As a kid, I would have said Robin Hood - for sure.
This was almost entirely because of the "lifestyle" aspect - I liked the idea of living in the woods, and off the woods, with a gang of my friends: tracking, bows and arrows, camouflaged clothes etc. And Robin Hood was without doubt the premier English folk hero, through the middle ages and up until the past couple of generations. If Robin has a real-life origin, he is English.
Nowadays, it is Merlin - for sure. But he is not really an English folk hero - being a combination of the Scottish Lailoken and the Welsh Myrddin - with (I believe) the Scottish Lailoken being the historical person (and having nothing to do with the historical Arthur, Lailoken being born two or three generations after the Celtic general).
Arthur has always been there, but was never first in my interest - indeed I found him a rather lacklustre person (in some versions) or a mere warrior (in other versions) - and not even the best warrior, either.
The historical Arthur is "British" - i.e. from the time of Celtic England and Wales - but when Scotland was distinct, mostly Pictish.
The later Arthur is "Norman" - or, more exactly, a product of the Franco-English Plantagenet dynasty; and thus concerned with validating and mythologizing their aristocratic obsessions with cavalry, adultery and celibacy.
This is why the chivalric knight hero Arthur has tended to be a favourite of the upper classes, while Robin was the people's hero; and Merlin became the collective archetype of the great seer/ prophet/ magician/ sorcerer/ wizard - therefore something of a link between the Celts, English, Scots, and Normans.
Guinevere - who has never had much of an heroic status, except in the most superficial treatments - has always struck me as even more lacklustre and uninteresting than Arthur. But in marrying Arthur she can be regarded as another linking figure; between the Ancient British Celts of Cornwall, and the Anglo-French Normans - the failure of that marriage is the spiritual failure of the project of Britain.
Guinevere is a sterile (childless) beauty, who never does much except get abducted and (apparently) falls in and out of "love" with various suitors (especially Lancelot). This hints towards a recent idea (elaborated by Wendy Berg - in Red Tree, White Tree) is that Guinevere is a fairy - and thus a link (or intended to be a union) between the world of Men and Fays. That is why she is fascinating but sterile, and so passive - she is unsuited to the human world.
Also why Guinevere keep getting abducted by various (disguised) fairies who are her relatives and suitors from faery, trying to get her back.
But the Anglo-Norman Chivalric Arthur was challenged in my childhood by a more historical Arthur; as the warlord-leader of the Roman-British Christians against the pagan, savage, barbaric Saxon invaders. This Arthur was propagated widely, via scholarship initially, and later (but not much later!) by romantic fiction, TV, movies etc.
For may people, this "peoples' hero Arthur" has largely displaced both the Knights and Damsels Arthur; and also Robin Hood; and absorbed Merlin as a kind of druidic figure.
Arthur is the new Robin!...
Thus the national mythology continued to develop and evolve; even in late 20th century (maybe into the 21st century?) Britain.
5 comments:
Well as a non-Brit I think it was repeated viewings of John Boorman's "Excalibur" that made me finally 'get' the British spirit, or founding mythology. The whole 'God save the king' shtick never made sense to me until I had absorbed the Arthurian legend.
Call it blasphemous but in many ways I find Arthur (as portrayed in Excalibur) much more relatable than Jesus. Jesus is the perfect, god-like man, whereas Arthur is the ignorant boy thrust into complete service to the divine, who then loses this divine mandate, before seeking redemption.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for a come-back story.
@Michael C - Excalibur is certainly a fascinating and memorable movie. But for me it is Nicol Williamson's Merlin, and then Helen Mirren's Morgana, who are the stand-out characters. I found Arthur and the knights rather forgettable.
One problem with this movie, and with many of the the Malory influenced versions, is the Grail Quest - which I find vague and a bad-idea in the first place. (Tennyson, and Geoffrey Ashe, also thought this).
The Grail (and indeed Lancelot) were somewhat late additions to the myth, and I find it alien and anomalous (as I do Lancelot and his son Galahad).
Percival/ Parsifal is, however, a very interesting additional character - but his Grail stuff is rather too messy and anticlimactic for my liking.
I think the Arthur story has the greatest mythic resonance for me in the beginning (leading up to his becoming king) and at the end (when he dies - but does not die).
The golden age of King Arthur's rule makes most sense to me from the (historically broadly-valid) POV of Arthur defeating and pushing back the barbarian-pagan Saxons and re-re-establishing a British Christian realm for a generation until the death of Arthur lead to fragmentation and defeat of the British tribes.
(Albeit that defeat took about two centuries, before which the Saxons had become civilized Christians. The historic Arthur's greatest and lasting achievement was this *delay* in the Saxon conquest - so that Britons were eventually defeated by "decent" Saxons, rather than being overrun by the savage pirates (Vikings) that the Saxons were to begin with.)
...Rather than as (a la Malory) Arthur's reign being conceptualized as a time of high knightly chivalry, that was self-destroyed by the round table abandoning its proper role from being gripped by a bizarre and (except for Galahad, Percival and Bors) wholly delusional Grail-quest.
I, too, was going to post about 'Excalibur', which I love. Also , as an Irishman I find it a poignant watch, as it was shot in my country and contemplating the difference between the Ireland of 1981 and 2024 is extremely painful to me, so the movie has another level of unforeseen but powerful meaning whenever I watch it and which seems to uncannily parallel the onscreen story.
By the way, it is being shown across the UK at the end of the month in the Picturehouse cinema chain and I for one am looking forward to seeing it on the big screen!
"I think the Arthur story has the greatest mythic resonance for me in the beginning (leading up to his becoming king) and at the end (when he dies - but does not die). "
Well I would certainly concur with that. And yes, Nichol Williamson's performance as Merlin is exceptional.
As a kid my brother and I played at pirates, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Lawrence of Arabia, cowboys and Indians etc. The American childhood has changed so much, they don't pretend to be any real human doing real or supernatural things, they pretend to be characters in a video game.
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