![]() ![]() The book was written in 1968 with my edition containing an updated section written in 1982. And the writings go on today, with Mary Stewart among others. The book ends with the legend updated through the centuries, or as Ashe states it, the “new matter of Britain,” from Tennyson to White. The typical clothing of the war lords was not the shining armor of the Knights of the Round Table but more like the Roman clothing of the occupation of Britain a few short centuries previously. In the sections on life in the Dark Ages, we have to totally let go of our images of both the sacred and the secular. Could we speak of Glastonbury as an island? Possibly. Were they Camelot, Tintagel or Avalon? No one knows for sure. Ralegh Radford, Philip Rahtz, and Leslie Alcock write sections depicting Cornwall, Wales and Cadbury. The writers of the times were a bit sketchy so it is impossible to be sure of names, dates, or places. There is evidence that there was an exceptional leader in the Britain of 500 A.D. We need to give up our concept of medieval knights as set out in Mallory and reinforced in White’s as well as the Broadway hit. ![]() Ashe sets up the facts and as well as the mythology in the first few chapters. Who exactly was King Arthur? Did he exist? If so, where and when? Geoffrey Ashe and other Arthur scholars try to answer some of these questions in The quest for Arthur’s Britain. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |