Identity crisis

The Headless Knight

When the Green Knight's head gets cut off and the rest of the court is freaking out but the Green Knight's now detached head remains calm.

What the heck you guys?!

This was a strange reading to say the least. It's very odd that the King would just allow the maidens of the court be tested in the area of their sexual purity. The whole thing was an uncomfortable read to say the least, but there's one bigger question that I have: Why did Arthur take pleasure in the public humiliation of the ladies in his court? Would this not be an embarrassing thing for him?

It was also strange that the story ended the way it did. "Now the Saga of the Mantle ends here; may you live happily for many years to come. Amen." Like what is this?! We jumped from Elven magic to the Bible and it's so weird.

Reason who? I only know love

"Reason, who dared tell him this, spoke from the lips, not from the heart; but Love, who held sway within his heart, urged and commanded him to climb into the cart at once. Because Love ordered and wished it, he jumped in; since Love ruled his action, the disgrace did not matter" (Chrétien 117).

Draw Your Weapon: Impossible Tasks as a Sign of Worth

Arthur becoming king in the Disney's The Sword in the Stone (1963)

Culhwch and Olwen follows the grand tradition of epic literature in which the hero, in order to achieve their goal, must perform a number of arbitrary (or seemingly so) tasks.

One of these tasks is to retrieve a set of grooming tools from their place on the head of 

Twrch Trwyth, an enormous boar. It occurs to me that one element we have yet to see in our examination of King Arthur is the famous "pull the sword out of the stone to become king" incident. Is this concept of the seemingly impossible task used to prove personal worth related?

Don't Bother Hoel

The Office, Season 7 Episode 1: "Nepotism"

"At length a consensus was reached, and envoys were sent to Brittany to King Hoel...Hoel was the son of Arthur's sister...Arthur received him with due honor and they embraced again and again." 

(pg. 68)

"Postponing the campaign, he had launched against the Scots and the Picts, he sped to relieve the siege of Bath, though troubled by the greatest of anxieties, since he was leaving in the city of Alcud his nephew Hoel, who was seriously ill." 

(pg. 68). 

What Did I Just Read?

When I opened the document to read this excerpt from Romance of Arthur, I honestly was not sure what I was reading. I couldn't tell if I was being introduced to the original texts about King Arthur, whether Wilhelm was trying to prove that Arthur was or was not a real figure, or if he was trying to critique the authors as the writings morphed from being more historical to fantasy. There were moments where things were more factual, especially given the very first sentences of the chapter. "The romantic legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table seems more and more to have had some foundation in history."(p.1) Based on that sentence alone I am thinking that the document is going to talk about the historical basis that the legend has. Then things shift greatly a few pages later when other fanatical things are happening like his son's grave never being the same length whenever it's measured or Arthur taking out over 900 soldiers with one swing of his sword. I was bewildered to say the least. Not a bad article since it does have the original texts in it which is helpful, but some clarity on the author's point would have been nice.

King Arthur: Fact or fiction?

"A golden handful of woman's hair was found there, retaining its fresh wholeness and radiance, but when a certain monk greedily reached out and grabbed it the hair dissolved into dust." (Page 6)

The Evolution of King Arthur Writers

The writers of King Arthur stories (fiction or fact) grow more enlightened with passing time: "Work done in the 1980s  by Geoffrey Ashe and others has shown that behind the puzzling traditions we may glimpse the figure of a known British leader" (7).