Malory's Morte Darthur

Notes & Ramblings

After nearly two years of surrepticiously annotating Malory's behemoth on his Psion in his lunch hours, Lugodoc couldn't help but jot down a few odd notes for his information.

If you find these of interest, this author is pleased. If you want to argue over them, even better.

Arthur's 11 Battles

From the text it is possible to list eleven distinct battles fought by Arthur over his long, violent life.

  1. The Seige of Carlion against 6 kings led by King Lot.
  2. The Battle of Bedegraine against 11 kings & 1 duke led by King Lot. Huge battle, only won by Arthur with the help of the French.
  3. The Battle of Cameliard against King Rience (to rescue Arthur's future father-in-law).
  4. The Battle of Terrabil against 12 kings led by Kings Lot & Nero. Lot is killed by Pellinore, and the others defeated and forced to submit by Balin. Arthur's rule becomes secure.
  5. The Battle of Humber against 5 kings. Putting down a small rebellion.
  6. The Battle of the Vale of Sessoine in Europe against the expansionist Roman emperor Lucius and 16 kings.
  7. Against King Claudas in France, to help Ban. No details are given; not even the name of the battlefield.
  8. The Battle of Joyous Gard against Launcelot over Guenever.
  9. The Battle of Dover against Mordred, in order to return home. Gawaine is killed.
  10. The Battle of Barham Down against Mordred.
  11. The Battle of Salisbury against Mordred. The Round Table is destroyed & Arthur & Mordred kill each other. Only Bedivere survives.

Note: there is no mention of Camlan !

Knights' Ladder

In book 7 Sir Persant of Inde (the Blue Knight) makes mention of the most renowned knights in the world.

1st = Sir Launcelot & Sir Tristram
3rd Sir Lamorak de Galis

Also worthy of mention are (in no particular order):

Hinted Heresies

The Old Religion

At the end of the 15th century, while Sir Thomas Malory was in prison writing his epic, it is perfectly feasible that in the nearby cells were old women (and young ones), awaiting trial and inevitable conviction and burning for the supposed crime of witchcraft.

Serpents & Crones

In book 14 during Sir Percivale's temptation in the wilderness, an old priest describes a serpent ridden by a crone as representing the old law.

The serpent has long been a symbol of the cthonic knowledge of paganism, whether grasped by the horned god Cernunnos on the Gundestrup Cauldron or stamped beneath the hooves of Saint George's white steed. Paganism is also associated with Goddess worship, and the crone is the eldest aspect of the Triple Aspected Goddess, Danu, who appears in her three aspects as maiden, warrioress and hag.

Arthur has three half-sisters, Morgan le Fey, Margawse and Elaine, reminiscent of the Goddess. He even sleeps with one of them. At his death he is carried away by a slightly different trio of hooded, magical women, Morgan le Fey, the Queen of Northgalis and the Queen of the Wastelands. These also remind this author of the cuculattii, an image of three hooded figures found all across the ancient Celtic world, their meaning now lost.

In book 4 Gawaine, Uwaine and Marhaus meet three mysterious women; a maiden, a women and a crone. Enigmatically, the youngest knight (Sir Uwaine) chooses the crone to guide him in his year of adventures in the Forest of Arroy.

Lugodoc finds it inconceivable that Malory had no knowlege at all of the most ancient goddess.

Who is the Land ?

Arthur, Launcelot, Meliagrance and Mordred all seek to marry Guenever. In particular, Mordred seeks to marry his father's wife when he takes the kingship.

There is a similarly sought-after woman in the Irish epic, the Tain Bo Cualigne (the Cattle-Raid of Cooley). Her mother, the terrible Queen Medb, promises her to any man who can kill Cuchullainn, the champion of Ulster. He defeats all his challengers, and in one ending of the saga, though married to Emer, he takes Finnabair for a year and a day.

It has been suggested that the tradition in European folk tales of princesses won by strangers overcoming adversity, who then also receive lands from the king, is a faint echo of an ancient real tradition of matrilinear succession, whereby the land was owned by women, and passed on from mother to daughter, and men had to prove their worthiness to marry the woman and protect the land.

In the Welsh versions of Arthurian myth, his queen is spelt and pronounced differently, as Gwenhafar. Perhaps all three names are derived from an ancient title, carried by a woman who owned the land and whom a man must win through his own prowess, and not right of birth, in order to rule the land on her behalf as her consort.

Guenever = Gwenhafar = Finnabair = Land

Four Strange Treasures

In Pelles' strange and magical Castle Corbin are mentioned 3 marvels: the Sangreal, the Spear of Longinus and a nameless, floating sliver sword.

In the first and oldest cycle of ancient Irish myth, the Mythological Cycle, also known as the Book of Invasions, a magical race known as the Danaans (the tribe of the Goddess Danu) travel to Ireland from four magical cities, bringing with them four magical treasures:

Celtic myth has more than one story about magical cauldrons that can feed all who come before them, and/or heal the sick, both clear attributes of the Sangreal in Morte Darthur.

Lugh's spear can fly around on its own, thirsting for blood, like another spear found in Welsh myth, and both remind Lugodoc of the Spear of Longinus which still carries upon it the blood of Christ.

Celtic and Arthurian myth are full of magical swords (this author counts at least 4 in Malory), and Excalibur is merely the one with the coolest name.

But, where's the rock ?. This fourth magical Celtic treasure seems to be missing, both from Pelles' castle and from Malory in general. The only references to stones in Malory seem to be

Both these rocks are associated with the proving of true kingship, like the Stone of Destiny which was supposed to cry aloud whenever a true king was crowned upon it.

A Load of Bull

In book 16 Gawaine dreams of bulls in a prophetic allegory of the Sangreal Quest. In the ancient classical histories written by the Greeks and Romans describing the iron age Celts, mention is made of the Tarbh Feiss, the practise by which druids would slaughter a bull, bathe in and drink its blood, don its skin, then wander off into the forest in a trance in order to predict the future (in particular, the next true king).

Mighty Weapons

There is an incident on the Tain Bo Cualigne in which King Aillil of Connaught catches his wife, Queen Medb, being shafted by the Ulster Exile Fergus. In revenge, he hides his sword. Not knowing where his weapon has gone, and too embarassed to admit he has lost it, Fergus carves a wooden hilt and sticks it in his scabbard, and then finds excuses to avoid combat until, when the great battle with his own tribe of Ulster looms, Aillil presents it to him again so that he can fight on his behalf.

In Malory, the actual appearance of Launcelot at Arthur's court and his first adultery with Guenever is never described directly, but clearly is supposed to have occurred just before book 5 at the end of the un-chronicled interregnum. However, in book 18, just after Launcelot defeats Sir Mador on Guenever's behalf, he thanks both Arthur and Guenever, saying:

...for ye are the man that gave me the high order of knighthood, and that day my lady, your queen, did me great worship, else I had been shamed; for that same day ye made me knight, through my hastiness I lost my sword, and my lady, your queen, found it, and lapped it in her train, and gave me the sword when I had need thereto, and else had I been shamed among all knights;"

It is also interesting that when a character transgresses, either sexually or in some other way, he often ends up being wounded in the "thigh". Is this a cop-out for the balls ?

Three Strikes and You're Out

Gawaine has the magical property of waxing triple strength for 3 hours before noon, and is finally killed by 3 head wounds; 2 from Launcelot, and the 3rd and fatal blow received at the Battle of Dover against Mordred's armies.

The iron age ritual sacrifice Lindow Man was killed by 3 blows to the head.

The Golden Bough

When the Victorian antiquarian Fraser first began his great thesis on magic and religion, The Golden Bough, he said that he was first inspired to begin his research on hearing the supposedly true story of the Shrine of Diana. This shrine existed in the classical world, and was described by the Greek chroniclers for a fact.

There was a dark, gloomy glade on a sacred island, in which grew "a sacred bough" (taken by Fraser to be misletoe). This glade was guarded by a murderer who could never leave the place, sleeping there in the open, brought food by cautious temple servants, and cursed to guard it forever, killing all who came there, until the day another came who defeated and killed him. And on that day his vanquisher would be cursed to take his place.

At the end of book 2 Sir Balin finds an island guarded by a knight with whom he is forced to joust out of custom. Sailing out there, he fights as he must, and only after each has dealt the other mortal wounds does he realise he has fought his own brother Sir Balan. As both knights lie dying, with his failing breath Balan explains that he has been cursed to guard the island from all comers ever since he himself slew the previous knight, and that, furthermore, had Balin slain him and survived, he too would have been cursed to remain there, fighting all who came, until released by death.

Cathar

Although intent on exterminating paganism, orthodox Catholicism had also recently fought several bloody battles much closer to home, against the mysterious, quasi-Christian heretical sect known as the Cathars.

Holy Blood, Holy Sangreal

More utter bollocks has been written about the Cathars in the last decade than just about any other nutty Christian mutation, one of the most famous conspiracy theories being that they brought the descendants of Jesus Christ back from the Holy Land and hid them in a castle in the South of France.

In Malory, it is true that the word "blood" is often used with exactly the same meaning as the word "kin", so that the phrase "the blood of Christ" could be taken to mean "the kin of Christ". Malory is certainly remarkably vague about the exact nature of the Sangreal, given that a quarter of his whole book is about it.

What is The Sangreal ? Is it the cup Jesus drank from at the last supper, now miraculously still containing his liquid blood 1500 years later ? Is it the dried residue of his blood on the spear that pierced his side on the cross ?

Or is it his own, living blood line ? Although Malory stops short of exactly stating that Galahad is descended from Christ, he does, at different points in the (confused) narrative, state that:

Christianity seems confounded by the simple fact that in order to procreate and produce more holy men you have to sin by shagging first.

You figure it out.

The King of The World

One particular Cathar heresy that really got up the collective Catholic nose was the idea (supposedly learned in forbidden ancient texts discovered during the crusades in the Holy Land) that Jehovah did not actually create this world, but that it was really the work of his first angel, Lucifer. And that, therefore, Lucifer is the true master of this world (as opposed to the next).

Therefore they (and modern Luceferians) refer to "Lucifer, the true master of this world".

In book 14 a good hermit warns Sir Percivale that he is about to fight "...with the most champion of the world,..." This later turns out to be "the master fiend of hell".

The Good Die Young

Another Cathar idea was that, since the true master of this world is Satan, therefore planet Earth is actually Hell itself, and best thing for any logical Christian to do is to die as soon as possible so as to get out of this world and into the next one (in theory, Heaven).

Lugodoc calculates that Galahad dies before the age of 20.

The Flesh is Weak

Cathars also believed that any pleasure of the flesh was sinful, especially SEX, and would practise abstinence and self-mortification. (But they had to stop if they started enjoying it.)

Malory seems obsessed with the idea that only a virgin can achieve grace. Both Bors and Percivale triumph over their own erections on the quest, and much is made of the fact that Bors has only ever had sex once. Hence Launcelot's failure for his quarter-century of adultery with Guenever, for although he is the greatest of all EARTHLY knights, his pure, orgasm-free offspring Galahad is greater still, being beyond sin & flesh.

and finally on this subject...

What is going on in book 15 when Launcelot meets a "good man" who "conjured on a book" and summoned a "fiend", "an hideous figure and horrible"...?

Satanists for Jesus ?

Final Ramblings

Numbers

It seems to be a significant thing to defeat eleven kings, since Arthur does it at the battles of Bedegraine and Terrabil, and King Rience boasts of having done it himself.

At the spiritual conclusion of the Sangreal quest, Galahad, Percivale and Bors meet 3 other similar trios:

This adds up to twelve questers, and in the hour that they come together from all over Christendom, they meet Christ, as if they are the new 12 disciples.

It is also interesting that Malory includes the son of Arthur's enemy in the virtuous line-up, suggesting that even Arthur's great battles are nothing but insignificant squabbles in the sight of Christ.

Gawaine vs Launcelot

It seems to this author that Malory uses the long-simmering antagonism between Launcelot and Gawaine to represent the rivalry between Christianity and paganism.

Launcelot

Gawaine

Christian

Pagan

Monogomamous

Slut

Honourable

Less Hounourable

(supposedly)

French

Scottish

Christian powers

Magical powers

A generation younger than Arthur

Same age as Arthur

A perfect reputation

Gets blamed for eveything

"The best knight of the world"

Good, but not quite that good

Between them, Gawaine & Launcelot are Arthur's favorites.

Never Marry Your Mother

Women called Elaine loom very large in Launcelot's life: one is his mother, one bears his child and one (also known as the Fair Maiden of Astolat) dies for her unrequited love of him.

Keeping the French Happy

It is oft repeated in Malory that Arthur is only able to take and then hold Britain through the strength of the French.

Incognito

Knights often go incognito to earn a reputation.

Blood

Over and over again, through out Malory, is repeated the idea that blood can heal.

Generations

"Four hundred and four and fifty years accomplished since the passion of our lord" supposedly also equates to nine generations. 454/9 = 50 years/generation. So a "generation" must be closer to a lifespan than to the age at which you procreate.

Wood

Both Tristram and Launcelot go "wood", ie mad, so perhaps it is a theme that the greatest heroes go wood at least once. And you Americans can stop smirking.

Glastonbury

The legend of Arthur finally makes much more sense if he is resting somewhere, like the Isle of Avelion, waiting to return. And yet Malory sticks in the clumsy bit about how his body might have ended up at Glastonbury after all. If Arthur is resting in Avelion how can he be buried in Glastonbury ? Unless Avelon = Glastonbury.

Or was the Glastonbury bit added by Malory just as a tourist bung ?

The Final Battle

Where is the nearest lake to Salisbury for Bedevere to ditch Excalibur? I can't find one within 50 miles. The nearest coast is Bournemouth (25 miles South). However, the River Avon flows through the town and there has been a lot of wetland drainage in the South of England over the last 1500 years. Maybe Excalibur's resting place has been drained and turned into a housing estate.

& finally...

Is Dinadan Gay ?

There is considerable evidence that Sir Dinadan, the popular, humourous knight, may be gay. To whit...
"...went unto Palomides, and either made other great joy, and so they lay together that night. And on the morn early came Sir Tristram and Sir Gareth, and took them in their beds..."

Those were the days....

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