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Arthur is a fabled British king who figures in many legends. He appears as the ideal of kingship both in war and peace; even in modern times he has been ranked as one of the 100 Greatest Britons of all times. Over time, the popularity of the stories of King Arthur have captured interest far beyond his being the legendary hero of one nation. Countless new legends, stories, revisions, books, and films have been produced in Europe and the United States of America that unabashedly enlarge on and expand the fictional stories of King Arthur.
The scarce historical background to Arthur is found in the works of Nennius and Gildas and in the Annales Cambriae. The legendary Arthur developed initially through the pseudo-history of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Welsh collection of anonymous tales known as the Mabinogion. Chretien de Troyes began the literary tradition of Arthurian romance, which subsequently became, as the Matter of Britain, one of the principal themes of medieval literature. Medieval Arthurian writing reached its conclusion in Thomas Mallory's comprehensive Morte D'Arthur, published in 1485. Modern interest in Arthur was revived by Tennyson in Idylls of the King, and in the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites. Key modern reworkings of the Arthurian legends include Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, T.H. White's The Once and Future King and Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal. (read more . . . )
In the legend of King Arthur, the Round Table was a mystical table in Camelot around which King Arthur and his knights sat to discuss matters crucial to the security of the realm. In some versions, the wizard Merlin also has a seat.
The Round Table first appears in Wace's Roman de Brut, though the idea of Arthur surrounding himself with the world's finest warriors dates back to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and the medieval Welsh material such as Culhwch and Olwen and the Triads. The most popular origin story of the table first appears in Robert de Boron's Merlin, and was taken up by the later prose romances. In it, the table was created by Merlin in imitation of Joseph of Arimathea's Grail table; itself an imitation of the table of the Last Supper. In works like the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the Round Table was created for Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, and was kept by Uther's vassal Leodegrance after his death. When Arthur becomes king, he receives the table as a gift when he marries Leodegrance's daughter Guinevere.
There is no "head of the table" at a round table, and so no one person is at a privileged position. Thus the knights were all peers and there was no "leader" as there were at so many other medieval tables. There are indications of other circular seating arrangements to avoid conflicts among early Celtic groups. However, one could infer importance on the basis of the number of seats each knight was removed from the king. The siège périlleux ("dangerous chair") was reserved to knights of pure heart. (read more . . . )
Sir Galahad is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the bastard son of Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. He is perhaps the knightly embodiment of Jesus in the Arthurian legends. He first appears in the Lancelot-Grail cycle, and his story is taken up in later works such as the Post-Vulgate Cycle and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.
Galahad's conception comes about when Elaine, daughter of the Grail King Pelles, uses magic to trick Lancelot into thinking she is Guinevere. They sleep together, but on discovering what has transpired, Lancelot abandons Elaine and returns to Arthur's court. Galahad is placed in the care of his great aunt, the abbess at a nunnery, and is raised there. "Galahad" was Lancelot's original name, but it had been changed when he was a child. Merlin prophesies that Galahad would surpass his father in valor and be successful in his search for the Holy Grail. It is also interesting to note that Galahad's maternal grandfather Pelles is generally considered to be a descendant of Joseph of Arimathea's brother-in-law Bran (whose line was entrusted with the grail by Joseph), making him matrilineally Jewish. (read more . . . )
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