“
So, in the morning light, where they flapped in the drying wind, the bear and the star defied the Saxons.
”
”
Bernard Cornwell (Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur)
“
Arthur thought it better to make sure that the scattered Saxon forces could not re-form, at least while he came south for his father's burial."
"He is young,"she said, "for such a charge."
I smiled. "But ready for it, and more than able. Believe me, it was like seeing a young falcon take to the air, or a swan to the water.
”
”
Mary Stewart (The Last Enchantment (Arthurian Saga, #3))
“
Anglo-Saxon barbarians. Arthur should have been made a Knight
”
”
William W. Johnstone (A Dangerous Man: A Novel of William "Wild Bill" Longley (Bad Men of the West, #2))
“
It is the kind of stoicism which had been seen as characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry, perhaps nowhere better expressed than in 'The Battle of Maldon' where the most famous Saxon or English cry has been rendered - 'Courage must be the firmer, heart the bolder, spirit must be the greater, as our strength grows less'. That combination of bravery and fatalism, endurance and understatement, is the defining mood of Arhurian legend.
”
”
Peter Ackroyd (Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination)
“
Strategy is the conduct of wars: the application of violence for the purposes of the state.
”
”
Jim Storr (King Arthur's Wars: The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England)
“
The savage man, and the savage beast, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and disease—every impediment which Nature could place in the way, had all been overcome with Anglo-Saxon tenacity.
”
”
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
“
And yet Arthur charged us at all times to spare the innocents caught in the clatter of war. More, sir, he commanded us to rescue and give sanctuary when we could to all women, children and elderly, be they Briton or Saxon. On such actions were bonds of trust built, even as battles raged.
”
”
Kazuo Ishiguro (The Buried Giant)
“
Hic Jacet Arthurus Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus
Arthur is gone…Tristram in Careol
Sleeps, with a broken sword - and Yseult sleeps
Beside him, where the Westering waters roll
Over drowned Lyonesse to the outer deeps.
Lancelot is fallen . . . The ardent helms that shone
So knightly and the splintered lances rust
In the anonymous mould of Avalon:
Gawain and Gareth and Galahad - all are dust.
Where do the vanes and towers of Camelot
And tall Tintagel crumble? Where do those tragic
Lovers and their bright eyed ladies rot?
We cannot tell, for lost is Merlin's magic.
And Guinevere - Call her not back again
Lest she betray the loveliness time lent
A name that blends the rapture and the pain
Linked in the lonely nightingale's lament.
Nor pry too deeply, lest you should discover
The bower of Astolat a smokey hut
Of mud and wattle - find the knightliest lover
A braggart, and his lilymaid a slut.
And all that coloured tale a tapestry
Woven by poets. As the spider's skeins
Are spun of its own substance, so have they
Embroidered empty legend - What remains?
This: That when Rome fell, like a writhen oak
That age had sapped and cankered at the root,
Resistant, from her topmost bough there broke
The miracle of one unwithering shoot.
Which was the spirit of Britain - that certain men
Uncouth, untutored, of our island brood
Loved freedom better than their lives; and when
The tempest crashed around them, rose and stood
And charged into the storm's black heart, with sword
Lifted, or lance in rest, and rode there, helmed
With a strange majesty that the heathen horde
Remembered when all were overwhelmed;
And made of them a legend, to their chief,
Arthur, Ambrosius - no man knows his name -
Granting a gallantry beyond belief,
And to his knights imperishable fame.
They were so few . . . We know not in what manner
Or where they fell - whether they went
Riding into the dark under Christ's banner
Or died beneath the blood-red dragon of Gwent.
But this we know; that when the Saxon rout
Swept over them, the sun no longer shone
On Britain, and the last lights flickered out;
And men in darkness muttered: Arthur is gone…
”
”
Francis Brett Young
“
Indeed," Arthur said. "But ... no one has said I'll be a good king. It would be a relief to know I don't go mad or bad before the end."
Alex sighed, but with a smile. She knew Arthur was prying information out of her just to tease her, but two could play this game.
"You're a good king, don't worry," she said, and then looked sadly to the ground. "At least you are once you heal from ... the incident."
"What incident?" Arthur asked.
Alex shook her head somberly. "Well, if Merlin hasn't told you, then I probably shouldn't."
"Oh, right - the incident," he said, pretending to know. "Old Merlin's told me about that plenty of times."
"Good," Alex said. "So you know all about the leeches."
Arthur gulped. "Yes ... I do," he said nervously.
"Luckily by then you've already been captured by the Saxons and your legs have been ripped off," Alex said. "So there aren't too many leech wounds."
Arthur gulped. "It's the definition of luck," he said.
"It's a shame you lose both your arms in the battle before you get captured," Alex said. "But you aren't known as Arthur the Limbless for nothing."
"Arthur the Limbless? "
"Oh, yes," Alex said. "A lesser king would have let the title belittle him, but you still manage to instill fear in all your enemies. Then again, that could be because of your future wife, Queen Girtha. Of course, Merlin has told you about her ..."
"Naturally," Arthur said. "She's that nasty woman, right? So hideous, people are afraid to look at her. Now remind me, how many terrible children do we have?"
"Just the one," Alex said. "And who would have expected you to die during childbirth?"
"I die in childbirth?" Arthur asked with a quiver in his voice. "How is that possible?"
"Isn't that obvious?" Alex asked. "That's why they call your wife Girtha the Strong Handed. Did you never make that connection?"
"Oh, that's right," Arthur said. "I made that connection once before, but I forgot about it."
"I don't blame you," Alex said. "I would have blocked it out of my mind, too.
”
”
Chris Colfer (Beyond the Kingdoms (The Land of Stories, #4))
“
Imagine a vast hall in Anglo-Saxon England, not long after the passing of King Arthur. It is the dead of winter and a fierce snowstorm rages outside, but a great fire fills the space within the hall with warmth and light. Now and then, a sparrow darts in for refuge from the weather. It appears as if from nowhere, flits about joyfully in the light, and then disappears again, and where it comes from and where it goes next in that stormy darkness, we do not know. Our lives are like that, suggests an old story in Bede’s medieval history of England. We spend our days in the familiar world of our five senses, but what lies beyond that, if anything, we have no idea. Those sparrows are hints of something more outside – a vast world,
”
”
Anonymous (The Dhammapada)
“
Woe unto the red dragon, for his extermination draws near; and his caverns shall be occupied of the white dragon that betokens the Saxons whom you have invited here. The red signifies the race of Briton, that shall be oppressed of the white. Therefore, shall the mountains and the valleys thereof be made level plane and the streams of the valley’s shall flow with blood. The rights of religion shall be done away, and the ruin of the churches be made manifest. At last, she that is oppressed shall prevail, and resist the cruelty of them that came from without. For the bore of Cornwall shall bring sucker and shall trample their necks beneath his feet. The islands of the ocean shall be subdued onto his power, and the forest of goal shall he possess. The house of Romulus shall dread the fierceness of his prowess, and doubtful shall be his end.
”
”
Geoffrey of Monmouth (The History of the Kings of Britain)
“
The Name "Arthur" The etymology of the Welsh name Arthur is uncertain, though most scholars favour either a derivation from the Roman gens name Artorius (ultimately of Messapic or Etruscan origin), or a native Brittonic compound based on the root *arto- "bear" (which became arth in Medieval and Modern Welsh). Similar "bear" names appear throughout the Celtic-speaking world. Gildas does not give the name Arthur but he does mention a British king Cuneglasus who had been "charioteer to the bear". Those that favor a mythological origin for Arthur point out that a Gaulish bear goddess Artio is attested, but as yet no certain examples of Celtic male bear gods have been detected. John Morris argues that the appearance of the name Arthur, as applied to the Scottish, Welsh and Pennine "Arthurs", and the lack of the name at any time earlier, suggests that in the early 6th century the name became popular amongst the indigenous British for a short time. He proposes that all of these occurrences were due to the importance of another Arthur, who may have ruled temporarily as Emperor of Britain. He suggests on the basis of archaeology that a period of Saxon advance was halted and turned back, before resuming again in the 570s. Morris also suggests that the Roman Camulodunum, modern Colchester, and capital of the Roman province of Britannia, is the origin of the name "Camelot". The name Artúr is frequently attested in southern Scotland and northern England in the 7th and 8th centuries. For example, Artúr mac Conaing, who may have been named after his uncle Artúr mac Áedáin. Artúr son of Bicoir Britone, was another 'Arthur' reported in this period, who slew Morgan mac Fiachna of Ulster in 620/625 in Kintyre. A man named Feradach, apparently the grandson of an 'Artuir', was a signatory at the synod that enacted the Law of Adomnan in 697. Arthur ap Pedr was a prince in Dyfed, born around 570–580. Given the popularity of this name at the time, it is likely that others were named for a figure who was already established in folklore by that time.
”
”
Roger Lancelyn Green (King Arthur Collection (Including Le Morte d'Arthur, Idylls of the King, King Arthur and His Knights, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court))
“
The evidence for any sort of Arthur, however, king or otherwise, is hopelessly thin and inadequate.
”
”
Marc Morris (The Anglo-Saxons A History of the Beginnings of England: 400–1066)
“
The internal evidence in the case of certain of the recognised Scottish romances seems to point to a native origin. The principal figure in these - Sir Gawayn - has both a historical and mythical connection with the Scottish Lowlands, and with Cumberland - the southern part of the Cymric kingdom of Strathclyde. In the earlier course of the story that gradually gathered around him, he fits in with the historical circumstances. He is the son of Loth, King of the Lothians, by Anna, the half-sister of Arthur. Along with his two brothers he assists Arthur in his war against the Saxons. He is made by Arthur Lord of Galloway. He is the friend of the Caledonian Merlin...
”
”
John Veitch (History and Poetry of the Scottish Border: Their Main Features and Relations, Volume 1)
“
To think of failure is to fail.
”
”
Arthur Saxon
“
scenes from the Legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table many lovely pictures have been painted, showing much diversity of figures and surroundings, some being definitely sixth-century British or Saxon, as in Blair Leighton’s fine painting of the dead Elaine; others—for example, Watts’ Sir Galahad—show knight and charger in fifteenth-century armour; while the warriors of Burne Jones wear strangely impracticable armour of some mystic period. Each of these painters was free to follow his own conception, putting the figures into whatever period most appealed to his imagination; for he was not illustrating the actual tales written by Sir Thomas Malory, otherwise he would have found himself face to face with a difficulty. King Arthur and his knights fought, endured, and toiled in the sixth century, when the Saxons were overrunning Britain; but their achievements were not chronicled by Sir Thomas Malory until late in the fifteenth century. Sir Thomas, as Froissart has done before him, described the habits of life, the dresses, weapons, and armour that his own eyes looked upon in the every-day scenes about him, regardless of the fact that almost every detail mentioned was something like a thousand years too late. Had Malory undertaken an account of the landing of Julius Caesar he would, as a matter of course, have protected the Roman legions with bascinet or salade, breastplate, pauldron and palette, coudiére, taces and the rest, and have armed them with lance and shield, jewel-hilted sword and slim misericorde; while the Emperor himself might have been given the very suit of armour stripped from the Duke of Clarence before his fateful encounter with the butt of malmsey. Did not even Shakespeare calmly give cannon to the Romans and suppose every continental city to lie majestically beside the sea? By the old writers, accuracy in these matters was disregarded, and anachronisms were not so much tolerated as unperceived. In illustrating this edition of “The Legends of King Arthur and his Knights,” it has seemed best, and indeed unavoidable if the text and the pictures are to tally, to draw what Malory describes, to place the fashion
”
”
James Knowles (The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights)
“
Riders were in a sense central. Whether one thinks of them as Anglo-Saxons or as Goths, they represent the bit that Tolkien knew best. Against them Gondor is a kind of Rome, also a kind of mythical Wales of the sort that bred King Coel and King Arthur and King Lear.
”
”
Tom Shippey (The Road to Middle-earth)
“
Of all the generals, he alone had the will and the genius to turn back the Saxon tide. Gildas calls him the ‘Proud Tyrant’.
”
”
Edwin Pace (The Long War for Britannia 367–664: Arthur and the History of Post-Roman Britain)
“
He was son to a British lord, who, to procure him a virtuous education placed him in his infancy in the monastery of St. Iltutus in Glamorganshire. The surname of Badonicus was given him, because, as we learn from his writings, he was born in the year in which the Britons under Aurelius Ambrosius, or, according to others, under king Arthur, gained the famous victory over the Saxons at Mount Badon, now Bannesdown, near Bath, in Somersetshire. This Bede places in the forty-fourth year after the first coming of the Saxons into Britain, which was in 451.
”
”
Alban Butler (The Lives of the Saints: Complete Edition)
“
Imagine a vast hall in Anglo-Saxon England, not long after the passing of King Arthur. It is the dead of winter and a fierce snowstorm rages outside, but a great fire fills the space within the hall with warmth and light. Now and then, a sparrow darts in for refuge from the weather. It appears as if from nowhere, flits about joyfully in the light, and then disappears again, and where it comes from and where it goes next in that stormy darkness, we do not know. Our lives are like that[...] We spend our days in the familiar world of our five senses, but what lies beyond that, if anything, we have no idea. The sparrows are hints of something more outside --a vast world, perhaps, waiting to be explored.
”
”
Eknath Easwaran (The Upanishads (Classic of Indian Spirituality) by unknown 2nd (second) edition [Paperback(2007)])
“
Maya Angelou’s 1992 Inauguration Day poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” mentions the Irish, Scandinavians, blacks, women, Hispanics, Native Americans, West Indians—everyone except the ethnic group that originally created the American republic. History as diversity, then, comes to mean a “reverse exclusion”: pushing Anglo-Saxon white males and their institutions out of memory, or at least showing them to be dependent on those groups that have been subordinated to their cultural and political control.
”
”
Arthur Herman (The Idea of Decline in Western History)
“
Just as Grant borrowed heavily from Houston Chamberlain, so did Stoddard borrow heavily from Grant in The Revolt Against Civilization, adding generous doses of Lombrosian-style statistical surveys to prove that the new immigrants were systematically undermining the racial future of America.* Stoddard’s Nordic type exhibited a remarkable fusion of neo-Gobinian and specifically American virtues. Nordic man was “at once democratic and aristocratic…. Profoundly individualistic and touchy about his personal rights, neither he nor his fellows will tolerate tyranny.” He was naturally averse to degeneration: “He requires healthful living conditions, and pines when deprived of good food, fresh air, and exercise.” His racial purity becomes the key to progress as well, since “our modern scientific age is mainly a product of Nordic genius.” All the nations with high infusions of Nordic blood were, according to Stoddard, “the most progressive as well as the most energetic and politically able.89 But Stoddard also dared to confront the paradox that underlay the Gobinian confrontation between cultural vitality and civilization. Even as a healthy racial stock generates society’s material wealth and cultural attainments, Gobineau had claimed, its openness to change and diversity sows the seeds of its own destruction. Ultimately the people discover that “their social environment has outrun inherited capacity.” The Anglo-Saxon heritage cannot sustain itself in the future without its racial stock. (Grant was also a keen eugenicist.) “The more complex the society and the more differentiated the stock,” Stoddard insisted, “the graver the liability of irreparable disaster.
”
”
Arthur Herman (The Idea of Decline in Western History)
“
In practice much about warfare is a tension between traditionalism (soldiers tend to be very conservative about what they have found to work, because the cost of failure is often death) and innovation (the value of success is also high).
”
”
Jim Storr (King Arthur's Wars: The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England)
“
The Deirans appear to have mastered the technique of using fortifications offensively. That is, they would infiltrate forward and dig in, then settle the land they had just gained
”
”
Jim Storr (King Arthur's Wars: The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England)
“
From the plotting of strangers and iniquitous
Monks, as the water flows from the fountain,
Sad and heavy will be the day of Cadwallon.
The lines come from the Red Book of Hergest, a collection of Welsh poems written in the late-fourteenth century but containing material that is much older.
This brings us, neatly, to J. R. R. Tolkien. For according to a learned authorial conceit, the source of his tales of Middle-earth was the Red Book of Westmarch. Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University and one of his aims was to create a mythology for England, as the Red Book of Hergest, which contains the Mabinogion and other material, could be said to preserve the mythology of the Britons.
Many if not all the writers and scholars involved in Anglo-Saxon studies first came to the field through reading the professor’s stories – and I am one of them, so it is no accident that this story is called Oswald: Return of the King, in tribute and homage. Tolkien writes of Oswald in his seminal essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics and the parallels between him and Aragorn – rightful king in exile returning to claim the throne – are obvious.
”
”
Edoardo Albert (Oswald: Return of the King (The Northumbrian Thrones, #2))
“
Sociological claptrap also rears its ugly head. When one reads that (for example) ‘Dark Age leaders sought re-validation through the extensive reuse of Iron-Age hill forts’, or similar, one has to question what the writer was smoking.
”
”
Jim Storr (King Arthur's Wars: The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England)
“
Both Gildas and the brooches track quite well with the traditional date for the Saxon arrival: sometime around 450.
”
”
Edwin Pace (The Long War for Britannia 367–664: Arthur and the History of Post-Roman Britain)