 
The Celtic matter, when it comes to the post-Roman, pre-feudal era,
covers a lot more than King Arthur and his associates. Novels of this nature are fascinating, especially when they try to re-create the historical context. There are almost as many of these as there are 'the real King Arthur' books. Some authors made
this type of story their career. The later Dark Ages -- the period of the Saxon domination and the Vikings -- are an equally fertile source for imaginative reconstruction. Lastly, we should not neglect the other great heroes, such as Robin Hood.
- Novels
- Alfred Duggan: The Little Emperors. Macsen Wledig (Maximus) and
other usurpers in those troublous times. The Spanish legionary general Maximus, traitor
to the Roman Empire, and a self-proclaimed emperor, is still a hero to the Welsh.
- John James: Votan / Not for All the Gold in Ireland / Men Went to Cattręth.
First two involve the adventures of the adventurer Photinus the Greek, who fools those
silly Germans into believing he is Woden; the last is a wonderful rendition of the famous
fight described by the poet Aneirin, the battle of Catterick, where a small band of Britons
were demolished by the Northumbrian Saxons -- Mel Gibson, take note: this would make a great
movie. It is only a 222-page book, but I'm going to stick my neck out and say it's one of the
best books of this kind ever written. It has the basic Celtic Iron-Age mentality down cold. *****
- Rudyard Kipling: Puck of Pook's Hill. A set of short stories in a framework, a bunch
of children who live near the Pevensey (Anderida) marshes having encountered Puck who allows them
to interview three people from the past -- a Norman Knight, a Roman Legionary, and a Medieval stone
carver. The middle stories about Hadrian's Wall, the Picts, and the would-be emperor Maximus are the
main relevance to this web page. God, what a great story-teller Kipling was! The tale of the legionary
Parnesius, and his defence of the Wall against the Winged Hats, is one of the best and most instructive
renditions of this period in history, done in less than 60 pages. There are touches of The Man Who Would Be King and Kim in these tales, and those are stories EVERYBODY should read.
[One of my favorite movies of all time is John Huston's "The Man Who Would Be King," with Sean Connery and Michael Caine, they don't make 'em better than this.] ****
- Later Dark Ages (Saxon and Viking period)
"Our hearts must grow resolute, our courage more valiant,
our spirits must be greater, though our strength grows less."
The Battle of Maldon
I want to devote a little space to the Anglo-Saxons, who were the villains in King Arthur's day, but
were in turn victimized by the Vikings. The Celts do not have a monopoly on futile heroism.
In fact, the Northumbrian Saxons assimilated so well into the old Brigantes tribal structure (that is where our term 'Brigands' comes from)
that they can barely be distinguished from Celts -- hence your Geordie, Lowland Scots, and
Border Country culture, which has hardly changed since Roman times. From that marvellous
bitch-queen Cartimandua, through the reigns of Urien of Rheged and King Oswiu of
Northumbria, there was an unbroken history of treachery on a grand scale -- great stuff!
For more about the Germanic Tribes of Dark Age Europe, click on my web page
Saxons and Siegried.
- Novels
- Beowulf: Pretty heavy going, especially if you have to translate it from Anglo-Saxon
as I had to do in graduate school. On the other hand, there are some true poetic passages in it
that haven't been done justice to in the many translations. If I can find it in the boxes in the cellar,
I will post on the Internet the passage about the dark tarn where Grendel's mother hangs out. With
a sufficiently bardic voice and a good phonetic memory, you could wow the world at a party or bar. (Well I found a source on the Internet; click here if you're interested.) Michael Crichton, of Jurassic
Park fame among other things, did a very nice rendition of Beowulf called Eaters
of the Dead, recently made into a fine movie called "The 13th Warrior." Seamus Heaney recently did a well-received translation/retelling of the original but I haven't read it yet [wife: hint, hint for Xmas?]
- John Gardner: Grendel. An autobiographical essay: a very quirky but moving
story about the monster of Beowulf. From Grendel's point of view. Does not really belong on
this web page, but it needs mentioning before it is forgotten -- a 20th-century classic of, I guess,
existentialism. Parke Godwin has done a very good Beowulf book too; I have listed this on my
Vikings page, since it
places it in the context of the Continental Saxons before they invaded Britain -- that's where the story actually took place, not in England.
- Dee Morrison Meaney: An Unkindness of Ravens / Death of the Raven.
Good book, with Vikings and magic. Very romantic.
- Lolah Burford: The Vision of Stephen. A fantasy novel for teenagers that is
really quite moving.
- Gordon Honeycombe: Dragon under the Hill. This was listed on one of my
mystery pages, even though it's not a mystery; it is just one of the finest horror stories (in a subtle
way) that I have ever read. The setting is contemporary, but on the island of Lindisfarne, with
the essential plot element being the protagonist's compulsion to relive events that occurred back
when the Vikings sacked the monastery, possession of his difficult teenage son by the revengeful spirit of the Viking marauder killed by the ancestral preincarnation of the hero. An engrossing story. *****
- Alfred Duggan: The King of Athelney. Alfred the Great; interesting.
- Parke Godwin: (this guy is all over the place) A Memory of Lions. A nice little
romance (and rather violent) about the Norman Conquest.
- Hope Muntz: The Golden Warrior. Along with Hemingway, etc. (as expected),
my professor in college in an advanced writing seminar [Andrew Lytle, who achieved a degree
of fame as a Southern writer of the heroic, Agrarian school] made this book required reading. Odd
choice, but he was right. This is truly one of the all-time classic historical novels, written in the
spirit of the old chronicles, all about Harold Godwinson (King Harold of the Battle of Hastings).
It is superb. How can you not fall in love with a woman named Edith Swan-neck? Even
Winston Churchill went out of his way to praise this book. *****
(more on this...) [Parke Godwin, again, wrote a version of this story, but it's not in print so I can't tell you anything about it.]
- George MacDonald Fraser: The Steel Bonnets. From the author of the
incomparable Flashman series, a history (not a novel) of the Border folk: he starts out by looking
at people like Richard Nixon, Neil Armstrong, Billy Graham, and LBJ, and saying any one of those faces would look at home on one of those perpetual northern cattle raids. These are the people who settled
America (along with the Scotch-Irish) back when the frontier was the Appalachians.
A much-neglected subset of the British scene who deserve more recognition as an ethnic group, or more
properly ethos, that is regarded with great disfavor now as being hardly politically correct. These
are Walter Scott people (Marmion, etc.) -- and he is an author sadly neglected now (forget
Ivanhoe and his standard list) who is definitely worth reading. If you can claim an
Armstrong or a Johnston or an Elliot, Bell, Little, Maxwell, Scott or Kerr among your ancestors, you
should be proud (I am a little bit of a Little, of course, so there!). Note: There is an excellent
curse against the Border Reivers that was delivered by the Archbishop of Glasgow; I copied this
from Fraser and posted it to the Internet at
Curse. *****
- Novels
- Parke Godwin: Sherwood / Robin and the King. Robin Hood and Maid
Marion. Romanticized, but dependable as Godwin's books are.
- Nicholas Chase: Locksley. The historical Robin Hood, sort of. Grim.
- Dorothy Dunnett: King Hereafter. The true story of Macbeth, a
much-maligned personage. Awesome book, but heavy going. Emphasises the Norse element.
- James Goldman: Myself as Witness. The wicked King John's
autobiography (he wasn't such a bad person after all?). Not a Dark Age character,
but I like subversive books like this.
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Other Heroes (Robin Hood, etc.)