By the Gods!

This is an important question, so hearken to me, y’all, of the Once and Future King of England.

Many people, at one point or another, hear the call of Arthurian myth; it’s profoundly interesting and thrilling stuff, so this isn’t surprising! It’s origins are celtic, but it was popularized in a Christianized mode. The stories as we know them are an amalgamation of old folk tales, many of which centre around Arthur, the Celtic hero and general who may or may not have been a king in pre-English England.

People forget or are unaware of the fact that if Arthur did exist, he won his renown fighting the people who would become the English! Arthur’s battles against the Angles and Saxons would become legend, but he would eventually be adopted as the hero of the invaders as well as the invadees.

If the original, Welsh/Celtic Arthurian tradition is what you’re looking for, it’s tough to pin down. Look for whatever Celtic poetry/myth books you can find. For example, I’ve seen this one here: The Song of Arthur, which focuses on the “Taliesin” tradition of the Celtic and Welsh storytellers. I would also highly recommend Bernarnd Cornwell’s Warlord Trilogy.

On the more well-known, Christian side of things, all you need to do is track down one of the bajillion copies of Le Morte D’Arthur, on which most of the interprations are based. For an easier to read version of that story, you can try out T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, but you’ll be reading an awful lot of commentary about the Second World War.

If you’re interested in all this stuff, I’d recommend taking a stroll through our posts on Celtic mythology!