"...it is right by the sea, and surrounded by the sea on all sides; and there is no other way into it, except that provided by a narrow rocky passage—and there, three armed warriors could forbid all entry, even if you took up your stand with the whole of Britain behind you..."
This is quite an achievement. I have spent the last 6 months blogging about Arthur and his Knights, but I have failed to mention Tintagel Castle. Why? I hear you ask...Truefully, I just haven't got around to it until now. I know, poor excuse, but hey, I am on it!
Tintagle Castle is located on the peninsula of Tintagel Island in Cornwall. It is a medieval fortification, built by Richard, Earl of Cornwall in the 13th Century. The castle became a tourist attraction in the 19th Century when archeologist started to excavate the site. In the 1930's a team of archeologists discovered a much earlier high status building. But what does this have to do with King Arthur and his Knights?
Well...a certain Welshman wrote a certain book, you may have heard of it...It goes by the name, The History of the Kings of Britain. Yes, that's right, I am talking about Monmouth yet again!!
Can you remember the story about Uther Pendragon falling madly in love with the Duke of Cornwall's wife? No? Okay, quick recap...
***
King Uther Pendragon holds court, and there he meets Igrain, the wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. Uther is driven almost out of his mind with lust for Igrain. He cannot help but make his attraction known. But Igrain loves her husband and tells him of Uther's pursuit. Gorlois whisks his wife away from court and they head back home to the safety of Tintagle Castle.
So great is Uther's lust that he follows her home, and while Gorlois is out fighting in a noble battle, Uther asks the great sorcerer, Merlin, to disguise him as Gorlois. Thinking Uther is Gorlois, Igrain makes love to him. That very night, Gorlois dies.
***
So, if we believe Monmouth's versions of events ( and there is not reason not to...he did, after all, have that ancient manuscript that he conveniently lost ) Arthur was conceived at Tintagel. Monmouth never suggested that Arthur was born at Tintagel, neither did he mention Arthur ever visiting the place..but you know what it's like when poets get hold of a story! As the years passed, Tintagel became embroidered into the delicate tapestry which is Arthurian Legend.
But still, there are those who want proof - something that they can see, that they can touch. If Arthur was at Tintagle then surly there would be evidence?
Ralegh Radford (1900 -1999) an English archaeologist whose interest was in Dark Age Britain, had this to say about Tintagle and Arthurian legend in 1935.
"...no concrete evidence whatsoever has yet been found to support the legendary connection of the (Tintagel) Castle with King Arthur..."
Charles Thomas - a well respected historian and archeologist stated;
"...there simply is no independently attested connection in early Cornish folklore locating Arthur, at any age or in any capacity, at Tintagel..."
But how does this explain the Artognou stone?
"patern coli avi ficit artognou"
"Artognou, father of a descendant of Coll, has had this constucted"
The stone's discovery in 1998, met with much media excitement. Had evidence of Arthur been found at last? Did the name Artognou really translate as Arthur? The stone is of the right age and, if Monmouth is to believed, then Arthur was conceived at Tintagle - at last, here is the proof.
Of course there were plenty of people to discredit such a notion - including many historians. I guess, like with everything else when it comes to Arthur and his knights, it depends on what you believe. And thats why Arthur and his world drew me in in the first place...the endless possibilities.
I can imagine some people who might read this
article and go “No way.” Think about it for a few minutes as your reading this
article and then make up your mind.
There were two different kinds of dragons.
1. The European winged dragon
2. Chinese
Russia had a
take-off of the Chinese Dragon. It was a hydra, you know the one... with the three
heads such as was in Jason and the Golden
Fleece fame.
The name Dragon came from the Greek Meaning
Serpent of huge size, Water snake.
Sometime in the middle ages they grew legs and began looking like a
lizard. We may have a distant cousin to those dragons called the Komodo Dragon.
When dragons started out in this universe,
they were mighty, knowledgeable, benevolent beings. They were associated with
wisdom, had longevity and were wis0r than
humans. They were good in this world of ours. Before Christians arrived, some were worshiped. After Christians
they became demons. The priests led the people to believe that the dragon
represented Satan and had to be killed off. A real person who is known as a
dragon killer is St. George. There are paintings of him slaying the dragons. No
evidence actually exists that he actually slayed
a dragon, but I think he did.
I’m making a confession. I believe dragons were
real, just like I think there are flying
saucers visiting earth. In time, all will
be known. Some believe they were
Ancestors of the Dinosaur. As of right now, they are a myth from every country
around the globe. In the past some of these myths have been seen. I think the
last sighting in the United States was in 1883 and a man observed a sea serpent from on board a ship.
Just search for dragon and you can find all kinds of information about the
creature.
Do you believe they existed?
Too many sightings and story’s from over the
world for them not to have existed at all.
You’re the judge.
Lastly, something to make you smile!
Merlin - Season 2, episode 5 'Beauty and the Beast.'
Merlin and the "Laugh dragon" - "This isn't funny"
***
Shirley McLain is a Young Adult fantasy author. Let's take a quick look at her latest book.
Princess Adele's Dragon
Princess Adele sets out to save her and her brothers Kingdom from a
beast that threatens their way of life. What she encounters is totally
unexpected and sets her on a new path. If you like gothic times with
Kings, Princess's, Castles and bad guys then you will like this young
adult fantasy. You will fall in love, hate the bad guy and fight war.
Shirley McLain makes her home in Sapulpa
Oklahoma with her husband and their fur family of four dogs and three cats. She
also has two grown children, six grandchildren and twin great-grand sons. She has/is living a very full life. She retired after working thirty-two years as
a RN and then began a full time writing carrier. She and her husband enjoy
their five-acre country home. It is a
perfect setting to let Shirley’s Muse work it’s magic. Shirley is an eclectic
writer and has always enjoyed the writing process. Shortly after her retirement
she woke up one morning with the thought that she was going to write a book.
She didn’t stop writing until she’d finished her first book. So far she has published four books which are
now on Amazon. Her goal is to bring as
much enjoyment to her readers as deserve and want.
"I want to thank Mary for giving me the opportunity to participate on her
blog. She is a true lover of writers and their work. Once again “Thank you, Mary.” Shirley McLain
I would like to welcome fellow author,Nicholas Paschall, on to the blog today. Nicholas is going to take us on a journey and explore the history of the Vampire through popular fiction.
Vampires. The very word conjures up images of
red-eyed, pale skinned angelic figures that feast on human blood, strangely
erotic yet mind-numbingly dangerous at the same time. From the innocent looking
child vampire to the androgynous ancient, they range in all shapes, colors and
sizes. In books and cinema, we have three categories of vampires we can look at
and analyze: the beautiful, the hideous, and the weird.
The beautiful can be seen in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and Stephanie
Meyer’s Twilight saga. Both highlight
vampires as both dangerous and attractive creatures, with pale skin and taut
muscles that provide preternatural strength. This is a step away from the
original vampire story by Bram Stoker but it is a creative move. Meyer’s vampire’s
aren’t even harmed by sunlight, though they do adopt a hostile stance against
werewolves as it seems to be a classic route when the two inhuman species meet.
Other instance of beautiful vampires with werewolf aggression are seen in the
box office thriller Underworld series,
and to a lesser extent Van Helsing and
the dry comedy Dark Shadows, which
was based off of a television soap opera of a supernatural family not unlike
the Munster’s, though far more dangerous.
Twilight (5/11) Movie CLIP - I Know What You Are (2008) HD
The second category is the hideous vampires,
vampires that shed their mortal skin to take on their true appearance, that of
a monster. These vampires represent a more defined fear of the unknown that
humans face every day. Unlike a shuffling zombie or a serial killer, the
hideous vampire is almost unkillable. You’ve seen them in film: in Underworld: Evolution you have one of
the ancient vampires infused with werewolf blood, creating a monster that is
nigh indestructible. Bullets, silver swords, and holy relics do little to this
creature. They finally manage to slay it through a combination of luck and
skill from a vampire/werewolf hybrid. In Nosferatu
they went to great lengths to pull the vampire’s appearance away from that of a
human, making the monster possess spindly fingers ending in wicked hooks,
bulging eyes with a misshapen bald head and elongated ears. He crept silently
around his lair and your home, and killed those he drank from. The difference
between the beautiful and the hideous is that the beautiful doesn’t necessarily
kill the person they feed upon. The hideous always kills their victim, making
them more monstrous than ever as they take life away from the natural to fuel
the unnatural.
Now the weird is a category that only applies to
vampires that straddle the line between the first two categories. In Rachel
Caine’s Morganville Vampire book
series, we have a community of vampires living openly with the town residents
while hiding from college students who attend the local university. They have
blood vans that come by and take blood “donations” from residents to feed the
vampires, while some vampires prefer to hunt their prey. Some have gone mad
over their centuries of life while others have grown detached from their human
side. The older they get the more radical they shift in an emotional direction.
The father of the vampires, Bishop, comes to town and tries to usurp control
from his daughter Amelia while using the humans of town as bait. He wants a
book that details how to create a new vampire, as it is a lost art and their
numbers are dwindling due to a rare disease that slowly drives them into an
animal-like state, more beast than anything else that seeks warm blood.
In this series we have vampires like Myrnin who
is a mad alchemist, among other things. He synthesizes drugs to stave off the
madness in the vampires and often comes close to killing his semi-willing
apprentice Claire Danvers. Myrnin is erratic and strange, with humor that none
get unless you are amused by mad antics of something that could easily snap you
in half. He dresses as a Pierrot for a Halloween ball while forcing Claire to
dress as the Harlequin, because he believes the sad clown Pierrot is actually
the funny and dangerous one. This amuses Bishop, who is instantly reminded why
he doesn’t like Myrnin who insults him, then attacks him with a dagger while
cackling madly, proving he is just as strong as the elder vampire before
fleeing. Then you have vampires that have detached from humanity entirely, like
Mr. Pennywell. Described as an “androgynous dummy”. Mr. Pennywell is an amoral
vampire that will follow the laws of the town so long as they please him. He
corners people and often attempts to kill them, as he remembers the days where
vampires lurked in the dark and fed well.
Then we have Amelia, the governess if the town.
She offers protection to the humans with magical homes to prevent vampire intrusion,
holds up laws and keeps the vampire population in check. She’s a preternatural
beauty that is weak from the sands of time wearing her down. She creates the
first new vampire in decades as she gets a hold of the book, creating
controversy amidst the community.
Then you have movies where the weird vampires
come out to play. In foreign films you have Vampire
Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, a horror/comedy where a vampire tricks a boy
into eating her blood, making him into a vampire. The girl that likes him dies
through a tragic accident, but her mad scientist father reassembles her with
the parts from various club members, making her a bizarre construct of
considerable might. The reason this falls into weird is some of her powers lie
in her cloak, which allow her flight, as well as her ability to walk about in
daylight. She breaks norms and converts new vampires through unique methods. In
the end she triumphs using swords made of blood, and fights a trio of monster
school girls by pulling their skulls from their heads and throwing them in a
pile.
The weird vampire is perhaps the most human of
us all, as they have human emptions (sometimes to a dangerous extent) and a
conscience that makes them ponder their actions. Some are good, some are bad;
they’re humans with special powers. Judging them is a case by case basis,
unlike the beautiful or hideous, who are much more one-dimensional than the
weird.
Now if you think that my evaluation of vampires
isn’t encompassing enough, that’s fine. There has almost been a century of
vampire lore that has been created thanks to Bram Stoker and Nosferatu, so I’ve no doubt missed
something. But think on the subjects next time you see a vampire movie or read
a novel.
Nicholas Paschall is a horror fiction writer. Let's take a look at his latest book.
David is in college and just keeps screwing up. After his latest mistake
of throwing a huge party while his parents were out of town, his mother
decides to leave him stranded at his Grandmother's house in Alice
Grove. What starts out as a horrible idea blossoms into a nightmare as
ghosts, Witches, and curses come alive in the sleepy town. How will
David handle it all?
I'm just a humble ghost in the machine, a lurking specter in the darker reaches of the internet. I publish the dreams best left unsaid because I believe they should be heard. I graduated from the Univerity of Texas at San Antonio with a degree in History, which basically means I'm a researcher. My desktop is littered with projects that I hop to and fro like a mad cricket, working here and tinkering there. I have a website that I update five times a week at minimum. Hope to see you there!
Arthur
and his Knights are, as we have discovered, surrounded by myth and folklore,
but they are far from the only ones in British history that have, thanks to the
passage of time, become something of a legend. There is another, equally
fascinating character that I think will also spark your interest. You may, or
may not, have heard of him, but his story is certainly worth taking the time to
hear. His name is Hereward and he led the most extraordinary life. However, I
am not the one to tell you about him. I have invited historian David AC Maile
on to the blog today, to tell you about "England's 1st identifiable defender
of civil rights."
The many
guises of folklore legend Hereward the Wake have blurred the fact that he is a
historical figure – even the appellation ‘the Wake’ (the alert/ the ever
watchful over his folk) is said to be a much later invention – yet we can
identify his existence from entries in the Anglo
Saxon Chronicle and Domesday Book,
the two most reliable sources of the age.
Hereward’s
claim to fame came as a rebel leader when, armed with a multitude of dissidents,
peasants and refugees, he made his stand at Ely against the might of William
the Conqueror. The English Crown may have fallen at the Battle of Hastings in
1066 but five years later the impenetrable Isle of Ely in the East Anglian
Fenlands was refusing to yield to the ‘Norman Yoke’.
Before the drainage of the
Fens began in the 17th Century Ely was an island and the surrounding
fenland gave it a natural defensive network of flowing rivers, great meres, swamp
and bogs and vast swathes of reed beds and Willow trees. Not the kind of
terrain that William’s armour-clad knights on horseback could comfortably
traverse.
The Gesta Herwardi, written in the early 12th
Century, describes Hereward as a handsome, muscular, troublesome youth, who was
exiled from England at the age of 18 and was from that time on known as ‘The
Outlaw’.
Recent
studies have shed light on his career as a mercenary soldier in Flanders from
where it is said he returned around the late summer of 1067 to claim his inheritance
after learning of his father’s death.
Over the
ensuing three years insurrection broke out across the country - Dover, Exeter,
Hereford, Warwick, Durham, York, and Chester and many others were, for the most
part, savagely and mercilessly beaten-down and quashed - with thousands upon thousands
slaughtered or left to perish in the devastation and ethnic-cleansing that came
to be known as the ‘Harrying of the North’.
In 1070 the
prelate Lanfranc of Bec came to England and William appointed him Archbishop of
Canterbury. Lanfranc immediately set about revamping the English Church. Many Monasteries
and Abbey’s experienced English clergy being replaced by French. William had
imposed a new governing elite with new laws, a new language and a new Church. Very
few English retained their title and land, most were in servitude.
Hereward, it
appears, took exception to this. He was one of many dispossessed landholders and
had close ties with Crowland and Peterborough Abbeys.
'And all the folk of the Fenlands came to them thinking they would win all the land.' - Anglo-Saxon Chonicle
On June 2nd
1070, in response to the news that a Norman Abbot named Turold was about to
take over, Hereward ‘and his band’ ransacked Peterborough with a Danish
‘Viking’ host led by Earl Osborne and Bishop Christian of Aarhus. They stole
gold and silver of great value from a monastery known as the ‘Golden Borough’
because it rivalled Glastonbury and Ely in wealth. They then made their way to
the Isle of Ely apparently on the invitation of Abbot Thurstan who feared the
same fate for Ely.
‘they did all manner of
evil things’ - The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh
Candidus.
All the participating
rebels were subsequently excommunicated by the Church. To the fanatically pious
English Churchmen of the time – where everything that happened, happened by
God’s will – Hereward’s raid on Peterborough Abbey was likely viewed as the
work of the devil-incarnate.
The Danes
however soon left with much of the loot, some say bought off by William. Hereward
was then joined by a number of prominent English nobles. The Earls of the great
northern provinces of Mercia and Northumberland, Edwin and Morcar - who had
escaped house arrest under William and ‘fled through woods and fields’- reinforced
by the northern land magnate Siward Barn, with the powerful Bishop Athelwine of
Durham and ‘many hundreds of men with them’ who fared into Ely by ship.
Overall a protracted
guerrilla war was fought lasting about a year or so. Hereward is reported to
have disguised himself as a fisherman and as a potter in order to spy on
William and his army and led countless assaults and forays into the Norman
camps that surrounded the Isle. He and his men frequently raided deep into
Norfolk no doubt employing shock and awe tactics on Norman and collaborator
alike. Burwell was scorched in the process and battles are said to have ensued
at Reach, Stuntney and Aldreth. It is supposed that the highly esteemed Norman
Sheriff William Malet lost his life fighting against Hereward at Ely. This was
a fearsome force of men at large in defiance of the ‘oppressions and
humiliations suffered by the English’, as later described by Orderic Vitalis.
Whether in
desperation or belief, William even employed the services of a witch to cast a
spell upon the defendants of Ely, but Hereward and his men burned down the
raised platform she stood upon and she fell and broke her neck. William then built
a long causeway to try and gain access to the Isle but Hereward and his men
fired the combustible peat fen destroying the wooden causeway and routing the
heavily armoured Norman knights. Reports
of Norman skeletons in their chain-mail being dug out of the surrounding fen
were recorded over a hundred years later.
‘he bravely led them
out’ - Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Ely eventually
capitulated sometime in the summer of 1071. The GestaHerwardi states
that Abbot Thurstan, who had lost much of Ely’s land to William as punishment,
sought to come to terms. William’s army were led through a secret pathway by
some monks and the game was up. Hereward and many of his followers are reported
to have fled - and it is at this point that history becomes blurred and legend comes
more sharply into focus.
‘Last of the English!’
800 years
after the Battle of Hastings in 1866 the novelist Charles Kingsley published
the romantic epic, ‘Hereward the Wake’
– subtitled ‘Last of theEnglish!’ The book about a patriotic
hero was unleashed on a Victorian public weaned on the historical novels of Sir
Walter Scott and it immediately became staple diet for children of all ages. The
popularity of this book, which has never been out of print, is the major reason
why we remember Hereward today.
The
Victorians, ever proud of their heritage and looking for their ‘island story’
held Hereward up as a prototype Englishman full of all those contemporary
British virtues of patriotism, gallantry, selflessness and bravery - while the
spirit of his famous last stand at Ely was seemingly mirrored in feats of
Empire in such far-away places as Rorke’s Drift and Mafeking.
Arguments
ensue about Hereward’s parentage, descent and his social standing. He has been
represented as a champion and a patriot and in children’s books has even met
the likes of Dr Who and Catweazle! Recent years have seen a ‘new wave’ of
Herewardista’s rise up in the literary world. The works of Paul Kingsnorth,
James Wilde, Stewart Binns, James Aitcheson and others has rekindled an
interest in Hereward just as it began to fade from the lore of the local folk
across the Fenlands - whilst historical research from Professor Elizabeth van
Houts from Cambridge University and others has uncovered much evidence to
substantiate the writings of 12th Century monks, which were once
considered unreliable.
New Wave of ‘Herewardista’s’
If you are
new to Hereward there are a whole host of novels to explore. The benchmark will
forever be Charles Kingsley’s Hereward
the Wake - but in recent years a new wave of ‘Herewardista’s’ have emerged,
proving to be the vanguard of the attack to re-launch Hereward into popular
culture!
Author
Stewart Binns draws parallels between Hereward and William Wallace when talking
about his book Conquest in an
interview on Youtube.
The storyline is told by a certain
Godwin of Ely on his deathbed in the heart of the capital of the Byzantine
Empire, Constantinople. Godwin relates to his listeners how Hereward fights at
the Battle of Hastings and gets crushed by a horse at the very moment King Harold
comes under attack, leaving Hereward’s followers with a dilemma of who to help
first. Hereward’s plight fostering Harold’s death foreshadows the calamity of
the English resistance that was to follow. The vivid images regaled by Stewart
throughout bear testimony to his work as a television documentary producer.
James
Aitcheson’s Knights of the Hawk is
told from the point of view of Tancred, a Norman Knight, who becomes
instrumental in the victory over the English at Ely in the Autumn of 1071.
Where Binns has Hereward travelling far and wide Aitcheson’s Hereward becomes a
target in the marsh. ‘Destroy him and many of the others will lose belief’,
exclaims Tancred to his fellow knights as the hunt for Hereward’s head begins.
Aitcheson’s angle as the English as ‘the other’ makes for a refreshing read and
his knowledge on Anglo-Norman England is clearly evident.
If there is
one person who should take the larger slice of the credit for significantly
bringing Hereward out of shadowy obscurity and into the glimmering light of the
public eye during the course of this decade it has to be the charismatic ‘man
of Mercia’, James Wilde. In true Hereward style as a man of many guises James
Wilde is the pen name of author, BBC screenwriter and journalist Mark
Chadbourne. Perhaps the key to James’ success with Hereward has been in the
planning of a whole series, as well as a number of off-shoots. This has given
the Hereward story the time and space to evolve and develop more fully in the
reader’s imagination. Accompanied by the most defining image of Hereward since
Henry Courtney Selous illustrated Kingsley’s epic in 1870, Wilde releases his
sixth instalment of the saga The Bloody
Crown in July.
As works of
art go, Paul Kingsnorth’s The Wake takes
some beating, as proven by being the winner of the Gordon Burn Prize in 2014 and The
BooksellerIndustry ‘Book of the
Year’ award. It has been heralded far and wide as ‘a literary triumph’ for
Kingsnorth writes his offering in what he calls ‘a shadow tongue’, a language
‘intended to convey the feeling’ of Old English through borrowed vocabulary and
syntax. As a paradox to the merits of the novel ‘fuccan’ ‘scit’ were my two
favourite words invented by Kingsnorth,
although his use of the disputed appellation ‘the Wake’ met with my
admiration the most. Based in the Fens you can feel the damp rising through
your bones as you read this masterpiece.
I am in the
process of setting up a community project, the ‘WakeHereward’ Project, in order
to raise the profile of the ‘forgotten hero’ of the Fenlands. Please visit my
Twitter page for further information @WakeHereward
Reference
The images of Hereward are by Henry Courtney Selous (1870).
