Hello–any King Arthur buffs out there?
Maybe I shouldn’t mention Arthur on a page dedicated largely to fantasy literature. He doesn’t have that firm a foothold on “real history,” and I wouldn’t like to push him entirely into the realm of the imaginary, there to take up permanent residence with fairies, satyrs, and man-made Global Warming.
I was very excited, some years ago, when I learned that the Romans had long stationed Sarmatian cavalry in Britain, and that most of those remained behind when the Romans withdrew their legions in the 5th century. Why excited? Because I knew from Herodotus that various “Scythian” peoples (including the Sarmatians, probably) worshipped their war god by raising a heap of stones and thrusting a sword into the top of it. Voila! The ancient tale of Arthur and “the sword in the stone” suddenly takes on cultural and historical context. Alas, others managed to publish that scenario before I got around to it. If you snooze, you lose.
Even if he was a real person, King Arthur looms large in fantasy. It makes tracking down “the real Arthur” well-nigh impossible.
We see a highly unusual attempt to do both–find the historical Arthur, and exploit the fantasy of Arthur–in David Downing’s novel, Looking for the King. I’m writing a full book review for Chalcedon, but in the meantime I’d love to hear what other readers think of it. Did you like it? Do you think Downing succeeded in whatever he was trying to do? And did you enjoy seeing J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams appear as major characters in the story?
History can be tricky. Things we “knew” to be true, sometimes turn out not to be, and things we “knew” were made up, sometimes turn out to have roots in reality. As to Arthur, there are candidates in history of warrior kings who fit quite well.
One thing I look forward to, with regard to the Kingdom of God is the hope that we can fill in some of the blanks with regard to history. The narrative that the eastern and western hemispheres were essentially ignorant of one another’s existences has somewhat broken down over my lifetime and I suspect that history is much more rich than what I was taught in school.
One mistake I’ve made in the past, and I believe is very common, would be the belief that the events of the Old Testament are the only things that mattered. Indeed, these events were vital with regard to the coming of the Messiah, but battles between good and evil have happened in many places, throughout time, and I would not go so far as to say that the efforts of good people were not blessed by our Maker, worldwide.
I too, believe that the efforts of good people are blessed by our Maker. Patty
If not, we’d all be sunk.