matchup.

In the beginning of the battle I took a pretty bad beating, but I had no thoughts of quitting.  At first, I was unsure and confused on who my opponent was, and why he had a sword identical to mine.  And that is when I started to get this bad feeling in my gut that something was not right and that this fight may be a set up.  Whether it was a set up or not, I am always down for a good head to head brawl.  A great king never backs down from a fight, especially when it involves freeing innocent prisoners.  Finally, with the help from Nyneve, I got the advantage on my enemy and was able to get in position to finish him with one last blow, but I heard a voice that I was really familiar.  

I am very sorry to say that the challenger I faced was Sir Accolon.  He was a noble knight a part of my court and who unfortunately passed away four days later from excessive loss of blood.  We need all of Camelot to come together.  We were set up by Morgan Le Fay, and I promised Sir Accolon that she would not be forgiven and that there will be revenge.  

As a lot of you may know that Morgan Le Fay is my sister, but I have no love for her, and because of that I do not consider her to be a part of my family.  She is know sister to me, she has caused a disturbance in my kingdom and wants to cause more, and as our king I will not have it.  I am sure as we speak, she is planning a way to finish the job she has started.  But no fear, I have a plan to attack her before she even dares to attack Camelot.  

Arthur, Merlin, and Knights: another version.

My fellow peers,

I must admit that I was relieved that I was able to read a story that told me a story about Arthur and how he came to be the King of Camelot, setting some long standing curiosity. Yet when thinking about how much I really know about it, how Arthur was chosen to come to become the King, We are once again told he story of how Arthur was conceive, however there were some differences that were in the details of how I feel about the deception of Uther and Meriln. Other differences show the different feelings of how Uther came to deception and his true feelings. I find it interesting how the timing was able to be determined despite the war that was going on. After the death of King Uther, the story is what is normally thought of in the modern world is closer to what we expect.  The sword in the stone, the old wizard Merlin, and the hundreds of people that are there to try the stone as well. I was surprised to learn that my son did not know what the situation of his birth was, yet I was thrilled to be able to be reunited with my son again.
Keeping track of the different kings during the 12 kings war, was a little confusing.

The story of "Balin, or the Knights with the two swords” appears the be a continuation of the previous story until around the middle of story. Like the other stories that have been read there is not much background with what the story is about, the Knight with two swords.

While I was reading the story, The War with the Five Kings” I knew that Merlin knew that he was going to die however, he stills go with Nyneve, yet in this story love is not something that is mentioned in throughout the story like in the “Prose of Merlin.”

Till next time my fellow bloggers

Igerna

A Change is in the Air

Greetings nights and ladies,

Quite a change in storytelling, wasn't there?  Much of these stories we have heard about before. (After all, who could forget about the great and fascinating beginnings of the legendary Arthur. )  We have heard much of the legendary Merlin as well, but there is one retelling of a story about Merlin that is quite different from the one we've heard before.  Yes, indeed, there is definitely a sense of change in this version.  Much like the other version, me and the other legendary knights of the Round Table still went on great quests to prove our honor, and the fine ladies are still pure and charming.  However, there is not as much scandal here as in the other stories, which some feel lessens the appeal of these stories, to which I say, scandal is never appealing and should always be frowned upon.


You must recall, dear nights and ladies, of how the smart and deceitful King Uther tricked Igraine and  made love to her because he found her very beautiful?  In this version, however, we are given an extra and interesting bit of information.  From this version, we surprisingly come to find that Uther and Migraine's husband, the Duke of Tintagil were enemies.  My view and many peoples' view on this is that he deserved what he got, as in addition to bringing about the conception of Arthur, the Duke of Tintagil left the court without permission, which shows he was dishonorable.

Could this mean a change in the story telling of our brave and strong heroes and lovely ladies? If it is, those in favor of this type of story telling will most likely not be disappointed (Even though I do not favor this.)  However, Camelot continues to be full of scandal.  Ladies are cheating on their spouses and our discovered, and the stories of me and my fellow nights, I must admit, are better.  Even Arthur himself has an illegitimate child, one who was conceived by his aunt.

In addition, we finally here of the legendary tale of the sword in the stone.  This story brings back to conception the thrilling and incredible quests of the Arthur we all know and love; there is definitely a sense of the supernatural in this story.  This is defiantly one of the quests which we shall always remember the great Arthur for.  I, for one, will continue to pay tribute to my dear friend by emerging myself into these stories, continuing to stand by Arthur's side and thinking about all that we have accomplished for the rest of my life.

Until next time,


Lancelot




  
 

  

                                                                                           

   
         

Just another point of view

Greetings to the members of this fine round table,

Sir Thomas Malory's accounts are interesting to say the least.

King Uther, with the help of Merlin, laid with Igraine and that night conceived a child, which later is named Arthur (yes, king arthur). But we knew this already. What we didn't know though was that Uther and Igraine's husband did not like each other. I don't see how this would excuse his behavior though, especially since her husband had just died hours before Uther laid with her. That's pretty rude if you ask me, I mean her husband just died, give her some space.

I enjoyed learning more about the sword in the stone. I found it rather amusing that Arthur could pull the sword out with no issue, but when it was returned to the stone, Sir Kay could not pull it out with all of his might. This gives us that nostalgic "fairy tale" feeling that we have been getting only glimpses of as we read these tales. 

isn't is beautiful?

One other part of this reading that struck me as odd was the part when Morgan le Fay gives Arthur a sword and scabbard that were false, which almost killed him in his battle against Accolon of Gaul. It was Accolon who had the excalibur and used it against Arthur. Morgan is Arthur's half sister, why is she trying to have him killed? If I was Arthur, I would have been pissed. She switched his sword!

what i imagine arthur was thinking when he realized what morgan had done

Until next time,

Guinevere

A change in the storyteller

Oh what a difference a storyteller can make! Much of the the first part we read this week, "Merlin," is a retelling of the story of Arthur's beginnings. Thus far, we have been told this story twice already, but the flavor of the story has changed in this rendition. Yes, the knights still go on grand quests to prove how honorable they are (and sometimes tests prove how DISHONORABLE they are) and ladies are charming and pure. However, much of the scandal that made the older stories come alive reduced here.

Remember, dear Lords and Ladies of the Round Table, how King Uther tricked Igraine and warred with her husband because Uther found the lady pretty? This time, when that story is told to us, we are given an intriguing bit of extra information. Apparently, Uther and Igraine's husband, the Duke of Tintagil had been enemies. It feels like this tidbit was added to excuse King Uther's obsession with Igraine, which causes war and death. The argument seems to be that, in addition to bringing about the conception of King Arthur, the Duke of Tintagil may have deserved what he got... Plus, he did leave court without permission...

Could this be a knew moral turn for our brave heros and lovely ladies? If it is, the fans of debauchery have no cause to fear yet. Camelot, the greatest kingdom on Earth, still brims with scandal. Ladies still cheat on their spouses and are found out (recall the lady whose husband left her in a forest), and the knights are little better. Even the mighty King Arthur has two illegitimate children thus far in the tale, one of whom was conceived by his AUNT.

Plus, we are finally told the whole story of the sword in the stone, so perhaps that was worth the ladies suffering through the battles and the jousts. The story of the sword and the stone story brings back the feelings of honor and destiny we are all drawn to. This is one of those moments that brings a sense of wonderment to the story of King Arthur. I think this is why we love King Arthur and his knights so much. Despite the fact that they have human weaknesses, like cheating on their spouses or taking magical green girdles for protection against magical green knights, the universe often seems to conspire to bring about their happy endings. And who does not like a happy ending? It was indeed clever of Sir Thomas Malory to place his characters in a universe that seems to believe they are the "good," regardless of what they do. Ladies, knights, and even peasants, can see ourselves in the characters.

Until the Table meets again,

Lady Bertilak

Merlin: A Teacher for all Time

Merlin: A Teacher for all Time

It is I, Bertilak, and I come to you in friendship to deliver my assessment of the character of my lord Merlin. I have read Sir Thomas Malory’s accounts of King Arthur’s rise to fame and glory, of his unbelievable exploits on the fields of battle, and of his unfortunate errors in judgement. There is a common thread in King Arthur’s story that the good people of Britain should not ignore—the mystic prophet Merlin.

To begin with, are we Britons not indebted to Merlin for all time? Has he not given us a history like no other, full of heroism, of honesty, of generosity, and of mercy? We would not have had our extraordinary king if Merlin had not used his magic to provide him.  We would not have four of the most enduring signs of the greatness of Britain. He gave us both the sword in the stone and Excalibur, the first being a symbol of the rightful accession of royalty and the second a symbol of Arthur’s supremacy. He gave us Stonehenge, a remarkable feat of engineering that will astound visitors to our land for millenniums. He gave us the Round Table, a symbol of our courage and moral strength.

It was not enough for Merlin to arrange for the birth, baptism, and upbringing of King Arthur. He was our good king’s most loyal counselor and guide until his own death at the hands of Morgan le Fay. It was Merlin who designed the means that would prove to everyone that Arthur was our rightful king—the sword in the stone. It was only the stubbornness of the people that made it necessary for Arthur to demonstrate his right to the throne more than three times. It was Merlin who took Arthur to the lady of the lake to accept Excalibur from her hand. We should note that Merlin’s advice was clear on the subject of offense versus defense concerning the magical sword. When Arthur said that he preferred the sword to the scabbard, Merlin said, “You are a fool…while you wear [the scabbard,] regardless of how seriously you are wounded, you will lose no blood” (24).

When Arthur was foolish enough to have an affair with his aunt and father Modred, Merlin tried to protect Arthur for us. Merlin could see the future, including the treachery of Modred and Arthur’s death, so he advised our king to arrange for the deaths of all infants born on May Day (25). This story resembles the story of Passover in the Bible. However, in the first story, the great leader Moses and the Israelites survive, but in Mallory’s story the murderer of our great king survives.

Merlin even teaches that when two opponents are of equal goodness, they will not defeat each other with his prophesy of the battle between Sir Launcelot and Sir Tristram (30). They ceased fighting and embraced on Merlin’s stone, fulfilling Merlin’s prophesy (255).

Bertilak, the Green Knight