by Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd
“Many books have been written about Arthur, discussing the sites of his battles, his courts and his burial, and locating them in widely separated places across the island of Britain. However, this book will travel into what for many people is unfamiliar territory: into a language, culture and landscape far removed from the contents of Arthurian volumes. You will find no Glastonbury, no Tintagel or Winchester, and no Camelot in this book, for these have little, if anything, to do with the real origins of Arthur. Nor will you find any mention of the famous Merlin, for this ancient Welsh figure had nothing to do with Arthur before the twelfth century. Instead you will be led through the traditions and poems of a time before the Norman invasion of Britain, to the very origins of the story of Arthur and a landscape that has remembered the passing of its heroes in the names of its hills, valleys and rivers.”
I am dreadful at making recommendations. I read mostly in English, which isn’t my mother language, and oftentimes I find it hard to gather my thoughts and arrange them into foreign words.
I don’t know how to express what I liked about this book for I liked the whole book overall; I liked the glimpses of Wales history, its language and landscape and heroes. I liked how, in a sense, this book took Arthur home, away from the Norman and Continental and ecclesiastical propaganda, and the fiction of Sir Thomas Malory.
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the origins of Arthur; but I suppose most of all I would recommend this book for the Welsh. One of my dearest wishes is that people would remember the stories of their past and their heroes.
(Although the Welsh might know more than I do; for my knowledge of the Welsh folklore so far is this book and the Gododin. I’d like to read more but so far I haven’t had the money to buy other books.)
Hiraeth 