"Favorite Version of Arthurian Tales?" Topic

What's your favorite written version of the Arthurian legends?

Once and Future King followed by the movie Excalibur.

TH White and Mary Stewart

I like Steinbeck's….

Also Howard Pyle's version, especially the illustrations…

link

written = Le Morte d'Arthur
film = Excalibur

Bernard Cornwell

The original tales: Mabinogion and Preiddeu Annwn

Cornwell, although I do enjoy the Henry Treece version, if a little dark.

Phil

The sword at sunset, by Rosemary Sutcliff.

The Warlord series by Bernard Cornwell.

Sword At Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliffe

Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart.

Malory's

I really liked the 1967 musical version with Richard Harris :)

Stewart.

Doug

Monty Python, Quest for the Holy Grail

The Warlord series by Bernard Cornwell.

HIt befel in the dayes of Vther pendragon when he was kynge of all Englond / and so regned that there was a myȝty duke in Cornewaill that helde warre ageynst hym long tyme / And the duke was called the duke of Tyntagil / and so by meanes kynge Vther send for this duk / chargyng hym to brynge his wyf with hym / for she was called a fair lady / and a passynge wyse / and her name was called Igrayne / So whan the duke and his wyf were comyn vnto the kynge by the meanes of grete lordes they were accorded bothe / the kynge lyked and loued this lady wel / and he made them grete chere out of mesure / and desyred to haue lyen by her / But she was a passyng good woman / and wold not assente vnto the kynge / And thenne she told the duke her husband and said I suppose that we were sente for that I shold be dishonoured Wherfor husband I counceille yow that we departe from hens sodenly that we maye ryde all nyghte vnto oure owne castell / and in lyke wyse as she saide so they departed / that neyther the kynge nor none of his counceill were ware of their departyng Also soone as kyng Vther knewe of theire departyng soo sodenly / he was wonderly wrothe / Thenne he called to hym his pryuy counceille / and told them of the sodeyne departyng of the duke and his wyf /

The one where they don't all act like 12-year-olds, and destroy the kingdom because they can't get over their petty jealousies/rivalries.

Oh, wait – that one doesn't exist.

Stupid story.
-Kle.

Once and Future King, Excalibur, and Quest for the Holy Grail.

Despite dozens of things not to like, there was a stylish pitch to Excalibur that made it work. Who could forget the knights riding out to battle to the spine-tingling music of Carl Orff?

Art: Beardsley's Morte D'Arthur illustrations
Text: Mallory
Watchable Tosh: the Clive Owen one.
Musical: Monty Python ('we eat ham and jam and Spam a lot' )

Chreterien des Troyes.

The best part about First Night was when the ninja knights sneak across the moat using straws to breath through. The second best part was that Arthur looked like Gwynevere's grand father, at least, and Lancelot looked like her dad.

"The original tales: Mabinogion and Preiddeu Annwn"

Agreed.

Do have a soft spot for Chrétien de Troyes as well.

Bah, Arthur. Song of Roland.

"Arthurian tales?" That would be Malory, then.
Although I also appreciate Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain.

For novels, TH White, Sutcliff's post-Roman Arthur, and of course Stewart.

I do appreciate Chretien de Troyes, and of course Wolfram Von Eschenbach's masterpiece (as one should expect!)

Mustn't leave out Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight.

And no one has mentioned Tennyson?!?

Sword At Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliffe

I love lots of the above but would add Jack Whyte's series to the list as well.

Talking the whole shebang, probably Chretien de Troyes and Geoffrey of Monmouth. But I'm still fond of Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur, since discovering it as a young lad (minus the frame story, which detracts from it):

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,
Had fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

etc, etc…

give me Syfy's Merlin

Another hearty vote for Jack Whyte.

The Vulgate, Chretien, Wolfram.

And bah on Song of Roland, go Orlando Furioso!

Sir Gawaine & The Green Knight
A Sword at Sunset
Gillian Bradshaw's Gwalchmai trilogy
Tennyson's Idylls of the King

Favourite film "Excalibur", and I still fondly remember the childrens TV series "Arthur of the Britons" link that I saw many years ago

Another vote for The Sword At Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliffe

'Sword at Sunset.'

She made it feel like history.

Best novel without a doubt The Warlord Chronicles by Cornwell.

Most plausible 'Arthurian' writing I ever read is the one by Kemp Malone.

It portrays 'Arthur' or better Lucius Artorius Castus, as Dux of the legions of cohorts of cavalry from Britain in the 1st/2nd Century AD.

Tim Power's "The Drawing Of The Dark". Of course it's only kinda about King Arthur.