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A Touch of History
This will mostly contain history stuff.
The Origins of Arthur
There are tales of Arthur in Welsh and Breton lays before Chretien de Troyes coopted them for the French court. The original material is rather different than the stuff we generally get. Lancelot is mentioned once as some foreign warrior and Gawaine is the best of the men. Lancelot as we know him is an amalgam of Gawaine's hero stories and Mordred's love theme. In the originals, Mordred and Guenevere were a secret item, but once Lancelot got all the love stuff, they needed something to do with Mordred so they made him a villain.

Yes, there are random accretions from random other Welsh myths and such. Any hero story (not appropriate to the Robin Hood cycle) tended to get glommed on to the Arthurian cycle whether it belonged or not, and various authors would periodically update it to fit whatever ideas where current, hence all the chivalric accretions for Chretien de Troyes on.






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BatWulf
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Sun Jun 08, 2008 @ 07:53am
Hey! I'm supposed to be the only one who knows this stuff. Everyone else is supposed to know King Arthur only through Mallory (if that) and recent movies.

But I'm very impressed. Even if people do know of Chretien, they rarely know the Welsh material even exists. Personally, I find the Welsh material absolutely fascinating! One of these days, I'm gonna get back to writing my own version of the Arthurian legends, wait and see. blaugh


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