I suspect a lot of people’s minds ran in the same direction mine did at the news that a girl named Saga had pulled a fifteen hundred-year-old sword from a lake. Not all swords are Excalibur, of course, and the lake in question was in Sweden, but Britain could do worse than seeing if Saga has any interest in becoming Prime Minister.
All of which reminded me of Arthuriana, and my first and favorite Arthur novel, Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Lantern Bearers (1959). The novel takes its title from a statement by Eugenus the Physician:
“We are the lantern bearers, my friend; for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind.”
Arthur (or Artos, as he is called in this book) plays only a supporting role, but it’s enough of a role for this to be the ur-Arthur story for me.
The end of the Roman occupation of Britain brings little comfort to the novel’s protagonist, Aquila. Firstly, he is a Roman himself and so sees the Empire and all it brings as good. Secondly, even as the Roman soldiers are called back to Rome, the Saxon hordes are moving in to grab land, slaves, and wealth, with no regard for preserving what civilized norms existed at the time1 . In short order, Aquila’s family estate is in flames, most of his family are dead, and his sister has been carried off by a Saxon raider. Aquila survives to try to find a new life in a Britain horribly transformed2 .
For me, it’s not a true Arthur story if it’s not explicitly set in a post-Roman Romano-Celtic Britain grappling with Saxon invaders, struggling to keep the light of civilization lit. You can keep your vague fantasy lands with unspecified histories (except when past events are needed to provide this week’s villain with an appropriate backstory). For me, magic is optional: it’s the history that matters3 .
Oh, and vast castle complexes like the Château de Pierrefonds (used as a stand-in for Camelot in the TV show Merlin) are right out. It’s a fine example of a 19th-century restoration of work dating from (variously) the 12th to the 13th century. It’s also French. It has nothing to do with anyone one would find in 5th-century Britain.
All this means that a great many Arthurian books just don’t evoke the particular frisson that I love—but there are a few that fit the mould Sutcliff created.
There’s David Drake’s The Dragon Lord (1979, revised 1982). When Arthur demands a dragon to set on the Saxons, Merlin prudently assigns the task of collecting certain necessary components to a pair of murder hobos adventurer protagonists Mael mac Ronan and Starkad. All that remains is for the two adventurers to retrieve the components (or for their replacements to do so, should they fail) and a living dragon will surely be Arthur’s. Because that will end well.
Parke Godwin’s Firelord (1980) and Beloved Exile (1984) are two related historical novels. In the first, King Artos (also Artorius; he is, after all, a Romanized Briton) relates the story of his life as he slowly succumbs to the wounds he suffered at Camlann4 . In the second, Guenevere does her best to hold Britain’s fragile alliances together in the face of Saxon invasions. She is determined and talented, but her allies demonstrate the same canny insight that would later lead their very distant relatives5 to fight for the wrong side at Flodden. I am afraid all does not go entirely well for her and her allies.
Saxon victory is more or less baked into any Arthurian tale that is even quasi-historical. Godwin gives his version more apparent historicity than many of his rivals and predecessors, and also gives his characters more depth. I always expected a third book in the series (mainly because I expect books to come in threes), but no such luck. (Well, there is a third book, according to Wikipedia, but it’s a prequel.)
Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave (1970) explores post-Roman Britain from the perspective of a character who is often quite ambiguous in other versions of the tales: Merlin. Here he is known as Myrddin Emrys. Myrddin’s second sight makes him a figure of suspicion; the fact that he is the bastard son of a Welsh princess also does him no social favours. He finds his way to the court of Romano-British war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus, where he becomes entangled in the defense against Vortigern.
Where’s Arthur, you ask? Well, certain events are needed in order for Arthur to appear, and Myrddin plays an indirect role in those.
Unlike certain other versions (read: all sixty-five episodes of the Merlin TV show), Myrddin isn’t portrayed as a gormless ninny, and he has cunning and insight to go along with his magical gifts.
As narrow as my criteria are, I am sure there are other takes on the Matter of Britain that would please me, so feel free to suggest them in comments6 .
1: Does there need to be a disclaimer about what was considered normal and acceptable by the Romans? A lot of things we would not approve today. But at least they had books and impressive civil engineering.
2: Not that it would have given Aquila much comfort, but his Saxon enemies would later encounter the Vikings, the Danes, and after them, the Normans.
3: Not that I think Arthur was a historical figure.
4: Probably better to have written his autobiography before being mortally wounded, but a course of action in no way out of character for the man who removed a vital component of Britain’s magical defences out of pride.
5: Very distant because Godwin’s Britons are essentially Welsh and the brain trust responsible for Flodden were the Scots. If any of you want to discourse on the differences between the Goidelic languages and the Brittonic languages, now is the time. I used a horrific Scottish defeat because I couldn’t think of a similar scale one for the Welsh7 . It was all too easy for the Scots.
6: Not Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, please.
7: The Welsh, to the best of my knowledge, lost wars because they had fewer people and a smaller economy than their invasive neighbours. The Scots, on the other hand, sometimes explored bold gambits like inviting the king of a notably aggressive hegemonizing swarm to settle a dynastic dispute, and parking a poorly armed army on marshy, exposed land in an apparent attempt to disarm the other side by having the Jacobite soldiers sequester British ammunition securely within the Jacobite soldiers’ bodies.
In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of “questionable notability.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He is surprisingly flammable.
[1]Does there need to be a disclaimer about what was considered normal and acceptable by the Romans? A lot of things we would not approve today. But at least they had books and impressive civil engineering.
[2]Not that it would have given Aquila much comfort, but his Saxon enemies would later encounter the Vikings, the Danes, and after them, the Normans.
[3]Not that I think Arthur was a historical figure.
[4]Probably better to have written his autobiography before being mortally wounded, but a course of action in no way out of character for the man who removed a vital component of Britain’s magical defences out of pride.
[5]Very distant because Godwin’s Britons are essentially Welsh and the brain trust responsible for Flodden were the Scots. If any of you want to discourse on the differences between the Goidelic languages and the Brittonic languages, now is the time. I used a horrific Scottish defeat because I couldn’t think of a similar scale one for the Welsh. It was all too easy for the Scots.
[6]Not Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, please.
[7]The Welsh, to the best of my knowledge, lost wars because they had fewer people and a smaller economy than their invasive neighbours. The Scots, on the other hand, sometimes explored bold gambits like inviting the king of a notably aggressive hegemonizing swarm to settle a dynastic dispute, and parking a poorly armed army on marshy, exposed land in an apparent attempt to disarm the other side by having the Jacobite soldiers sequester British ammunition securely within the Jacobite soldiers’ bodies.
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Footnote 4 seems to have a broken link intended to go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A2n_the_Blessed
Gillian Bradshaw’s trilogy: Hawk of May, Kingdom of Summer and In Winter’s Shadow.
Le Morte D’Arthur was my first Arthur novel.
Note regarding Flodden and Culloden: my ancestors are mostly from the scream and leap side of those conflicts. Well, except for the ones that are Irish. You might think from my middle name there’s Welsh in there too but nope: that’s the surname of my grandfather Strachan’s captain when he served on the Red Rose during an effort to locate sea mines, which I am happy to report was extremely, perhaps excessively, successful.
The Welsh also lost wars, and most of the British Isles because they were into fighting each other. This of course also explains why Ireland was conquered by the English and contributed to Scotland’s issues. Celts were/are very tribal.
Archaeology and what little recorded history there is suggests a fifty year long halt and even partial reversal of Saxon expansion in the late fifth c. the fact that the name Arthur became suddenly popular in the early sixth century is interesting to say the least. But all it really indicates is there is some kind of historical substratum to the legend.
Oh, The Lantern Bearers! Along with Dawn Wind (also by Rosemary Sutcliff), it ranks very highly in my personal ‘favourite books’ list. They’re also two of the few books that nearly bring tears to my eyes just thinking about them – I’ve always found them fiercely melancholic in very life-affirming way, if that makes any sense at all.
Artos’ cavalry charge in the battle against Guitolinus has always been ‘my’ King Arthur.
I can only hope that my own Arthur, currently aged two and a half, comes in time to treasure stories of his namesake as much as I do.
The Pendragon by Catherine Christian (and another vote for Gillian Bradshaw’s trilogy)
have you had a look at Jack Whyte’s Series
Just off the top of my head:
The Camulod Chronicles by Jack Whyte (starts with the Skystone)
The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwall (starts with the Winter King)
Both lean heavily on the side of history.
Oh, and you say “the Vikings, the Danes, and after them, the Normans.” You do realize, that those three are pretty much the same thing, right? (I’ll give you the Normans, they’re only descended from Vikings but the other two…)
Possibly too much magic but Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon cycle: Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur
I forgot about Helen Hollick’s Pendragon Banner trilogy: The Kingmaking, Pendragon’s Banner, and Shadow of the King
5: I watched some history of Scotland with an ex who is not of Scottish extraction and about the time the Scots resolved a dynastic conflict by throwing a child at (or off, maybe) a wall, she admitted until then she’d assumed my historical anecdotes about Scotland were comedic exaggerations. Nope! Thank goodness we invented economics and steam engines; those have been a lot more successful than the military strategies that took us from an expanse reaching from the Black Sea to the Atlantic to a few coastal refuges. If not for the existence of Nova Scotia, my ancestors would have had to develop gills.
England has its own young girl pulling swords out of ponds.
Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Attendee: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace – shut up!
If you’re after a catastrophic defeat for the Welsh, or at least the Welsh-speaking, at the hands of filthy Saxon invaders then you could always consider the case of Y Gododdin, possibly the oldest surviving poem in any variety of Welsh. Admittedly, they were from near Edinburgh, but you can’t have everything. It records the gathering and massacre of a British army around 600AD, probably near Catterick.
@13, Even better, it’s supposed to be the same lake Arthur tossed Excalibur in! And it’s a much cooler looking sword! (Sorry, but the Swedish one had rusted).
Maybe the UK needs to give both of them a job (or a monarchy).
Joan Wolf’s The Road to Avalon (Dark Ages of Britain trilogy – no magic beyond a bit of healing/mind-speaking) is probably my favorite after Mary Stewart. It’s more of a romance, so there is a very quiet, personal aspect to it as Arthur and Morgan deal with their forbidden love for each other, and all the other Arthur-stuff is just backdrop. The two follow-up novels, Born of the Sun (Saxons and Celts clash and mix) and The Edge of Light (Alfred the Great) are also very good.
We’ve mentioned The Lantern Bearers and Dawn Wind, but what about the mammoth tome in the middle? Sword at Sunset, 400 pages of Rosemary Sutcliff telling the whole Arthurian story as set in that world, and in Arthur’s first-person voice.
@2: Seconding the Bradshaw trilogy, very convincingly Celtic Britain.
I didn’t read The Lantern Bearers until well after I had read Sutcliff’s Sword at Sunset, which for me will always be the ur-text about Arthur. It’s denser and far sadder than TLB.
@18, @19 I’m glad you mentioned Sword at Sunset; I came here to do the same! It’s one of my very favorite Arthurs and the only one that has ever truly convinced me about the roots of the rift between Arthur and Guinevere / Guenhumera. Seeing Aquila again after Lantern Bearers is another sword through the heart.
But I adore Mary Stewart’s Merlin / Myrddin Emrys, and it looks like I need to try both the Godwin and Joan Wolf…
@15, Sutcliff did a retelling of that one as well – The Shining Company.
Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Cycle is the most interesting take on Arthur I’ve encountered. It has singlehandedly made me want to delve into Arthurian lore more than reading sections of Monmouth or Malory ever have.
The Winter Prince, by Elizabeth Wein. A very different Camelot (Arthur and Guinevere have two children of their own, Goewin and Lleu), and Medraut (Mordred) has issues many and varied, but patricide and kingdom-destruction are not among them. There are several sequels involving Goewin, Medraut, and Medraut’s son Telemakhos, and they are all excellent, but TWP is the only one explicitly Arthurian.
I’m gonna second Jack Whyte’s massive series. It should scratch all your itches in this regard. I mean, it starts a generation before Merlin with Roman officers who survived the massive Pictish invasion in 395 (I think it was) and goes on from there.
Ditto to @9’s shoutout to Cornwell’s “Winter King” – I don’t know about historical but it was the first Arthur novel I read that seemed realistic.
@@@@@ Various – shout out also for the earlier books in the series, Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch and Frontier Wolf. They’re not as closely connected as the later ones, but I think you get more out of The Lantern Bearers if you’ve read about Aquila’s ancestors. You understand what the lantern is that they are carrying.
#Iwasthedeserter
I have a much broader taste in Arthurian fiction than you do, but yes, Mary Stewart’s stories are great. Wicked Day is one of the few books to do a good Mordred.
Joan Aiken has a particularly nutty Arthurian riff in The Stolen Lake: Guinevere has turned the Lady’s Lake to ice and stored it in the Andes where she’s waiting, immortal, for Arthur to return. It’s part of the Dido Twite series.
7) for all that the Welsh were generally the least populace and well-equipped nation of the British Isles, the Norman kings built some of the more impressive castles of the period across the country to impose their will as there was a long tradition of resistance and general banditry. Beyond Edward Longshanks impressive chain of 4 in North Wales (Beaumaris, Conwy, Caernarfon & Harlech) there were 600 built in this comparatively tiny realm, of which 100 still stand to this day and are fascinating to walk around.
Wait, is trying to prevent economic stagnation by facilitating the return of currency to general circulation considered banditry now?
Banditry makes it sound more romantic/less like work ;)
@29, In fact the medieval tendency to hoard was very damaging to the economy. Not sure banditry helped though it couldn’t have hurt.
Another vote for Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles starting with the Winter King.
12: Mine were actually run out of the country following their support of an attempt by a comically delusional absolute monarch who reckoned that his attempts to reintroduce absolute rule by absurdly bad judgement (as evidenced by the four prior members of his dynasty) would be welcomed with open arms.
They carried a grudge sufficient to allow my daughter to be a DAR, and the comically willful monarch STILL has his attempt to get rid of the beginnings of Parliamentary supremacy in Britain described as a “fight for freedom”, so there’s that.
(Visiting Culloden Battlefield and it’s remarkably in-depth Visitor’s Center is high on my recommend list…and you really get a MUCH clearer notion of a) what a git Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart was, and b) how little that whole roundelay had to do with freedom and how much it had to do with an absolute monarch wanting his absolute monarchy back from a batch of Germans who had to make a bunch of compromises with Parliament to keep power.)
@7 Catherine Christian’s The Pendragon was also published (outside the US maybe) as The Sword and the Flame which is what my copy is titled.
I also vote for Gillian Bradshaw’s books, starting with The Hawk of May (One of two Lancelot-analog characters is named Gwalchmai). When I was a teenager they scratched exactly the itch you describe, and I also inhaled Rosemary Sutcliff as a kid, so there you go.
Alfred Duggan’s The Conscience of the King and (perhaps) The Little Emperors are sort of peri-Arthurian – set in Britain about the time of the Roman withdrawal/collapse, and as I recall (it’s been a very long time since I read either) with some characters that figure in some of the earliest versions of the Arthur stories.
Also as I recall, Duggan was very keen on getting the details right – these books were pretty convincing in their general atmosphere.
Dare I mention Stephen Baxter’s Coalescent?
Philip Reeve’s Here Lies Arthur is a non-magical take where Myrddin works as a brutish Arthur’s bard/PR guy.
Black Horses for the King by Anne McCaffrey. An Arthurian story with very narrow focus: the journey to Africa to find bigger horses suitable for battle, and the development of horseshoes as a means to protect the hooves of those desert horses from the wet environment they had been brought to.
“it’s not a true Arthur story if it’s not explicitly set in a post-Roman Romano-Celtic Britain grappling with Saxon invaders, struggling to keep the light of civilization lit. You can keep your vague fantasy lands with unspecified histories (except when past events are needed to provide this week’s villain with an appropriate backstory). For me, magic is optional: it’s the history that matters “. emphasis added
Well enough, but that leaves out Jo Walton’s stories set as Poul Anderson properly noted in adjacent territory fantasy but not so very vague much like his own Three Hearts and Three Lions. Likely John Ringo’s own take on The Last Centurion is properly excluded.
David Drake’s newer Time of Heroes series files enough numbers off to avoid offending fans of actual political history but may not leave enough for fans of actual political history to find the Easter eggs a fan of such history might look for. Then again there’s history beyond the political
Often overlooked as genre is the source of one of the all time great quotes – and many more that would ring through the ages as historical truths – though the ideas are found many places:
@26: I came at The Lantern Bearers (as impressionable young (8, 9, 10?) child) via Eagle of the Ninth etc., didn’t really link Sword of Sunset (etc.) in with them in my mind (I may only have read those later), and didn’t particularly notice the Arthurian influences until later.
@40 Yes, I was going to mention Jo Walton’s The King’s Peace and The King’s Name as well. Technically, yes, set in a parallel fantasy world, but there are books filed under “historical fiction” which have less regard for history and sense of place and time.
Also second David Drake’s The Spark and The Storm, though perhaps only if you like Drakes fairly-often-repeated take on the “very competent but socially clueless hero”.
@37: I was thinking of that one myself.
I haven’t read it yet, but there’s also Henry Treece’s The Great Captains, which is another post-Roman historical interpretation.
I think I read the Crystal Cave around age 9 or 10 and it FIRMLY cemented my love
of Merlin as a character and is my absolute favorite incarnation of Merlin. Andre Norton
had an interesting take in ‘Merlin’s Mirror’, and I very much enjoy the lighter comedic,
fantasy fare of Peter David’s ‘Knight Life’ series. Neither of these series meets your
criteria but others may enjoy the recommendation. :D
“For me, it’s not a true Arthur story if it’s not explicitly set in a post-Roman Romano-Celtic Britain grappling with Saxon invaders, struggling to keep the light of civilization lit.”
All you really need to do is mention Arthur to me, and I’m in, but I have to agree that I love these ones best. Which is why I find it so inexplicable that you didn’t mention Whyte. CanCon aside, they’re very much in that vein. And reading those led me to continue with his Guardians series (not remotely Arthurian, but explaining a fair bit of important Scottish history — also mostly resulting in defeat, but at least not involving “comically delusional absolute monarch[s]”).
The Last Legion by Valerio Massimo Manfredi — takes place during the Fall of the Roman Empire but is essentially a prequel to the Arthurian stories (including the origins of Excalibur). An interesting take on the lead up to the Romano Britain Arthur (I think he shows up as a baby or young boy in the novel.
I’ll add a vote for Gillian Bradshaw’s trilogy as well as The Camulod Chronicles by Jack Whyte and The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwall. Cornwall’s history as outstanding (He wrote the books behind the Last Kingdom TV series).
Shadowland by C.M. Gray is a fantastic book that focuses on Uther rather than Arthur. Its sequel The Shadow of the King is still good if not quite living up to Shadowland.
I second the Jack Whyte Camulod series. Very plausible (to me, anyway) “secular” retelling of the entire set of legends.
Rosemary Sutcliffe’s novels were my first love, and paved the way for Mary Stewart and Gillian Bradshaw and Bernard Cornwall. Wonderful historical fiction. But Arthurian lit is so much more, so why limit yourself. T.H. White’s The Once and Future King remains one of my favorite books.
I have to say the series by Mary Stewart and Stephen Lawhead win my vote for favorites of the more recent retellings of the story. Whyte & Cornwell comes in after as both are a bit more military minded for me. I agree with the Celtic/Roman/Welsh settings but I think it is Whyte who draws in the Cumbrian countryside as well.
I’ve always loved Mary Stewart’s trilogy, so I’m glad Crystal Cave made your list. I second Lara’s recommendation of Winter Prince, the Welsh take on the Arthurian legend is very interesting.
The Great Captains by Henry Treece is worth a read (as is most stuff by Treece). Like Rosemary Suttcliff he wrote for children as well as adults, and The Eagles have Flown, a young adult novel, also works as an Arthurian novel. I also have good memories of the Gillian Bradshaw series!
Another big thumbs up for Stephen Lawhead’s books. Also, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “The Mists of Avalon” (however one feels about the author these days). I think it’s a fascinating take on the whole story – and, let’s face it, how many other Arthurian stories are written from the “evil female” perspective? Though admittedly the “real” historical foundations of her story are rather looser than Lawhead’s…
Not Arthurian, exactly, but Gillian Bradshaw’s superb novel Island of Ghosts is about the Sarmatians in Britain, and of course there was a theory that the Sarmatian connection (especially one of their commanders, Lucius Artorius Castor) contributed elements to the Arthurian myth.
The Emperor Arthur by Godfrey Turton.
Bradshaw, Whyte, Stewart, Sutcliff, Godwin, yes! Votes for them all, and thanks for nixing Bradley, which is History As She Wished It Could Be. Used to have Wolf, but must hunt up another copy, and I’d give much to have Sutcliffe and Bradshaw copies. I always tell people first getting into Arthurianna, read the originals at some point. Historia Regum Britania, Chretian de Troyes, and the like. Vinnaver edits the best version of Le Mort D’Artur, and do include J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In this genre, it’s really a “short story,” but Tolkien gets it right.
As an historian of the period who also learned Latin & Welsh, and just as a lover of well-told stories, I enthusiastically offer more votes for Lawhead and Bradshaw.
The problem I had with Mists of Avalon was a sex cult being presented as somehow empowering women. Priestesses, even the High Priestess, have to sleep with men they don’t know and don’t want whether they feel like it or not. Young priestesses and their partners are used by their superiors for political purposes. Lovely. It makes Christian celibacy look good in comparison!
The Warlord Chronicles are the only Arthurian legend you’ll ever want to read again. Bernard Cornwell is The Master of historical fiction. Merlin is a druid, not a wizard. Every time I reread it I fall in love with it again, and it feels like it really happened. It’s a beautiful series fantastically told. The books are The Winter King, The Enemy of God, and Excalibur. I’ve been recommending this series as much as possible for twenty years. It’s one of my very favorite, across all genres.
@@@@@7 and @@@@@ 34 — I agree!! Catherine Christian’s UK book the Sword and the Flame, republished with some slight revisions as Pendragon in the US is excellent!!! I think it is out of print and more’s the pity!!!
What about Jack Whyte’s Camulod Chronicles? How could you leave out those excellent stories. They meet your criteria mostly and are filled with wonderful characters trying to ensure the fall of Rome in Britain. Written as though a personal journal it has a personal touch, like you are reading into the past. Highly recommend!
I left them out because as far as I can recall I’ve never read Whyte.
You read The Lantern Bearers, but never Sword At Sunset? THAT’s my Arthur.
@@@@@ 62 When I started to read your post: I was sure you had read Jack Whytes take on Arthur. It has all the history back ground your looking for!!! Better get at it!!!