sir gawain would do numbers on tumblr

“average arthurian knight has 3 names" factoid actualy just statistical error. average knight has 1 name. names gawain, who lives in a castle & has over 10,000 names, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

Here have some more from The Arthurian Name Dictionary.

Reading (listening to, as Homer intended) the Iliad making me go oh. Ohhh. I should have done this before I read Gideon the Ninth. I get it now.

Particularly thinking now about the tidbit that in early drafts, our beloved gray-eyed Necromancer Warden of the Sixth House was named Diomedes Sextus. For Diomedes, king of Argos, young, brave, noble, heroic. Favorite fighter of Athena, bestest friend of Odysseus. And, notably, fought gods and—well he didn’t win exactly. But he got them good.

And specifically, he fought and wounded Aphrodite; Aphrodite, who is also called Cytherea.

And then of course Tamsyn Muir said she decided to change his name so she could make the Sex Pal joke.

Palamedes is a less heroic, less fondly remembered character in the Trojan War, but according to Plato, he unrelatedly invented both number and the alphabet, so you keep that connection to scholarship even if that’s not the first association with him. More interestingly, imo, there’s also an Arthurian Knight of the Round Table named Palamedes, best known for his unrequited love for Isolde (and his apparent ultimately gracious acceptance of her choosing Tristan).

I think this is actually a super interesting shift in thematic naming focus: from favored-of-Athena, fought-gods-and-wounded-them to unrequited heterosexual love, but didn’t act like a dick about it.

Also y’know. Sex Pal

if you ask me, the guy who put the sword INTO the stone should be king, not the chucklefuck who got it out.

I assume the guy who put the "sword that makes you the king" into the stone, doesn't really want the position

i think the stone should be king since it held the sword the longest

I was watching This Lecture by Timothy Snyder about the formation of nations(as it pertains to Ukrainian history), and as part of it he talks about the stories nations tell and the shapes they take, and that got me thinking about Charlemagne, which got me thinking about Arthur, and it occurred to me that the story of Arthur is kinda-sorta a Medieval AU of the Gospels?

Like:

there's a bit more that's occurred to me thinking about this(the similarities in their birth, the obscurity of their childhood, the Sword in the Stone story and the Stories of Joshua wowing all the priests with his knowledge of the Torah on his first visit to Jerusalem), but it was the Second Coming stuff that first grabbed me.

Anyway u_u

*Yes, I realize he slept with Morgana, but he doesn't KNOW that and he didn't INTEND to, just as he's not intending to deny and disinherit Mordred since he doesn't even know who he is.

meriadeuc 19h

Ah ok! Obvsl the versions of it I've read changed that bit, and either merged her with Morgause, or I did that in my memory :p

Thanks for the info!

Sometimes reading Arthuriana feels like reading Alice in Wonderland.

“Well,” said Alice, “these are a dreadfully strange assortment of objects!”

“They all symbolize different aspects of Our Lord’s martyrdom,” said the Fisher King, casting a line into his teacup.

“Indeed. I am sure everything symbolizes something else, for if everything was only itself I should be very confused. Might I ask what the point of the bleeding lance is?”

Alice regretted asking the question as soon as she had done so, for she saw the pun that would likely be made about the word point. Instead, however, the room erupted in applause and shouts of “The Grail! She has achieved the Grail!”

The next castle she visited, Alice resolved to herself as the inhabitants of this one danced for joy, would be more sensible.

Or I could do this with The Knight of the Cart.

“Which shall you choose?” asked the guardian. “The underwater bridge or the sword bridge?”

“Both sound dreadful,” said Alice. “I think I’ll just float the cart across.”

The guardian sputtered so hard his helmet broke.

“You cannot ride in a cart to rescue a queen!”

“I don’t see why not,” said Alice, growing cross. “It can’t be worse than abducting a queen.”

“Oh, much worse! For to abduct a Queen is wicked but heard of, while to save he on a cart is virtuous and unheard of.”

“Oh, tosh!” said Alice, floating the cart.

“If you cut my head off,” said the Green Knight, “then in a year and a day, I shall cut off yours.”

“Certainly not!” said Alice.  “For if you can survive such a blow, it would be quite unfair to me, and if you cannot, then I will have killed a man over a silly game!”

“Silly games are the most important thing in the world,” said the Green Knight, “for it is after them that we judge honor.”

Alice thought to herself that if this was honor, adults could keep it.

In honor of a thing that keeps popping up in Arthurian novels I read…

“You have nothing to fear,” said the robber knight, “for you are traveling alone. Everyone knows a knight may not attack a maiden alone, but only a maiden traveling with a knightly protector!”

“That can’t possibly be a law,” said Alice. “Camelot is absurd, but not that absurd.”

“It is not a law, but a custom.” The robber knight sounded as if he were lecturing a fool, which Alice felt was very unfair of him. “Customs are far more important than laws, for laws may change, but customs never do.”

Alice didn’t think that was true, but she would not argue the point.

“What about attacking a knight?” she asked. “Can someone attack a lone knight, or only a knight traveling with a maiden?”

“One may attack a knight any time and under any circumstance. That is the meaning of the word ‘knight’- he can be attacked by day or by knight!”

With the understanding that, as a maiden traveling alone, she might attack the knight and he could not return the attack, Alice picked up a handful of rocks from the ground and began to throw them at him. She was not generally an unruly child, but everyone has their limits.

polyamory and bisexuality could have saved camelot

this was about king arthur & queen guinevere & lancelot in, like, le mort d'arthur I guess but people saying bbc arthur & gwen & merlin: yeah sure. them too.

Ok: what REALLY makes this funny is that, in the retellings of this story that I've read, Arthur doesn't even CARE about the infidelity, he's totally cool with his wife banging Lancelot, but Mordred's raising such a stink over it AND Arthur's whole "the law applies to EVERYONE No Exceptions!" reforms that he's bscl bullied into it. So who's to say they WEREN'T secretly a throuple already??

OK we see you cunty wizard

everyone keeps warning lancelot about the sword bridge. for 80 pages everyone he meets tells him hey lancelot look out, you’re going to have to cross the sword bridge. and it’s like oh, what’s this gonna be? what’s he going to have to face when he gets to the sword bridge? what’s the challenge? and he gets there and it’s just a really long sword. serving as a bridge.

\

Sometimes reading Arthuriana feels like reading Alice in Wonderland.

“Well,” said Alice, “these are a dreadfully strange assortment of objects!”

“They all symbolize different aspects of Our Lord’s martyrdom,” said the Fisher King, casting a line into his teacup.

“Indeed. I am sure everything symbolizes something else, for if everything was only itself I should be very confused. Might I ask what the point of the bleeding lance is?”

Alice regretted asking the question as soon as she had done so, for she saw the pun that would likely be made about the word point. Instead, however, the room erupted in applause and shouts of “The Grail! She has achieved the Grail!”

The next castle she visited, Alice resolved to herself as the inhabitants of this one danced for joy, would be more sensible.

Or I could do this with The Knight of the Cart.

“Which shall you choose?” asked the guardian. “The underwater bridge or the sword bridge?”

“Both sound dreadful,” said Alice. “I think I’ll just float the cart across.”

The guardian sputtered so hard his helmet broke.

“You cannot ride in a cart to rescue a queen!”

“I don’t see why not,” said Alice, growing cross. “It can’t be worse than abducting a queen.”

“Oh, much worse! For to abduct a Queen is wicked but heard of, while to save he on a cart is virtuous and unheard of.”

“Oh, tosh!” said Alice, floating the cart.

“If you cut my head off,” said the Green Knight, “then in a year and a day, I shall cut off yours.”

“Certainly not!” said Alice.  “For if you can survive such a blow, it would be quite unfair to me, and if you cannot, then I will have killed a man over a silly game!”

“Silly games are the most important thing in the world,” said the Green Knight, “for it is after them that we judge honor.”

Alice thought to herself that if this was honor, adults could keep it.

In honor of a thing that keeps popping up in Arthurian novels I read…

“You have nothing to fear,” said the robber knight, “for you are traveling alone. Everyone knows a knight may not attack a maiden alone, but only a maiden traveling with a knightly protector!”

“That can’t possibly be a law,” said Alice. “Camelot is absurd, but not that absurd.”

“It is not a law, but a custom.” The robber knight sounded as if he were lecturing a fool, which Alice felt was very unfair of him. “Customs are far more important than laws, for laws may change, but customs never do.”

Alice didn’t think that was true, but she would not argue the point.

“What about attacking a knight?” she asked. “Can someone attack a lone knight, or only a knight traveling with a maiden?”

“One may attack a knight any time and under any circumstance. That is the meaning of the word ‘knight’- he can be attacked by day or by knight!”

With the understanding that, as a maiden traveling alone, she might attack the knight and he could not return the attack, Alice picked up a handful of rocks from the ground and began to throw them at him. She was not generally an unruly child, but everyone has their limits.

On the topic of drawing characters as furries, was looking up Arthurian shit the other day and im frankly shocked I havent come across anyone drawing King Arthur + knights of the round table as furries. That feels like something that should of happened by now.

Arthur...

Arthur should be a (pen)dragon, ‘tis true

completely normal question : What would queen Guinevere‘s fursona be

she’s a cat and lancelot is a mouse with Toxoplasmosis

An ermine because [waves hands in direction of medieval symbolism without looking at it]

“Albino Deer” by Herve Balland

#yea id probably abandon my throne to chase him through the forest for centuries. i can see myself doing that#but NOT for hunting. for a hug#animals(via@sashayed)

and she [sebille, a pagan princess] began to weep for she was very afraid of the Fay Knight. Sagremore pulls her towards him in an embrace and says that he would love her very much had she been christian. Sebille promised him that she would be baptised and accept the christian faith. Sagremore kissed her face but avoided her mouth, which angered the lady, as she had been gripped by a feverish love, the same love that pushes men to do many foolish acts. And this further inflamed Sagremore who could feel ardour beneath his clothes. 'Sweet friend' Sagremore comforted her 'there is nothing in the world I would not do for you'. 'Promise me that you will not leave me before my baptism and the end of this war'. Sagremore swore it and she wanted to kiss him on the mouth but he would turn his head so that she could only reach his cheek. After a while (?) she could no longer bear it and removed her clothes and when Sagremore felt it he started and pulled back 'Lady, by God, de not make me disloyal unto God as this would kill and shame me ! God is my witness I desire you as much as you desire me'. And she replied that she was dying, that she would not see another day if he did not lie with her. And so she was certain that Sagremore would witness her baptism she rose and took a jug of water and came before Sagremore and said 'Sir, then look what I will do !' And she did the sign of the cross on the water and then threw it over herself three times after blessing it in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.

hmmmmmm

Accepting the faith like:

Props to Sebille for performing what i think might qualify as an erotic baptism.

I beg of you all, as a Snake of History, Read this and PLEASE understand how Horny people in the Middle Ages were capable of being >:| THIS IS FUCKING KING ARTHUR!!!