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The Interweaving of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Mythology and Literature in the Arthurian Legends

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The Interweaving of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Mythology and Literature in the Arthurian Legends Rogers 1 Lofty Depths and Tragic Brilliance: The Interweaving of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Mythology and Literature in the Arthurian Legends A Thesis Submitted to The Faculty of the School of Communication In Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts in English By Melissa Rogers April 22, 2010 Rogers 2 Liberty University School of Communication Master of Arts in English ____________________________________________________________________ Thesis Chair Date ____________________________________________________________________ First Reader Date ____________________________________________________________________ Second Reader Date Rogers 3 Table of Contents Introduction: The Historical, Religious and Literary Development of the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons…….4-27 Chapter One: Timelessness and Transience…………………………………………………………………28-51 Chapter Two: Immanence and Otherness……………………………………………………………………52-79 Chapter Three: A King in his Castle, Knights on their Quests………………………………………………80-112 Conclusion: A Far-Reaching Legend……………………………………………………………………113-124 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………….125-129 Rogers 4 Introduction: The Historical, Religious and Literary Development of the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons In the fabulous court of Camelot, King Arthur presides over the valiant, chivalrous knights of the Round Table. Queen Guinevere is the most beautiful lady in a kingdom filled with beautiful ladies. Lancelot is the greatest knight in a company of illustrious knights. No sword is more fantastic than Excalibur. No quest is more noble than that of the Holy Grail. No king could ever be greater than King Arthur. The Arthurian legends of the modern imagination weave a medieval tapestry of bright colors and graceful forms. The tales of the Middle Ages embrace the tragic love triangle of Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, the Quest for the Holy Grail, and a multitude of stories that are an integral part of the Arthurian identity. Without the drama of the medieval chivalry and courtly love or the Grail quest, the stories would become something foreign to the popular imaginings of Arthur and his court. Without these familiar portraits of knights in shining armor, damsels in high towers, and a splendid, medieval king presiding over all, the Arthurian cycle would likely lose its established identity. However, a closer look at the complex and colorful tapestry of the Arthurian legend reveals a series of subtle threads that work their way through every well-known scene and popular romance. While the image created is that of a medieval romance, the threads are formed from the history, culture, mythology, literature, and legends of the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons. The medieval imagery provides a surface identity for Arthur and his knights, but the underlying Anglo-Celtic threads are responsible for the captivating, vibrant, and ultimately enduring essence of the Arthurian legends. The stories of Arthur have done more than merely survive centuries of English literary development. The cycle of tales has expanded, gathering strength in the collective, multi- cultural imagination of generations of story-tellers and writers. At first glance, these stories do Rogers 5 not seem to hold any singular element that distinguishes them from any other tales of kings and warriors. Virgil gave the Romans their Aeneas; the Greeks could choose from any number of wise and valiant leaders, from Theseus to Odysseus; the Celts had colorful characters like Cù Chùlainn, Fionn mac Cumhaill, and Pryderi; the Anglo-Saxons provided their literary hero Beowulf. Likewise, the British have King Arthur, one legendary leader among the many provided by centuries of different cultures. However, while all these stories are translated and studied and are still appreciated for their cultural and literary value, none of the others came to life in the vital and powerful sense that the Arthurian tales experienced. The stories of Arthur and his knights did not remain static, like the epics of Homer and Virgil or the poetry and literature of the Celts and Anglo-Saxons. Rather, King Arthur, his queen, the knights, the quests, and everything most often associated with the Arthurian cycle embody a living legend that is capable of retaining its original appeal while interacting with new cultures. What the Arthurian legend has that other stories do not is a unique and indispensable cultural composition. While few would contest that Arthur is popularly viewed as a British king, the original inspiration and continuing influence in the stories are not what one might define as strictly “British.” The Celtic and Anglo-Saxon cultures lent themselves to the creation and evolution of the tales, providing the foundation and structure for what Arthur would become. The early Celtic myths of Arthur gave the legend its origin and Otherworldly spirit, and the Germanic ideals found in Anglo-Saxon literature brought the fantastic king back into this world and provided a solid, temporal framework. These two distinct bodies of mythology were woven together into a uniquely compelling fabric of cultural structures that coalesced in the medieval persona of the British King Arthur while remaining enduringly and fundamentally Anglo-Celtic. Rogers 6 Before the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon elements came together in Arthur, they were two entirely distinct entities. The historical development of each culture and their later literary emergence create important contexts for both and greatly influence how each is able to contribute to the Arthurian legend. Assumptions made about their various ideals and beliefs must first be grounded in their historical and cultural settings and in the literature produced by each. While the Celts and Anglo-Saxons shared much of the same geographical location, their chronological development coincides only slightly. Each culture has its own evolution and history, and each has a very different place in the story of Arthur. The Celts provide the earliest traceable influence on Arthur’s legend. The obscurity of Arthur’s origins, both in history and literature, is paralleled by the mysteriousness Celts. The Celtic culture proves as elusive as its strange mythology. One of the distinguishing features of the Celts, and one that has proven the most frustrating for scholars attempting to understand their beliefs, is their strong oral tradition and their lack of a literary one. The religious leaders of the Celts were extremely protective of their knowledge and did not allow anything to be written down lest they lose their power among the people. They passed their knowledge orally from one generation to the next. The result of this tradition is a complete lack of written documents that were produced by the Celts themselves, and almost none at all surviving from before the medieval period. Knowledge of the people must be obtained primarily through archeology and classical commentaries. Unfortunately, archaeology can do very little to verify the intricate myths of the Celts. The myths and legends that must be used to explore the Celtic beliefs were all written long after the stories were told and after the religion had ceased to be practiced. Moreover, the myths were copied down by Christian scholars and monks who were not always directly related to the culture. This disconnection between the ancient past and the medieval Rogers 7 documents has resulted in a great deal of skepticism and doubt regarding the veracity of the myths and how truly they represent the Celts. Such stories as those of Pwyll, Pryderi, Taliesin, and Rhiannon from the Welsh Mabinogion have very medieval characteristics and are filled with Christian references rather than possessing the purely ancient, pagan qualities that one would expect to find in a truly Celtic tale. Andrew Breeze notes that particularly in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century additions to the Mabinogion, the Arthurian tales of “Owein,” “Peredur Son of Efrawg,” and “Gereint Son of Erbin,” the style and plots are “closer in spirit to the softened dream-world usually associated with medieval romance” (63). In order to justly employ both the medieval Welsh legends and the Irish tales, they must be firmly connected with their Celtic past. Once the written copies have been proved to have characeristics representative of their Celtic forebears, the legends can then be utilized in an examination of their later Arthurian manifestations. Some facts about the Celtic myths and legends simply cannot be established and must remain educated conjecture. Foremost among these is the dating process of the first versions of the stories. The oral tradition of the Celts does not allow for an “original” copy of any of the stories. However, a lack of the written word, far from giving the tales a less reliable background, only emphasizes the importance the Celts must have placed on the spoken word. The documents that were copied based on orally conveyed legends are themselves late copies, but still reflect a far earlier cultural identity. Proinsias MacCana says of these copies, “These manuscripts are themselves relatively late, but they have been compiled from earlier sources and many of the individual items which they contain may be dated on linguistic grounds centuries earlier than their extant transcription” (17). While an exact date, or even a general timeframe might be difficult to determine for any one of the legends, their ancient origins can be accepted due to an Rogers 8 understood oral heritage that reaches back into a pre-literary past. In Patrick Ford’s introduction to
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