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ritaerAs a long-time Pagan how can I resist a version of the story of King Arthur titled _The Pagan King_ ? Well actually I resisted it for some time. Don't even recall how I acquired it but have been giving it shelf space and moving it for a couple of decades. Finally I read it.
This is not a new book but appears to be one of the earlier efforts (1959) to write a more historically likely story of the legendary King Arthur. While I would agree that this version of the Arthurian myth seems to have more historically accurate detail than the versions based on Mallory's Middle Ages, it does have its problems. Ambrose, who becomes Artay and then Arthur, is a rustic living with the old druid Merdin, a serving woman who never speaks, and Gerald, a 1/4 Roman who teaches him swordsmanship and tactics and eventually becomes his general. Merdin eventually reveals that Ambrose is the son of Vortigern and his first queen, exposed to die by the King's order and rescued by Merdin. When Ambrose fights and wounds his half-brother Mordred at the King's Beltane games, his identity is revealed and he and the household must flee. Ambrose eventually puts together a small band of followers which grows larger as he defeats other rulers and eventually Vortigern. In the meantime, a prophetic song says that he must wed a woman named Wander, but he has fallen in love with Elain of the lake and is bedeviled with lust for Vivain, who claims to be of Witch blood and have prophetic dreams.
The changes that Marshall rings upon the basic Arthurian story are interesting. However his treatment of his pagan characters is uneven. Merdin, for example is called a druid, not a wizard, yet professes admiration for the law and order than the Romans had enforced in Britain. This seems strange given that the Romans banned and massacred the Druids. Merdin seems to feel that he is serving a sacred cause in trying to fulfill the predictions of Arthur's ruler ship, yet he lies and deceives in the furtherance of that cause, which doesn't seem to display much faith in the gods. Artay is also inconsistent. For instance at one point he vows to Elain, in the names of the Great Gods, that he will free 5 prisoners who otherwise would be hanged. But a few pages later he seems to have forgotten this pledge and has to be persuaded by Merdin to free a particular criminal for purely strategic reasons. Another time a character refers to the false gods of the Saxons. Pagans were not generally given to considering the gods of other peoples as false, merely not their gods. The idea of false gods is a Christian one (or Jewish in origin). Why would a Briton accept that he worships Lud and Romans worship Jove, yet regard the Saxon Odin as false? The characters also speak and act as though Christians were rare in Britain, yet the Romans did not leave until some time after Constantine's conversion, so a good number of Romans or Romanized Britons would have been Christians. Many of these details would not be noticed by readers unfamiliar with the history, but they are distracting for those who do.
This is not a new book but appears to be one of the earlier efforts (1959) to write a more historically likely story of the legendary King Arthur. While I would agree that this version of the Arthurian myth seems to have more historically accurate detail than the versions based on Mallory's Middle Ages, it does have its problems. Ambrose, who becomes Artay and then Arthur, is a rustic living with the old druid Merdin, a serving woman who never speaks, and Gerald, a 1/4 Roman who teaches him swordsmanship and tactics and eventually becomes his general. Merdin eventually reveals that Ambrose is the son of Vortigern and his first queen, exposed to die by the King's order and rescued by Merdin. When Ambrose fights and wounds his half-brother Mordred at the King's Beltane games, his identity is revealed and he and the household must flee. Ambrose eventually puts together a small band of followers which grows larger as he defeats other rulers and eventually Vortigern. In the meantime, a prophetic song says that he must wed a woman named Wander, but he has fallen in love with Elain of the lake and is bedeviled with lust for Vivain, who claims to be of Witch blood and have prophetic dreams.
The changes that Marshall rings upon the basic Arthurian story are interesting. However his treatment of his pagan characters is uneven. Merdin, for example is called a druid, not a wizard, yet professes admiration for the law and order than the Romans had enforced in Britain. This seems strange given that the Romans banned and massacred the Druids. Merdin seems to feel that he is serving a sacred cause in trying to fulfill the predictions of Arthur's ruler ship, yet he lies and deceives in the furtherance of that cause, which doesn't seem to display much faith in the gods. Artay is also inconsistent. For instance at one point he vows to Elain, in the names of the Great Gods, that he will free 5 prisoners who otherwise would be hanged. But a few pages later he seems to have forgotten this pledge and has to be persuaded by Merdin to free a particular criminal for purely strategic reasons. Another time a character refers to the false gods of the Saxons. Pagans were not generally given to considering the gods of other peoples as false, merely not their gods. The idea of false gods is a Christian one (or Jewish in origin). Why would a Briton accept that he worships Lud and Romans worship Jove, yet regard the Saxon Odin as false? The characters also speak and act as though Christians were rare in Britain, yet the Romans did not leave until some time after Constantine's conversion, so a good number of Romans or Romanized Britons would have been Christians. Many of these details would not be noticed by readers unfamiliar with the history, but they are distracting for those who do.
