question – Page 3 – Arthurian Legends

Hello! For my next arthuriana book read, I’m hoping to read a book that features (a) daughter(s) of Morgan, Morgause, Elaine, or Arthur in a prominent role and was hoping for suggestions. I’ve already read The Winter Prince and liked it a lot but wouldn’t consider Goewin a prominent role (I couldn’t even remember her name and had to look it up! Yikes!).

Hello! Thank you for sending the ask (again :D) and I will publish it so that everyone can give recs!

Unfortunately, the only ones I know of are King Arthur’s Daughter by Vera Chapman and Avalon by Mary J. Jones, plus the Merlin and The Book of Beasts movie, all of them about Arthur’s daughter!

Hii, I’ve been wanting to dive into arthurian for a while. Any recommendations? I’d prefer not to dive into heavy poetry though I love Lady of Shallot but as fun as Merlin is, I’ve been looking for something with more of a plot. Any help will be appreciated. Thankss!

Hello! I agree about the poetry, I love poetry (a recent development in my life) but I definitely prefer novels. And I apologize for answering this late.

I think diving in arthuriana can be approached through different ways: following one character and looking up their novels/texts first (that’s what I did), trying to go in a chronological way (first historical texts and then modern novels) or just looking for good novels that can also help summarize the arthurian canons and headcanons around.

As I am not sure which character you like, I will suggest this post if you’d like to approach arthuriana in a chronological way, but if you instead want to dive in with novels… I’ll just make a list of novels I love and I consider fundamental (and helpful!).

I’ll start with long series that narrate Arthur’s story from beginning to end:

The Once and Future King (White), this is a classic, a good novel and, as a plus, it goes from Arthur’s childhood to his death. Mostly about Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot.
Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy + The Wicked Day, this is another classic. The trilogy is all about Merlin and it narrates the story of Uther and, later on, of Arthur, while the Wicked Day is about Mordred. I am not in love with this series, but it is still a good one!
Mists of Avalon (Bradley), while I am not a fan of this novel, Mists of Avalon is still an important book in modern arthuriana and it was the first novel (if I am not wrong) with a female protagonist, also I think it defined this idea of Morgana as Mordred’s mother. Mostly about Morgana.
Persia Woolley’s Guinevere trilogy, this is a trilogy I adore. Guinevere is, of course, the main character and the story follows her childhood and ends with what happens after Arthur’s death.
Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff, this is an historical reinterpretation, mostly focused on Arthur.

And now some of my favourites:

Exiled from Camelot (Baldry). Kay is the main character. A lot of angst and lovely adventures.
The Winter Prince (Wein). Mordred focused and historical
Idylls of the Queen (Karr). Kay and Mordred investigate a murder. AMAZING.
Here Lies Arthur (Reeve). Historical, Arthur is not a good person. A Nimue-like character is the protagonist.
Corbenic (Fisher). Modern reincarnation AU with Percival as protagonist.
The Squire Tales series (Morris). A series of parodies about King Arthur, but with an overall complete plot.
The Pendragon (Christian). Bedivere narrates Arthur’s story.
Gawain (Rowley). A romance and adventure novel that focuses on the story of Gawain and Ragnelle.
The Road to Avalon (Wolf). A story about Arthur’s love for Morgana and Guinevere’s love for Lancelot.
The Doom of Camelot. A collection of short stories about the end of Camelot.
I am Morgan le Fay (Springer). The story of Morgana pre-King Arthur.

Please, let me know if you’d like some character-focused recs!

Have you heard that FAE Magazine is going to have a special Arthurian themed Spring issue? They’re currently asking for commisions. htt ps :/ / m.f acebook. com/ FaeMagazine/ It would be great if you could pass on the word.

I didn’t know about it, but it seems amazing!!

Facebook FaeMagazine

How come so mich focus on galahad/mordred tho other than like galehaut/lancelot? Its just sad for me bc people don’t even know he exists

Good question! I feel like this is partially because there are more people in the fandom who like Mordred than Lancelot, which means that people tend to focus on Mordred more (see this old survey!). The second reason might be that Mordred and Galahad are more well known than Galehaut, and Lancelot is mostly known around Arthur and Guinevere, which leads many people to ship these three characters (as ot3 or just Guinevere/Lancelot or similar). In general, Guinevere/Lancelot is the most popular pairing in media, which I suppose tends to overshadow Galehaut.

For specific reason about Mordred/Galahad, personally, I like the “two faces of the same coin” element. Both bastards, both not recognized, both with clearly troubled relationships with their fathers, both sons of mothers who tricked/shouldn’t have been with their fathers. I would say both sons of sin (but I suppose it’s debatable) and yet they end up on completely opposite sides. They both have quests that will kill them at the end. It’s intriguing!

i have to ask- how did everyone on tumblr collectively agree that, out of all the characters and all the ships, galahad and mordred was where it’s at? haha it seems so random coming in as an outsider! :D

IT WAS PARTIALLY MY FAULT… at least here on tumblr. I really really pushed for it with infinite desperation and people helped spread it and made amazing ART!

I reblog everything at galahadmordred.tumblr.com

(art by perplexingly who is the most amazing artist and often draws them)

But if you wonder where it came from, there’s a manifesto here (a bit out of date, I haven’t added new stuff, but the why and how is all here)!

Hey, i really want to read Gwen Rowley’s “Gawain” but I see it’s #3 in a Trilogy and I’m not sure if I should read the others before reading this one. If I just buy that one, will I still be able to understand what is going on? Or is it better to read the other two? Thnx.

Óhh somehow I didn’t receive this message, sorry!

Yes, absolutely! Gwen Rowley’s books are not related to each others and each one of them is actually an independent story. I only read Lancelot and Gawain and I don’t remember of any connection a part from the arthurian settings and some guest characters who were the same.

Hi there! Do you know of any books that focuses on father-son relationships or interactions between Lancelot and Galahad? Bonus points if the story has Galahad constantly vying for his approval as son or knight of equal standing.

Hello @arsnovacadenza! Sadly there are not a lot of books on Galahad and even less about them both! I think only two books (that I know of) truly qualifies:

“Galahad: Enough of His Life to Explain His Reputation” by Erskine which is about Guinevere raising Galahad and also about the relationship between Galahad and Lancelot. In general, it is actually a good book which I truly need to reread.
“Blessed Bastard: A Novel of Sir Galahad“ by Lehmann. This is a lovely book. When I think of Galahad I think of this book a lot.

But there are some more that have a little bit:

a bit of a cheating one, but Carol Ann Douglas’ “Lancelot her story” (and the sequel) focuses a lot (especially the sequel) on Galahad and her father Gawain (sorry, not Lancelot). I actually think that the best moments of this series were the ones about the relationship between Gawain and daughter
“The Book of Galahad” by Susan Cook. This is mostly about Galahad and has some parts where Galahad wants revenge against his father Lancelot, but admittedly, their interactions still manage to be quite cold (as in, flat? I expected more anger/feelings)
“The Book of Mordred“ by Peter Hanratty. Mordred is the main character, but Galahad and his father Lancelot leave on a journey with him

Hello! Me again about the project. Thank you for answering my question. I mainly was talking about point of view via characters, but also the perspective the story itself has on the base legend. For instance, like how Mists is stylistically and thematically different than the other two I listed.

Hello again! I am glad I partially answered your question!
If you are looking for something more specific about characters you can check the page fuckyeaharthuriana.tumblr.com/booksrecs where I tagged the books I have read by main and secondary character.

About styles and themes, I think most of the modern arthurian novels (with some exceptions) are different, but you might want to check Welsh texts and more old texts here: http://fuckyeaharthuriana.tumblr.com/post/38226605226/download-arthurian-texts-6th-century16th

Most of these (being written so far apart between each others) have different styles!

Hi, have you ever read a story linking the Lady Nimue-Vivian and goddess Diana the Huntress. I read somewhere that these 2 women were related by parentage (something like Diana, usually said to be a virgin goddess, being an ancestor to Nimue-Vivian’s family) and that, one day, Nimue-Vivian’s father received a prophecy by Diana that her daughter would learn magic from a great wizard (aka Merlin) and become the Lady of the Lake, but I don’t know if it’s in some of the “official” Arthurian texts

Hello! I didn’t know about this connection so I searched online and while britannia.com only makes a (unsourced) connection between Viviane and Diana’s names, I found that there is a plot connection between them in Merlin Vulgata.

Bruce’s arthurian dictionary describes it like this:

Diana
The Roman goddess of the hunt. According to the Vulgate Merlin, it was her enchantment, given to Dyonas, that caused Viviane (the Lady of the Lake) to be so alluring to Merlin. […] Diana is mentioned several times in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. She raised the huntress Belphoebe, who became the paramour of Arthur’s squire, Timias.

Unfortunately I didn’t find anything about the specific plot you mentioned! but maybe someone out there knows more!

Hey. I’m doing a year long research project on Arthurian texts mainly focusing on Le Morte Darthur, The Once and Future King, and The Mists of Avalon. Do you know of another text that would add a different view point?

Hello! There are heaps of arthurian texts with amazingly different point of views, especially if you also consider modern ones (and I suppose you are considering them as you added Mists of Avalon). I tried to make a list of the ones with the most different possible point of views/themes:

Gerald Morris’ Squire Tales series is a parody. It’s deeply rooted in Morte d’Arthur but it’s a comedy
Idylls of the Queen by Ann Karr is a mystery murder novel
Barthelme’s The King is a parodic anachronistic theatrical novel about Arthur during Second World War
I suppose one of the Guinevere trilogies could be also be interesting, as it might offer the opposite view (as in: which character te narrative is following and is sympathizing) from Mists of Avalon. I particularly enjoyed Persia Woolley’s one
Among old texts and classic, Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee is definitely a milestone, as is Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and the two Gawain stories: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle
For a different genre, you could also look into the more historical novels, like Bernard Cornwell’s series, or The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein or also Sword at Sunset by Sutcliff.
A bit on the phylosophical poetic side of things, MIchel Rio’s trilogy is all about characters analyzing politics and ethics

I think it mostly depends on what you want to focus on, do you mean a point of view as the main characters used? Or the way the story is written (the types of events that happen), why did you chose those three texts?