A review of Fairies a History, by Francis Young.

 

A slightly different version of this review first appeared online in The Brazen Head for September 2026.

Fairies A History, by Francis Young. Polity Press Ltd. 2026. 340 pp

 

Towards the end of the 12^th Century, Laȝamon added a story to the French poem he was translating. He wrote that at king Arthur’s birth, the baby was visited by magical beings who took charge of him with strong magic and gave him gifts. 

 

Sone swa he com an eorðe; aluen hine iuengen

 heo bigolen þat child; mid galdere swiðe stronge.

 

The magical beings are called aluen. 

 

I had always assumed these were elves, but noticed recently the word had been translated as fairies. The Middle English Compendium cites this quotation and offers: ‘Fairies or Elves of either sex’ as a translation. Take your pick.  Could he distinguish between an elf and a fairy? And if he did, what were they? But what did Laȝamon visualise when he wrote the word? 

A study of elves in his poem concludes, somewhat unhelpfully, that the term is ‘prone to shapeshifting. It can connote disease causing organisms, witches, nymphs, sea monsters fairy mistresses, nightmares[i].’

 

In search of answers, I have been reading scholarly works on fairy belief, for obvious reasons mostly centred on the Middle Ages, but Francis Young’s A History of Fairies, is the most thorough treatment of the subject I’ve found.

 

Ranging widely over time and geography he puts together a comprehensive and readable history of the idea of fairies. He does this even though his introduction explains why it is impossible to write a history of Fairies in the way someone could write a history of ‘The French’ or carpentry. 

 

The main problem facing him is the difficulty of defining the subject. Although some kind of ‘fairy belief’ has been a characteristic of British and many other cultures throughout recorded history, today the words fairy and elf point in the wrong directions: to cute little winged creatures with a wand (thank you 19^th century and Disney) or beautiful folk with pointy ears (thank you Professor Tolkien and Peter Jackson.). 

 

Throughout history people encountered supernatural beings, but discovering which beings they encountered is problematic. In the past the names used to describe ‘fairies’ were often deliberately vague or euphemistic to avoid either naming or offending the ‘good people’ who were often everything but good. Though there are stories of encounters from the Middle Ages onwards, they were usually recorded by educated men using Latin terms which may or may not reflect the words used by their vernacular speaking informants. To compound the problem, the supernatural beings in these encounters didn’t introduce themselves as fairies or elves, or boggarts, nor are they usually identified using such names[ii].

 

Young’s solution is to define fairy as: ‘A frequently invisible population of uncanny, non-human (yet human like) living beings, reported by folklore who share our world[iii].’ Having done so he demonstrates how to write a history of a subject that can’t be clearly defined based on evidence that is unreliable for so many reasons. 

 

He traces the possible origins of fairies to the animism of prehistory, and later what he calls the godlings of non-Christian belief. For most of Europe’s Christian history the fairies have been the unsanctioned supernatural, sitting aslant a theology that was more comfortable with angels and demons, ghosts, God and the Devil[iv].

 

As the narrative moves towards the present, it moves on to firmer ground. There is more evidence, and the bias and error are perhaps easier to see. Folklore became a respectable subject by the 19^th century and educated people started to take an interest in the beliefs and practices of ‘The Folk’. Ironically, some of them didn’t just record fairy belief but (perhaps inadvertently) invented some and repackaged others.

 

Stepping neatly through the problems of evidence and contending arguments, Young is even handed in summarising various points of view, while tentatively offering his own. At times this even handedness makes the book feel like a symposium where everyone is on their best behaviour. 

 

Given the limitations of the evidence there’s an unavoidable familiarity to much of the material. However, a history of fairies that didn’t mention Elidyr or the Cottingley fairies, or Bridget Cleary, would be deficient. Young’s emphasis on each is his own. Summarising the story of the Cottingley photographs, he explores their consequences for subsequent fairy belief. The death of Bridget Cleary comes in the context of how belief can be denigrated as superstition and used for political ends. 

 

It's a history where there are few certainties. There are crucial problems other than definition that never will be solved. The contemporary relationship between the fairies of medieval literature and the fairies of popular belief is impossible to untangle. Why the church and civil authorities moved from a long-standing dismissive attitude towards popular ‘non-sanctioned’ supernatural beliefs to what Young aptly calls a lethal credulity will never be known. 

 

At times this uncertainty and the lack of definition threaten to subvert the attempt to discuss the subject. Across time and geography, the accounts are so various, the practices so widespread, so similar yet different that it must be difficult to know what can be excluded from the discussion.   

 

What is missing, inevitably, are the fairies themselves. As Young acknowledges, a history of fairies must be a history of the opinions of educated, literate people, then and now, about other people’s beliefs (p.24). I still don’t know whatLaȝamon thought aluen were, but the book is a reminder of how ‘vast and various’ the human imagination is, and how unpredictable people can be. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of that most rational of detectives, was a believer in the Cottingley photographs. Hugh Dowding, who led RAF Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain, was a firm believer in fairies, belonged to the Fairy Investigation Society, and feared the next war would be between fairies and humans.

 

A History of Faires stands out amongst the ones I’ve read for several reasons. The book ranges widely over its subject in time and geography. While he focusses on Europe, Young acknowledges that a belief in fairylike creatures spreads much further. While acknowledging the role of Ireland in fairy lore, the geographic range of Young’s examples prevents him from falling into the trap of suggesting fairies are ‘Celtic’ or that all elves come from Iceland.

 

While adopting a neutral stance as to their existence, he insists that ‘Fairies are part of the rich history of human experience and I do not see why belief in them or claims of encounters with them are any less worthy of respect than say, religious beliefs or reports of religious experiences (p.2)’. Coupled with this is his refusal to fall into the modern trap of ‘explaining’ fairy belief. Modern writers who reach for an explanation which appeals to them as rational can sound like adults in a primary school playground and their explanations usually raise more questions than they answer[v].

 

Because he takes his subject seriously, Young can suggest that more is at stake in a history of fairy belief than the question of when fairies were first portrayed as being tiny, cute creatures with wings. 

 

Belief in non-human populations of supernatural beings existed all over Europe, and not just in those countries where it was endlessly discussed and self-consciously revived by romantically inclined intellectuals in the nineteenth and twentieth century. (p.205)

 

If this belief in a human-like, non-human social being was so widespread, for so long, does it reveal something about the ways humans made sense of the world and their place in it? What does the disappearance of this belief as a widely held assumption suggest about modern consciousness? The book raises these questions while admitting their answers are beyond its scope. 

 

Fairies a History also has a significance beyond its subject matter. It is an effective demonstration of how difficult it is to understand or discover what people believed in the past.

 

I started with Laȝamon and his story about aluen. He was a parish priest, for part of his life at a small church in Worcestershire. He and his parishioners would have identified themselves as Christian without hesitation. However, we know nothing about what ‘being Christian’ meant to them; what they knew of Christian doctrine or how much they understood it; or how it shaped their behaviour or their imaginative, emotional and intellectual lives. We sometimes know what an elite group of highly educated men thought everyone else should believe. We know what some snarky high-ranking ecclesiastics thought of ‘parish priests’ in general, but of their faith we know as much as we do about their interactions with the local aluen. 

 

Fairies A History is an eloquent reminder that confident assertions about the beliefs of the mass of any population in the past are about as trustworthy as those famous photographs taking in a garden in Cottingley. 

 

 

---

[i] Cyril Edwards, ‘Layamon’s Elves’ in Laȝamon: Context, Language, and Interpretation, Edited by Rosemond Allen, Lucy Perry and Jane Roberts. P.95 

[ii] A point made by both Jeremy Harte in Fairy Encounters in Medieval England and Richard Sowerby in Natural and Supernatural in Early Medieval England. 

[iii] This is similar to Alaric Hall’s suggestion in Elves in Anglo-Saxon England that the early Old English evidence suggest Elves were ‘Corporeal anthropomorphic beings mirroring the human in groups which believed in them (p.68).’ Such definitions give historians room to manoeuvre even if they aren’t very helpful for the reader.

[iv] For a focussed discussion of Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church, see, Richard Firth Green, Elf Queens and Holy Friars. 

[v] See for example Matthias Egeler’s ‘Explanation’ of some of the practices associated with fairy abduction in Elves and Fairies: A short history of the Otherworld, p.61. 

A Presentment of Englishry, A Man of Heart, The Fabled Third

I started writing these ten years ago and now they are finished and I can hear the Grateful Dead singing; 'What a long strange trip it's been'.

Narrative poetry, or Historical fiction, or historical fiction in verse. I think of it as storytelling, 

From a prehistoric tin trader visiting the island to the struggle for power at the end of Roman Britain and the coming of the English.

The stories of Locrin, Gwendoline and Aestrild; Vortigern and Rowena; and Uther and Ygrayne are taken from Laȝamon‘s late twelfth century version of the legendary history of Britain. The Fabled Third also contains versions of three stories from The Mabinogion. 

Laȝamon‘s own story is sketched in A Presentment of Englishry and he returns to close the books at the end of The Fabled Third in Laȝamon‘s Last Interview. 

Information and samples on Shearsman UK’s website, Information, Samples and background at  www.liamguilar.com.    

Nu biddeð Laȝamon alcne æðele mon;

for þene almiten Godd.

þet þeos boc rede; & leornia þeos runan.

þat he þeos soðfeste word; segge to-sumne.

for his fader saule; þa hine forð brouhte.

& for his moder saule; þa hine to monne iber.

& for his awene saule; þat hire þe selre beo. Amen

The Fabled Third is now published

 

The Fabled Third is now available directly from the publisher: Click Here  and from the usual online outlets. Take advantage of a weak Australian Dollar and buy direct from my website: Click Here where you will also find samples and background information.

Summary.

Following the outline of Laȝamon the priest’s late twelfth century version, The Fabled Third is the story, in verse, of Uther Pendragon’s attempt to rule what’s left of the Roman province of Britannia in the late 5^th /early 6^th Century. His British subjects are more interested in squabbling over their privileges than in working together against the increasing numbers coming to plunder the ailing province. 

 

Gorlois Duke of Cornwall, a survivor of the previous regime, resents Uther, is resistant to royal authority and is looking for an excuse to renounce his oath of allegiance and go to war. An equally resentful Merlin, banished from the court, is plotting his revenge.  

 

The women are caught in a struggle for precedence and power, knowing the consequences of failure are horrifying. Ygrayne, the wife of Gorlois, has seen what happens to the wives of defeated rulers. Knowing that her husband can’t beat Uther, she too is plotting. 

 

The book begins when Gwydion, a British storyteller, arrives at Uther’s court. Uther is in need of a bard. He challenges Gwydion to tell three stories, for three different audiences.  Versions of Gwydion’s stories will later be collected in ‘The Mabinogion’ but as he becomes involved in Uther’s struggle to rule the province, the first two stories are easy. 

The third is the problem. 

Publication: The Fabled Third.

 P

Photos are what happen when you need a break from the seriousness of proof reading the final proof copy.

The Fabled Third, the last instalment in the run of books that began with A Presentment of Englishry, will be published by Shearsman in the UK in January 2025. Details and samples on the publisher's website.

https://www.shearsman.com/store/Liam-Guilar-The-Fabled-Third-p673705296

Who was King Arthur's mother? Laȝamon’s version.3/3

Laȝamon’s version.

 

It’s a relief to move from texts written in Latin, a language I can’t read, to two texts written in languages I can; Anglo-Norman and Early Middle English. 

 

Laȝamon’s early middle English version is the most dramatic of the four. As was his practice, while closely following Wace, he expands incidents and adds speeches. He removes Wace’s criticisms of Uther, while consistently adding comments which emphasise Ygærne’s innocence. 

 

In places you can almost see how he had visualised what he read and then, in translating, added small but significant detail. However, he also possessed a limited vocabulary of praise and an apparent lack of interest in ‘motivation’. Some terms in French which would later enter English, seem to have had no equivalent in his version of English.  

 

Ygærne is introduced by her social role, as most of Laȝamon's characters are. Gorlois ‘sat with his gracious wife’, ‘the fair Ygærne the wife of Earl Gorlois, the fairest of all women’. Wace’s ‘Courteous and wise’ disappear, but Laȝamon seems to have had trouble translating ‘curteise’ (courteous) which may account for its absence here. (Later in the story he translates ‘Curteise’ as ‘of tuhtle swipe gode’ (Which Barron and W translate as ‘refined in bearing’ and more literally ‘of very good manners’)

 

Wace’s ambiguous ‘Ygærne behaved in such a way as neither to consent nor refuse’, leaves his translator confused: ‘He looked at her often, flashing glances from his eyes, often sent his cup-bearer to her table, smiled at her and eyed her often; and she looked kindly upon him-but whether she loved him I do not know!’  

 

Laȝamon makes her more than just the object of Uther’s lust. When Gorlois sends her to Tintagel he writes: ‘To Tintagel he sent his beloved, gentle wife, called Ygærne, the fairest of women, and shut her up securely in the castle, Ygærne was sorrowful and sad at heart that so many men for her sake should lose their lives there.‘

 

For Laȝamon, Uther’s problem is not the impregnability of Tintagel, but Ygraene’s character. To Wace’s Ulfin he adds: ‘If you think to win Ygærne  with such violence , then she will behave as no woman ever does, feeling in extreme fear the sweetness of love. But if you love Ygærne you should keep it secret, and quickly send her gold and silver and woo her with cunning and with fair promises. Even so it would be doubtful whether you could possess her, for Ygærne is a good and very faithful woman as her mother was and others of that family. 

 

In Wace and Geoffrey, Merlin is sent for. In Laȝamon he has to be found. He is staying with a hermit. Merlin tells the hermit: ‘Uther is filled with longing for the lovely Ygraene, greatly besotted with the wife of Gorlois. But it will never happen, as long as time shall last, that he shall win her save by my magic skill: for there is no truer woman in this mortal world.’

 

By dramatizing Uther’s arrival at Tintagel, Laȝamon reinforces the success of the deception. ‘They came to the gate of the castle and called out in a  familiar manner: Undo the bar of this gate, the earl is come here, the lord Gorlois’. But instead of the gates being thrown open, soldiers come to the wall and speak with Gorlois ‘and recognised him clearly’. 

 

He gives Ygærne the only lines of direct speech in the four versions:

‘Welcome my lord, dearest one; and Jurdan and Brutael are welcome too. Did you escape from the king without harm?’

 

Neither Geoffrey nor Wace give much space to what actually happened in Tintagel. But Laȝamon describes the scene. It contains perhaps the quietest moment in The Brut:

 

Ygærne beh to bure; & lætte bed him makien.

wes þat kine-wurðe bed; al mid palle ouer-bræd. 

Þe king hit wel bihedde; & eode to his bedde.

and Ygærne læi adun; bi Uðere Pendragun. 

 

He insists that Ygaerne is unaware she’s in bed with Uther. 

 

‘Now Ygerne truly believed that it was Gorlois; in no way whatsoever did she recognise Uther the king. The king went unto her as a man should to a woman and his way with the woman most dear to him and he begot on her a marvellous man, the boldest king who ever was born; and he was called Arthur..(9513) 'Ygerne knew not who lay in her arms, for all the time she fully believed that it was the earl Gorlois.' 

 

After he returns to his army, all reference to Uther’s response to Gorlois’ death is removed. Uther sends messengers ‘to greet Ygærne, the noblest of women, and sent her as a sign something she had said in bed, commanding her to yield up the castle immediately-there was no other recourse for her lord was dead. Ygærne still believed the truth was that the dead earl had gone to join his troops and she firmly believed it was not true that king Uther had ever come to her. ‘ 

 

‘There and then Uther the king took Ygærne as queen: Ygærne was with child by King Uther before she was married, all through the magic of merlin.’ 

 

Laȝamon, who we know was a priest, adds one more detail to this story. IT's not in his sources. When Arthur is born:

 

Sone swa he com an eorðe; aluen hine iuengen.

heo bigolen þat child; mid galdere swiðe stronge.

heo ȝeuen him mihte; to beon bezst alre cnihten.

heo ȝeuen him an-oðer þing; þat he scolde beon riche king.

heo ȝiuen him þat þridde; þat he scolde longe libben.

heo ȝifen him þat kine-bern; custen swiðe gode.

þat he wes mete-custi; of alle quike monnen.

þis þe alue him ȝef; and al swa þat child iþæh.

 

I’ve quoted the original because Barron and Weinberg translate Aluen as fairies, but I’ve always read it as elves. The Middle English dictionary says it could be either. For a modern reader fairies might evoke the disneyfied version. Elves, especially the Old English, pre Tolkien variety, were more sinister and much less benign. The elves attend and give gifts: strength to be the best of knights; that he should be a mighty king, and they gave him long life. ‘So that he was the most liberal of living men’. 

 

 What's is a reminder that what's important to the tellers of this tale, is not Ygærne, or the twisted morality of the the story, but the fact that it leads to the birth of Arthur. 

Which should lead to Ygraene as a 12^th century lady. 

Who was King Arthur's Mother? 2/3 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace.

The four texts are The Vulgate version of Geoffrey of Monmouth (GOM), the First Variant Version of GOM (hereafter FVV), Wace’s ‘Roman de Brut’ and Laȝamon's ‘Brut’. 

 Quotations are taken from these editions.

The Wife of Gorlois is respectively, Ygerna, Igerna, Ygerne, and Ygærne.   

 

In all four texts the story of Arthur’s conception follows the same sequence and contains the same elements that first appear in Geoffrey’s account. Only Laȝamon adds anything substantial to the account. However, each writer treats the material differently. Geoffrey relates the story. Wace is critical of Uther. Laȝamon removes the criticism of Uther and goes out of his way to emphasise Ygaerne’s innocence.

 

 

The Sequence:

 

At a feast to celebrate Uther’s recent victories, he sees the wife of Gorlois. Uther is besotted, and his behaviour outrages Gorlois who storms out. 

 

Gorlois puts his wife in the safety of Tintagel, which is impregnable, while he fortifies and occupies another castle. 

 

Overwhelmed by desire, Uther besieges Gorlois but can’t take the castle. Sick with love, he asks Ulfin for advice.

Ulfin points out that Tintagel is impregnable, and advises him to seek Merlin.

Merlin offers to transform Uther into Gorlois so he can enter the castle and bed Ygerna.

While Uther is absent his men attack Gorlois, kill him and capture his castle.

Uther hears the news and leaves Tintagel.

He then takes Tintagel and marries Ygerna. Arthur is born. Later, a daughter,  Anna is born. 

And there is no further mention of Ygerna. 

 

The differences between the Vulgate and the First Variant are slight. 

 

Neither mention Ygerna’s reaction to Uther’s behaviour at the feast. FVV notes the David and Bathsheba parallel, with ‘Satan as the go between’, perhaps alluding to the earlier meeting of Vortigern and Rowena, also at a feast, where the devil was indeed busy. 

 

Uther is upset by the news that Gorlois is dead but in GOM ’he mourned for the death of Gorlois; but he was happy all the same, that Ygerna was freed from her marital obligations’. In FVV‘ ‘…pretending to be saddened by the death of his duke, but rejoicing not a little about Igerna’s release from her marital bond.’

 

Uther takes Tintagel and marries Y/Igerna. GOM states: ‘From that day on they lived together as equals united by their great love for each other: and they had a son and a daughter’. The First Variant ‘After their nuptials were lawfully and splendidly celebrated, the King and Queen Igerna lived together side by side. And at the time for her delivery she gave birth to that famous Arthur. Afterwards she conceived and brought forth a daughter named Anna.’  

WACE

 

As I’ve said before, the conception of Arthur was a ‘morally ambiguous’ story for a cleric writing in the 12^thCentury. Possibly far more morally ambiguous then it would have been a century later. Uther is intent on committing adultery and/or rape: Ygerne’s actions could be described as adultery, though unintentional. Later writers, Malory most notably, would make sure Gorlois was dead before Arthur was conceived, but this isn’t in Geoffrey. 

However, in all four versions, only Wace shifts the narrative so it becomes openly critical of Uther. He also adds a little to Ygerna’s character. 

 

In his version of the story, even before he’s seen her, Uther ‘had loved and desired her for she was exceedingly celebrated’. 

I don't know at what point the Church decided the intent to sin was the same as committing the sin but Mathew 5;28 is quite explicit: 'But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' The implication in Wace is that he’s been waiting for his opportunity and he intends to make the most of it.

 

Y is introduced: ‘There was no fairer in all the land: she was courteous, beautiful and wise, and of very high rank.’ Courteous and Wise distinguish her from other dangerous beauties, like Rowena and Aestrild.  

 

While Uther is flirting with her the obvious question is ‘what was she doing?’ Geoffrey doesn’t describe her reaction. Wace adds: ‘Ygerna behaved in such a way as neither to consent nor refuse.’ Which may have been a sane policy in such a situation, but it doesn’t exonerate her either. 

 

Wace’s Ulfin becomes the voice of reason. For Geoffrey’s Ulfin, the impregnability of Tintagel is the only problem, but Wace leaves Tintagel out of Ulfin’s speech.  

 

‘These are astonishing words,‘ said Ulfin. ‘You have harassed the count with war, destroyed his lands and confined him to this castle. Do you think that that pleases his wife? You love the wife and make war on the husband! I don’t know what sort of help you need; I can’t advise you.’

 

When he learns of the death of Gorlois: Uther ‘was grieved that the count was slain, he said; that had not been his wish. He was full of regrets and compunction, and angry with his barons. He seemed distressed but there were few who believed him.’

 

‘The king, deeply in love with Ygerne, married her without delay. She had conceived a son that night and in due course bore him.’

And that’s the end of her role in the story.

In the Next Post, Laȝamon’s version.

(The arguments over whether the ‘Vulgate’ version of GOM came before or after the ‘First Variant’, or whether it’s the work of one or two writers, aren’t relevant here nor is the debate about which version Wace used, or whether or not Laȝamon had read Geoffrey.)

Who was King Arthur's mother? 1/3

(And we're back to things Arthurian.)

 

Igerna.

 

No one knows where she came from.

They say she’s of the fairy folk, 

blown in on the wind,

washed up on the strand, 

though he can’t imagine her 

surprised and shipwrecked on the beach.

She would have glided over the wave tops

unruffled by the tempest, using 

her drowning companions as stepping stones. 

Rumour says Ireland, or the Western Isles,

but where family is defining,

she’s no one’s daughter. No one at court

remembers when she first arrived, 

nor how. She might have been a slave. 

But she had captivated Gorlois

and that prim, moral man, 

was soon creeping to her bed at night

while his wife was sleeping solitary in his.

                                                                        From ‘The Fabled Third’ (To be published in 2025).

 

It’s perhaps significant that while ‘who was Arthur’s father’ has been the subject of scholarly dispute (see previous posts on Uther), his mother seems to have created much less interest. In R.S.Loomis’s encyclopaedic ‘Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages’ (1959) she didn’t even rate an entry in the index. Blackwell’s huge ‘Companion to Arthurian Literature’ (2009) gives her three entries but none of them is more than a passing references to her role in the story. 

 

In Culhwch and Olwen, ‘the oldest Arthurian tale’, the story turns on Arthur’s relationship with Culhwch. By inference, Arthur’s unnamed mother would seem to be a daughter of Amlawd Wledic, and she has sisters and brothers.

 

Whether Geoffrey of Monmouth knew any of this is debatable. An online search  produces various sites that confidently declare that Ygerne or Igerna is from the Welsh Eigyr.  It would take a better linguist than me to disprove this, but I’m not convinced. In the ‘Vulgate version’ of Geoffrey of Monmouth (hereafter GOM) she is Igerna. In his exhaustive study of names in GOM J.S.P Tatlock had nothing to say about her name except that it had only been found as a male name, Iger or Igner in Brittany. 

In Laȝamon's Brut there is a passing reference to her mother and others in her family, but as it’s not in his immediate source, it could just be a conventional compliment. 

Realistically, she is not a character in the modern sense. She has a narrative function: to give birth to Arthur, and that’s all you need to know. But having said that, it’s worth tracking her from Geoffrey, via Wace, to Laȝamon. It is only in the latter that she speaks. 

(IN the next post: Geoffrey tells the story and Wace blackens Uther's good name.)

The Conception of King Arthur. Transformation, magic and belief.1/3

  

 

The story of Arthur’s conception may have been Geoffrey of Monmouth’s invention. (See previous posts about how was King Arthur's father.)

 

Uther, love sick for Ygraene, and at war with her husband, Gorlois, is transformed by Merlin into Gorlois and as Gorlois, Uther is able to enter Tintagel castle and spend the night with Ygaerne. 

 

The story opens Malory’s 15^th Century version. There are classical, biblical, mythological and folk tale examples that might have inspired Geoffrey, but most academic commentators seem to note the parallels, discuss possible sources, or how it fixes Arthur into ‘The Hero Paradigm’ and then move one. 

 

But the longevity of the conception story obscures how bizarre it is. It’s worth stopping and considering just how bizarre.

 

Looking at another literary example makes explicit what the audience is being asked to believe. 

 

In the First Branch of the Mabinogion, the story of Pwyll consists of three episodes. In the first two, Pwyll adopts a disguise. 

 

In the first episode, Pwyll becomes Arawn, and lives as him for a year.  

In the second, he arrives at the wedding of Gwawl and Rhiannon in disguise. 

 

The second is an example of ‘being disguised’ that most people would accept as credible. 

 

Someone acts a role, altering appearance superficially to avoid recognition. At a time when even Kings would not have been recognised outside the limited circle of their close acquaintances, Pwyll can easily hide his identify by wearing a disguise (rags) which he can throw off. He is playing at being something else. The charade is made easier because he’s playing ‘generic beggar’. This disguise hides his real appearance without in anyway altering who he is. Pwyll is not a beggar, but a Prince pretending to be one.  

 

The first transformation, however, is much more complicated.

 

Pwyll doesn’t just take on Arawn’s appearance and pretend to be him. This would be impossible. There would be so much he couldn’t know. 

 

Before they change places, Arawn reassures Pwyll that he will have the fairest woman he’s ever seen (Arawn’s wife) to sleep with every night, and neither she, nor the chamberlains, nor the officers of the court, nor anyone of his retinue, will know it’s not Arawn. In other words, the people who know Arawn intimately, will not notice the deception over the course of a year. 

 

So Pwyll becomes Arawn, not just in his appearance. He knows the court and its inhabitants, and its rituals. He must therefore have access to Arawn’s memories. Even when he acts ‘out of character’ Arawn’s wife does not suspect it’s not her husband, but that something is wrong with him.  

 

For a year.

 

But he also remains Pwyll. Although Arawn has essentially given him his wife for a year, and judging by his reaction at the end of the episode he fully expected him to take that offer in all the ways it could be taken, Pwyll turns his back on her every night, and doesn’t even speak to her until the morning. 

 

Pwyll remains Pwyll in the body of Arawn, with access to Arawn’s memories. This is the  transformation that occurs when Uther becomes Gorlois so he can spend the night with Ygraene. (Euphemisms are wonderful things. ) 

 

And like all good stories, it raises interesting questions.  Which will take us via the Third and Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion, to Saint Augustine and others, and then back to Uther. 

'Layamon's Last Interview': Publication in Long Poem magazine

 

'Laȝamon's last interview', published in issue Twenty Nine of Long Poem Magazine, will be the final chapter of the last book in the series that runs from A Presentment of Englishry, to A Man of Heart. (Both published by Shearsman in the UK). 

After he finished his book, what did he do next? There's no evidence he wrote another line. Was he proud of his work? Was he disappointed by its limited reception?  Was he bitter?  To contrast two very different story telling traditions,  Gwydion son of Don meets the old man who wrote the Brut, and 'interviews' him. 

Long Poem Magazine, published in the Uk, is one of the few print outlets for someone like myself who writes very long narrative poems.  So i am delighted to have work published in this edition. This is the third time this has happened, and if I ever finish this project I will owe the editors 'a debt of gratitude'. 

A short extract.....

Gwydion, stooping to enter, 

‘You’re a hard man to find.’

 

‘I didn’t know anyone was looking.’

 

The woman blocks the doorway;

her shadow and the priest, 

two darker stains on the rough wall.

 

One stool, one bed, two bowls,

two wooden spoons.

No books. No writing materials.

He can taste the damp.

 

‘She looks after me. I don’t know why.’

 

‘Because you need looking after.

Don’t wind him up, sir, please.

He’s a bugger to settle.’

 

‘The Lateran council forbade the priest his wife or concubine.

Gerald made the usual Latin puns so few could understand.

But why shouldn’t a man hold someone in the dark?

And how could I survive without her patient charity?’

 

‘They called you latimer, not priest.’

 

‘I translate at those sad times 

m’lord shouts at his tenants

and they need to understand

or when he’s feeling threatened 

by the written word. 

 

You’re Welsh? Kyuarwydd? 
A professional storyteller.

Trained in the tradition. 

Valued. Honoured.

How very easy for you. 

How very lucrative.’

 

‘You know as well as I,

no one stands on the summit

who hasn’t sweated the slopes. 

I read your history. 

I liked it very much.’

 

‘You must be the only man who has.’

 

‘You wrote in English. 

Did you expect an audience to rival Monmouth’s?’

 

The woman interrupts.

‘They feed us; bread, cheese, honey. 

Sometimes meat and wine if he’s been useful.

I’d offer you some but there’s nothing in the pot.’  

A Man of Heart. The story of Vortigern and the end of Roman Britain.

 

Precisely between their God and the Devil, heaven and hell, white and black, the man of heart walks through. (Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God).

My version of Laȝamon's version of the story of Vortigern and the end of Roman Britain. 

Currently chasing errant commas in this final proof copy. I am sure they move around when no one's watching. This is the second part of A Presentment of Englishry  and will be published by Shearsman in the UK in January 2023.

Publication; Chapter eight of the story of Vortigern.

 

A QUEEN IN THE WILDERNESS. 

Chapter eight of my story of Vortigern, is online at the Brazen head.

https://brazen-head.org/2022/09/27/a-queen-in-the-wilderness/

The full story will be published as A Man of Heart, (Vol 2 of A Presentment of Englishry) by Shearsman Press, UK, in early 2023.

Publication: The story of Vortigern, Chapter seven.

Chapter Seven brings part one to a close.   You can read it by clicking on the link below. (The first picture above shows an Anglo-Saxon building reconstructed at the Experimental Archeology site at West Stow. The second shows looms in one of the buildings.)   

https://brazen-head.org/2022/06/05/chapter-7-the-good-old-days/

Publication. Chapter six of the story of Vortigern. The Wasshail ceremony.

The Wasshail ceremony, in which Rowena meets Vortigern.

You can read the chapter at this link. Clicking on it will open in another page on The Brazen Head web sight..

 https://brazen-head.org/2022/03/11/chapter-six-the-wedding/

Publication: Chapter five of the story of Vortigern

The story of Vortigern continues. Chapter five is now up on the Brazen Head, and can be read at the link below.

While Vortigern's story might have an historical basis, this chapter is the first major slide from history as we might understand it to a narrative that feels more like a folk tale.

https://brazen-head.org/2021/12/30/chapter-five-an-age-of-wood/

The story of Vortigern is the second of three stories taken from Laȝamon's late 12th Century 'Brut'. The first story was published as A Presentment of Englishry, by Shearsman books.

Who was King Arthur's Father #1

 We all know the answer is 'Uther Pendragon'. 

So the stories of Uther Pendragon. In several parts.

 

Part one. Genesis.

 

While it’s just possible that the character of ‘Vortigern’ can be traced back to an historical person, it does seem most unlikely that Uther Pendragon is anything other than a fiction. 

So before tracing his career through the legendary history from Geoffrey to Laȝamon, down the rabbit hole we go for any signs of an origin for his story.

 

Did Geoffrey invent Uther; was he already Arthur’s father in the tradition; or were there stories circulating about an Uther which he was able to use? 

 

The impact of The History of the Kings of Britain on The Legendary History, and the story of King Arthur in particular, is difficult to underestimate. The more one considers Geoffrey and his book, the more extraordinary his achievement becomes. But while the argument over how much he borrowed and how much he invented can seem academic in the worst sense of that word, it’s a crucial for anyone trying to discern which stories pre- existed his work.

 

For those interested in ‘the native tradition’, whether the source pre or post-dates Geoffrey’s work is a crucial issue. But as Patrick Sims-Williams has written, for the early Arthurian poems; ‘it is rarely possible to know whether an Arthurian poem is earlier or later than Geoffrey of Monmouth.’ 

 

It is probably undeniable that stories about an Arthur were circulating in Wales long before Geoffrey, possibly even before Nennius. If Pa wr yw'r porthor  or Culhwch and Olwen are anything to go by, Arthur was camped securely in the world of folk tales. But as Oliver Padel pointed out, you can tell stories about a hero and his associates without bothering with his birth, or for that matter his biography. 

 

Padel also pointed out that: ‘Arthur is not fitted into the historical pattern of rulers’ pedigrees. He is consistently absent from the early Welsh Genealogies and is never given a patronym in the earliest Welsh texts: in lacking this attribute he stands in notable contrast with the other heroes of the Welsh Triads.’

 

So where did Uther come from? 

 

Geoffrey’s work has a basic pattern: A died, B came to the throne, ruled, then died and was succeeded by C. This means that to be a legitimate ruler in the sequence, Arthur has to have a pedigree. At the very least he has to have a royal father who has to precede him in the sequence and who must rule over Britain before him. This demand of the genre Geoffrey used changes everything. The hero now needs a biography, and he needs a father. 

 

Geoffrey identifies this character as Uther Pendragon. 

 

Did Geoffrey invent Uther; was he already Arthur’s father in the tradition; or were there stories circulating about an Uther which he was able to use? 

In the next post, the delightful possibility that Uther was created by a translation error. 

(Bibliography at the end of the last post in this sequence)