Arthurian Quotes I Love, Pt. ?

#SOMEONE PLEASE DROP THE SOURCE FOR THE HECTOR ONE THAT SOUNDS AWESOME

@sanddef

It's from Cantare di Astore e Morgana (the Cantare of Hector and Morgan).

Here’s a link to a translation originally posted by lazerbem on Reddit, courtesy of Redpanda from the Arthurian Theater Discord server:

Google Docs

Cantare of Hector and Morgan

A few things which are “canon” somewhere for people who are worried they’re stretching it too far

Arthur was killed by a giant cat. 

Arthur killed the cat.

Arthur didn’t fight the cat. Kay did.

Kay and Bedivere use salmon as taxis. 

Lucan is half giant, half lion. (This Lucan, Lucano in the original Italian, is evil and not related to Bedivere). 

King Arthur raided the land of the dead.

The human knight Caradoc Briefbras has three half siblings: a dog, a horse, and a pig.

A large portion of Arthur’s troops was killed a while before Camlann by his nephew’s attack ravens in self-defense. Arthur and said nephew were playing chess at the time and neither did much to stop it.

Merlin retired peacefully and went to live in the countryside with Taliesin.

Wherever Arthur walks, plants die. They don’t grow back for years.

Arthur had a spunky (half?) brother who died in battle after making a mysterious oath.

Dagonet is more or less able to run the kingdom when Arthur is gone. His biggest error is overspending on mercenaries.

Guinevere has an evil almost identical twin half-sister.

Hector beat up all the best knights except for Galahad while possessed by a demon.

Gawain plays tennis.

Gawain has used a chessboard as a weapon.

Near the start of his reign, Arthur left Lot in charge of the kingdom and went on a quest with a sassy parrot.

Gawain or Galahad succeeded Arthur as king. 

thinking about the atrocious 1970s vampire musical movie produced by beatles drummer ringo starr in which ringo plays merlin the wizard and it's sort of not explained why merlin is even in a vampire movie in the first place

The sad thing about Les Prophéties is that there is no known English translation (yet). There's this translation into slightly more modern French on Internet Archive, which was found by @liminalpsych, but the scan is pretty low quality, at times illegible (including Sebile-related parts), and not searchable.

It's worlds better than nothing, and you can glean many gems just from the contents and introduction, which are in English. Dinadan finds a prophecy in a graveyard, Lancelot hangs out with Lionel and Bors and rescues Galehaut, there is at least one gryphon and a dragon, Sebile and Morgan have a love/hate relationship, Morgan and Bruce have a surprisingly wholesome friendship and he patches her up after a fight, Percival hangs out with a hermit and has some love affairs, one of the Ladies of the Lake does a lot of stuff, Tristan does something, Gawain is there... It has something for pretty much everyone.

Alas, the days when it can be read in its full glory are yet a dream.

vulgate if you don’t have its essential reading

wackier recommendation Les Prophéties de Merlin it has toxic Morgan Seblie yuri and medieval witch power scaling, also everyone wants to bang old man Merlin very chaotic (warning highly misogynistic even for its time )

Oh I don't have vulgate so I will defo get that!!!!

TOXIC MORGAN SEBILE YURI?! YES PLS why does everybody wanna bang that old dude? Can I buy Les Propheties online translated into English?

If we go down,

then

we go down

together

Song lyric from "Paris" by the Chainsmokers; paintings by Herbert Draper, John Duncan, John William Waterhouse, N.C. Wyeth, Sidney Meteyard, Edmund Leighton, Rogelio de Egusquiza, N.C. Wyeth, August Spieß, Harry R. Mileham, August Spieß

Cath Palug's Power Level (& Kay's)

(Source: Pa Gur yv y Porthaur)

Here is the excerpt portraying the hero Cai ap Cynyr, later known as Sir Kay, defeating the dreaded monster, Cath Palug (meaning "Palug's Cat" or "Clawing Cat").

And it's a pretty fearsome beast - over 180 in a single night died to it before Kay came to kill it himself. But reviewing it for a bit I noticed the translation says "Nine Score Chieftains" and I thought "wait does this mean a hundred and eighty war leaders and not simply champions? Does that mean Cath Palug also killed their retinues?".

In the history of Welsh Warfare, the Teulu (meaning "family"), was an important and primary element of Military power, being the personal household guard under the patronage of a Welsh lord. The size of these Teulu warbands, depending on the wealth of a chief, could range anywhere from 50 to 120 warriors. (Llywellyn ap Gryffyd had a teulu of 160 men)

So, I took a close look at the original Welsh text:

...and identified the words being translated are "kinlluc" and "kinran"

Afterwards, I went over to the online Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru/A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (HERE) to clarify their meaning:

So yes, the poem is referring to 180 war leaders getting slaughtered overnight by the monster cat. But, the implication here is that, reasonably and common sense-wise, the chieftains brought along their warbands to hunt a wild animal.

This means, if we choose to interpret the poem saying Cath Palug killed both the chiefs AND their teulu (around say a hundred warriors each), then we are looking at anywhere up to 18,000 warriors and their leaders being massacred by Cath Palug in a single night.

Which gives us a sense of scale of how powerful Cath Palug and its slayer, Sir Kay, must have been.

(Probably still not as powerful as Arthur, given his battle with Twrch Trwyth...)

🧙, but also what's gringolet 👀

What's Merlin's deal, in your own words?

Merlin’s deal varies. He’s the result of mashing a few different characters into one, and he does a lot of dubious things in the texts which became most influential but does them on the side of the good guys so people want to like him and water him down into a less sinister figure. 

It’s the Historia Regum Britanniae which lays the groundwork for the character as we know him today. First a wunderkind, whose father is thought to have been an incubus, Merlin is nearly used as a human sacrifice as a child but talks his way out of it by explaining the real reason why King Vortigern’s tower keeps falling down. He’s later responsible for the construction of Stonehenge and for disguising Uther Pendragon as Gorlois so that Uther can sleep with Gorlois’ wife Igerna. She doesn’t know it’s Uther at the time, so Merlin is an accomplice to rape by deception. Later on, Merlin is the magical advisor to Uther’s son Arthur, and Arthur is considered a righteous king (even if he does some very dubious things from time to time). That puts Merlin on “the right side” most of the time going forward but also doesn’t make everything Merlin does morally justifiable. There are some texts where he’s downright antagonistic—the big example being Eachtra Mhelóra agus Orlando, where Arthur nearly has him burned at the stake for his crimes but Arthur’s daughter Melora says they should show him mercy—and some where he’s just very, very morally gray. There are exceptions. Myrddin Wyllt, the possibly-historical Welsh bard who appears in The Black Book of Carmarthen, is more sympathetic, almost Lancelotlike in personality: after inadvertently killing his own nephew in battle, he goes insane and wanders forlornly in the forest, talking to a piglet because his sister won’t forgive him. Then again, “didn’t want to kill a relative (but did anyway)” is a very low bar, and that’s not the Merlin iteration who’s in the public consciousness. 

The Merlin we see most in modern media is the archetypal wizard, the friendlier Gandalf figure who guides the righteous king, with his fouler deeds omitted or justified or glossed over, and that’s…fine. I guess. It takes away a lot of nuance, but if you want a wise, magical grandfather figure for your plucky young king, then Merlin is the closest option at hand and has a cultural resonance. I understand it, and I enjoy a good Merlin from time to time, but that’s not who he is, or at least not who he always is. I would appreciate more questionable Merlins—and they do exist. I would appreciate more meant-well-did-badly, non-Arthur-affiliated, bardic Myrddins, too. 

(P.S. At least in the BBoC translation I read, Myrddin himself says that he is “second only to Taliesin”. Mull on that a bit. Given Taliesin’s own questionable moments, I’m not sure whether it’s really a compliment or an insult).

What’s Gringolet?

Gringolet, my friend, is a horse. Not just any horse, however. Gringolet (also known as Ceincaled) is Gawain’s horse, and he is a force of nature, one of the Three Spirited Horses in the Triads. Gawain is a notorious horsegirl, so naturally he requires a horse as awesome and bloodthirsty as he is, and Gringolet is at least as well-regarded as his usual rider by members of the Arthuriana fandom (I’ve seen tier lists which ranked him higher than Gawain). In short, Gringolet is a phenomenon, and one I’m sure a Beri stan like yourself would appreciate, though I admit my enthusiasm for Gringolet is not as great as a lot of people’s because there are other awesome Arthurian horses (Guinevere’s gray palfrey who can go on water or land, Kay’s horse Gwineu Goddwf Hir, etc.) who remain overlooked while he hogs the limelight. That’s not Gringolet's fault, though. 

He also has his own Wikipedia page. Who among us can say that?

Thank you for the ask!

Made fancy tea for my mom for Mother's Day. Mom served as the model for Mrs. Whitaker in my adaptation of Neil Gaiman's CHIVALRY graphic novel You can also see the china I used in the book. It's my favorite pattern.

May I propose a quite likely erroneous theory for why Gawain is associated with May?

His name.

Even if that etymology is wrong, it could have been influential, to the source or to the scholarship. At any rate, it’s a compelling reason to celebrate Gawain in May.

Ellian my friend Ellian I'm going mad please help me locate the source for Gawain's birthday on May 1st I remember seeing it and now I can't verify to save my life. Phoning a friend rn.....thank you<3

okay im trying to find it right now but one of the earliest mentions of it on tumblr i can find is from lou's blog here and lou mentions here that it's from an academic article

✨🧡🌙SEND THIS TO OTHER BLOGGERS YOU THINK ARE WONDERFUL. KEEP THE GAME GOING ✨🧡

Thank you so much!

Arthurian characters I interpret as acespec:

Galahad, the Grail Heroine, and Bors: They generally have no apparent trouble or qualms with the eternal chastity thing (except Bors when he gets cursed, but he gets cursed).

Brangaine: In La Tavola Ritonda, she tells Gouvernail that she never wants to have sexual relationships, and in a text I haven't yet read or been able to identify, she apparently stops Kahedin from sleeping with her by using a magic pillow to make him fall asleep, a role which is Camille's in Kaherdin and Camille.

Dinadan: In LTR, they call him the Wise Man Who Does Not Love, and while he has a romantic interest in LTR, their relationship isn't sexual. To the best of my knowledge, he has no other romantic interest and no sexual relationship in all of medlit and pretty much always scorns both concepts. Usually aro, demiromantic in one text, and always ace.

Lucan: It's not anything he says or does, but unless you count the actions of Lucano the evil half-giant half-lion in LTR, he doesn't have any romantic and/or sexual relationships in any medlit I know of. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but in my mind, he's on the aro and ace spectrums.

Happy Ace Week to all who celebrate!

Edit: I had somehow left out Dinadan, who I originally meant to include a picture of. I guess you could say he's implicit. Truly one of the aroace icons of all time. He ran so Jughead could also run.