Ken: Snarl, Snap, Growl
..
Truth is, I was raised on the King Arthur stories and played at them all of my childhood. We had the Scribner Classic version with illustrations by the likes of N.C. Wyeth, upon which I learned to read, and my brother had been given a copy of a first edition of the Aubrey Beardsley illustrated version of Sir Thomas Mallorys Le Morte dArthur. If you wan to see some really fascinating takes on the Lady of the Lake, Guinevere, et alia (note the feminine) a copy of the illustrations is available from Dover an well worth the minimal price. I read that book several times. But I grew up and started to study Late Roman history and then the history, such as it is available, of the Dark Ages. That history is a whole lot more interesting, all on its own, than the bowdlerized, castrated versions that we get filtered through the High Medieval Arthur stories as told by Chretien de Troyes, the famous minstrel, to his employers, the women of the courts of France. This started with Eleanor of Aquitaine; yes, that Eleanor, who later married the rather younger Henry II of England. She and her ladies were heartily tired of the testosterone laden knights bashing each other (my interpretation) and set about creating the image of the romantic knight errant (that much is historical). In this, they had the hearty assistance of the Church and they hired the minstrels to write songs, poems, and stories glorifying romantic love, love lost, all kinds of non-violent things, and they set about cleaning up the very violent Celtic, mostly Welsh, but Ken Cox says that there are Cornish as well*, and North British tales of a just post Roman war leader who successfully fought off the Germanic invaders for about 50 years before he was killed in a civil war, the bane of the Celts. These are mostly very bloody and violent, as well as rather non-Christian and generally weird by High Medieval standards, so they were very much altered to meet the tastes of the times, and that is the basis for Mallory and all modern versions of Arthur. It is just that the history that I have been able to dig out is SO MUCH more interesting.
In any case, how would you like to see people interpreting your landsknechts as running around in the frock coats and mitred grenadier caps of Frederick the Great or even in lobster-tail pots, breasts and backs, and buff coats? Actually, that would be timelier than what is shown, although First Knight wasnt bad, as Arthur pictures go. Now, Excalibur, that was just God-awful, IMHO. My wife and I nearly fell out of our seats laughing at the scene where Uther bedded Ygrainne while dressed in full plate, merely removing a tasset or two. Ye gods and little godlets! Ive got it! Well have Lees army of Northern Virginia in the VietNam era boonies and well put the Union Army of the Potomac in German WWII uniforms (that should please some of our members!).
Oh, well, I know when I am tilting windmills, so, come along Sancho, I will mount Rosinante and be gone.
