Grobius Shortling's King Arthur Page. A separate web page dedicated to this subject.
(For the most part King Arthur subjects will not be presented on this current page.) Click here for the older version.
Nora Chadwick: The Celts. To understand the background for this
Celtic twilight that King Arthur represents, both for the 'Welsh' and for the romanticists
who dwell on the culture of Roman Britain, you should really read this book for a
scholarly but capsulated view of that ethnic group (not necessarily a race), from its
Stone Age Indo-European steppe origins up until about the year 1000 at its final gasp
in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland [does NOT address the issues of modern Celts, e.g.,
Ulster, thank God]. Excellent.
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.
Historical 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. Duggan was
an excellent historical novelist who wrote on a wide selection of Mediaval subjects.
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.
Henry Treece: The Celtic Tetralogy. Pseudo-history, but well done:
The Golden Strangers (Stone Age), The Dark Island (Bronze Age Druids),
Red Queen, White Queen (Boadicea and the Romans), and The Great
Captains (King Arthur and his contemporaries).
Mythology
Joy Chant: The High Kings. Material about Arthur's contemporaries --
kinglets, legendary and partly real (Vortigern, for example) going back to older Celtic times.
Evangeline Walton: The Mabinogion. Starting with The Island of the Mighty
(aka The Virgin and the Swine), this is a retelling of the major surviving opus of Welsh legend.
The Mabinogion itself was written down in the early Middle Ages, from source material dating back
to around the 5th Century, and that was based on the old legends of the Celtic gods and demigods of
Britain. This modern retelling was written in the 1930s and revived by the admirable Lin Carter in the
1970s -- its reappearance encouraged the author, who was still alive, to produce three more books (two
already written in MS form from years ago but never published). The Mabinogion has four sections, or
'Branches', and the novels pretty much were done out of order, Island of the Mighty being the
Fourth Branch -- a rousingly funny tale of pig raids, seal-babies, and the marvellously spoiled and bitchy Arianrod. The Children of Llyr and The Song of Rhiannon (Second and Third Branch) followed, and these are stark tragedies, especially the first one. Absolutely superb: the devastating war with Ireland that ended up depopulating both countries, and the really stupid causes of it. The last to be published (First Branch) was Prince of Annwyn, which is a rather lightweight fantasy novel about the underworld of faery. One very nice and unusual feature of the author's style is the commentary -- she will make remarks about
the characters while they are in the midst of doing something stupid (but understandable) that are very
appropriate and wise. This might not be the real Mabinogion, but it was an excellent job!
Fantasies
Jack Vance: Lyonesse. One of a trilogy or so, by a master of Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and even Mystery stories. This is somewhat skewed to the theme of this page, but
if you have never had the pleasure of reading Jack Vance, try it out (if it's in print any more) --
in fact READ JACK VANCE, anything he wrote! The subject of this series is at least in the
Celtic vein and hence relates to this web page.
Note: Green is an important color to the Celts, but not necessarily signifying good luck (as it does with the
Irish). In Wales, it is a sinister color (at least it was to my Welsh grandmother).
Link to a general commentary on Celtic Castles by clicking
Here.
You might also want to visit the Stone Circle
Site (although, technically, these were not Celtic constructions).
Early History: The Celts