The Mass of Saint Gregory (1511) by Albrecht Dürer.
At the beginning of the 1500s a London grocer called Richard Hill busied himself in compiling a Commonplace Book in which he noted down a number of tales and ballads, possibly for the moral education of his young sons.
Among these “tales and balattis” was the lullaby that we have come to know as The Corpus Christi Carol (though we have no idea of the tune it was sung to). This includes such strange, haunting images that after the text was first published in print in the early 20th century debate arose as to their meaning.
And, because of the image of the bleeding knight, scholars and others began to recall the equally strange and haunting image of the Fisher King in the Grail legends.
Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, engraved by G. Cooke (1818) after J M W Turner (1775-1851), Tate Gallery
We were almost bent double getting to the front doors; for safety the car had been parked with its wheel right up to the kerb.
Having inveigled a stay at the Camelot Castle Hotel at Tintagel (King Arthur’s Castle Hotel as was), we had forgotten how unremitting the winter weather was in North Cornwall. From our four-poster bed we might have had views of Tintagel Castle, if the squalls had allowed, but they didn’t and so we didn’t.
It brought home to me the perennial question, why would anyone have wanted to stay at Tintagel Castle in its heyday? Surely Arthur, king or otherwise, if he ever had residence there, must have asked himself the selfsame question?
A good litmus test for popular conceptions of King Arthur comes with the newspaper cartoon. Along with the Round Table and the hand in the lake grasping the sword, the image of the sword in the stone is pre-eminent in Arthurian reference. CartoonStock.com includes typical examples, though for copyright reasons we can only describe a selection, not show them.
In a cartoon by Dave Carpenter, a medieval official remarks to a peasant clutching a résumé in front of a sword in a stone, “Actually there’s no interview necessary. Just pull out the sword and the job’s yours.” In another US cartoon (by ‘Kes’) an exhausted office employee, obviously unsuccessful in his attempts to remove the sword, is being addressed by a boss behind a desk: “Well, Foster. It doesn’t look like you’ll be getting that promotion after all.” A third cartoon reveals a knight who has removed the sword, only to retrieve the written message, “Congratulations! You may already be King!”
One cartoon minimises its impact by weak draftsmanship, though to be sure the caption is weak enough. Merlin is examining a giant safety razor in a stone, which we are told represents The Wilkinson Sword and the Stone. Another memorable image I’ve seen is of a boy, watched by his parents, struggling to remove a knife from his birthday cake.
Leaving aside the question of whether fans of Arthuriana will find these examples funny, we see that they aim to achieve their effect through sudden incongruity, synchronously juxtaposing two anachronistic but commonplace ideas. The now familiar image of a sword in a stone is so strongly associated with the young Arthur that it may then come as a shock to find that it is not exclusive to this legendary figure, and that in fact its origins may equally lie elsewhere.
A look at other possessors of wonderful swords and how they acquired them may help to put the young Arthur’s deed into context and explain why the story had (and still has) such resonances.
‘The discovery of Prince Arthur’s tomb by the inscription on the leaden cross’ byJohn Mortimer, 1797 (British Museum)
Archaeology and the Pendragon Society
Note: This article first appeared in print in 2006, a short while before the Society disbanded in 2009.
The Pendragon Society has rarely dabbled exclusively in armchair archaeology, and since its inception in 1959 its members have not been frightened to get their hands dirty.
However, in the half-century of its existence the Society’s experience of excavation has evolved with the changing nature of the discipline, with the result that it is unlikely that what it managed to achieve in the past will ever be repeated in the future.
So here, for what it is worth, is a very brief history of Pendragon archaeology to date.
Rex Arturus: detail of 12th-century mosaic, Otranto Cathedral, Italy, depicting King Arthur astride a goat
This concise (but by no means exhaustive) listing in alphabetical order is a mere sampler of beasts appearing in Arthurian narratives: significant omissions are inevitable, and the scope excludes, for example, animals associated with Dark Age saints.
First published in 2005 in Pendragon, the journal of the Pendragon Society, ‘A concise Arthurian bestiary’ borrows from the concept of medieval bestiaries – compilations of weird and wonderful creatures that may or may not have existed, drawn from classical, literary and folkloric sources and often featured in heraldry and local legends.
I’ve kept the original references but slightly emended and expanded the text for clarification. It’s possible that the late fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones may have been influenced by this article when she began her posthumous novel, The Islands of Chaldea, later completed by her sister Ursula.
Detail from The last sleep of Arthur by Edward Burne-Jones (1898)
A discussion centred on the so-called Glastonbury Cross, an object claimed by the 12th-century monks of Glastonbury Abbey to have been excavated from above a Dark Age grave in their cemetery and inscribed with the name Arturius or Arthur. The text is substantially that of an article written for Pendragon, the Journal of the Pendragon Society, in late 1997, first posted online here 25th February 2018 and updated in 2024.
Cross purposes
On April Fool’s Day, 1982, an extraordinary story broke nationally in the UK. Back in November 1981 Derek Mahoney, while searching through mud excavated from an Essex lake, found a small lead cross. At the British Museum the Keeper of Medieval and Later antiquities noted that the cross was within an eighth of an inch of the size of the cross alleged to have been found above King Arthur’s grave at Glastonbury in 1191.
But, following on from his family’s dispute with solicitors over a house sale, Mahoney said he had subsequently buried the cross in a “completely waterproof” container “well down in the ground” because possession of the cross gave him “power and authority”.
10C warrior burial sculpted in stone, Middleton, Yorkshire
Amateur historians often like to take traditional tales of semi- or pseudohistorical figures as sources for the details of their heroes’ biographies.
This is especially the case with King Arthur where legendary and folkloric tales are presented as evidence for this or that campaign or as proof that Arthur should be identified with a known historical personage.
In this essay (mostly from 1987) I want to suggest that the exploits of legendary heroes in other contexts parallel some of those of Arthur’s, rendering them suspect as historical facts and thus no basis for concocting a presumed biography.
King Arthur’s Country by F J Snell. J M Dent & Sons / E P Dutton & Co, 1926.
Frederick John Snell (1862–1935) – a scholar and historian specialising in ancient English customs and traditions – wrote several popular guides, including this gazetteer or guide to Arthurian topographical sites in Britain and in Brittany.
In its preface he claims “no new, original or revolutionary opinion on the question of Arthur’s historical achievements or the field in which they were effected, nor is any attempt made to reconcile antagonistic theories or conflicting traditions.”
While citing popular and academic titles which listed putative Arthurian sites in Cornwall, Scotland, Wales and elsewhere, he’s neither indiscriminate nor uncritical in his choice of entries, but nor is he totally dismissive of colourful legendary connections. According to modern scholarship we may question some of his easy assertions but, given that this was published a century ago, we may I think allow him a degree of leeway without being overly censorious.
Owen Glendower – or rather Owain Glyndŵr in Welsh – was on 16th September in 1400 proclaimed Prince of Wales in North Powys, in opposition to the English crown’s dominion over the principality.
But then, after fifteen years of guerilla warfare, the last native Welshman to hold the title of Prince of Wales disappeared from the historic record. So now I want to give a little bit of background, some of which may involve, as Shakespeare put it, skimble-skamble stuff.
Some say he was proclaimed in Ruthin, but it’s probable the proclamation took place near the village at his manor of Glyndyfrdwy, situated between Corwen and Llangollen, in the valley of the Dee (Glyndyfrdwy translates as “Glen of Dee-water”). Here a slight 12th-century motte stands not far from the supposed site of the family’s moated manor house.
Merlinus, from the Nuremburg Chronicles (the same woodcut was used for other prophets)
The dreamer Merlin
In Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I Hotspur refers irritably to Owen Glendower’s tales “of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies … and such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff”. He leaves us in no doubt that Welsh divination is all “rambling” and “worthless” nonsense (as Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable interprets it). Prophecies attributed to Merlin have had mixed reviews over the centuries, largely depending on the mindset of the audience. Have they any relevance now?
Trying to divine the future has been a human activity that long predates press horoscopes. The Old Testament had its prophets and its interpreters of dreams such as Joseph, and Insular Celts were no less keen on divination than other cultures. However, unlike the personal divination familiar to folk practices, most foretelling that has been recorded historically relates to the political fates of societies, peoples and their rulers. To this latter class belongs the tradition of Merlin’s prophecies.
Pendragonry 