*The Warlord Chronicles,* by Bernard Cornwell. It’s a trilogy composed of *The Winter King*, *Enemy of God*, and *Excalibur*. Cornwell, who is most well known for his historical fiction, gives the Arthurian legend a plausible historical context. Merlin is the greatest of all druids, but he also has apprentices and rivals.
The fictional narrator of the tale believes in some magic and is highly skeptical about other magic. This leaves it up to the reader whether to take any of the magic at face value, since some of it is shown to be trickery. According to Merlin — and our narrator believes him — the trickery merely augments the real thing.
In this version Arthur is not Christian. He tries to tolerate Christians and work with them to fight invading Saxons but the Christians aren’t so eager to tolerate him and often cause trouble. Arthur also has to deal with trouble from the many other British kings and lords who aren’t necessarily eager to follow his lead.
One of the themes of the trilogy is how history is transformed into fictional legend or myth that serves as propaganda. Thus many aspects of the story conflict with or subvert the familiar Arthurian legend, but this account is supposed to be the true story, before it was distorted, and particularly before it was distorted by Christians.
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Bog Queen!
*The Warlord Chronicles,* by Bernard Cornwell. It’s a trilogy composed of *The Winter King*, *Enemy of God*, and *Excalibur*. Cornwell, who is most well known for his historical fiction, gives the Arthurian legend a plausible historical context. Merlin is the greatest of all druids, but he also has apprentices and rivals.
The fictional narrator of the tale believes in some magic and is highly skeptical about other magic. This leaves it up to the reader whether to take any of the magic at face value, since some of it is shown to be trickery. According to Merlin — and our narrator believes him — the trickery merely augments the real thing.
In this version Arthur is not Christian. He tries to tolerate Christians and work with them to fight invading Saxons but the Christians aren’t so eager to tolerate him and often cause trouble. Arthur also has to deal with trouble from the many other British kings and lords who aren’t necessarily eager to follow his lead.
One of the themes of the trilogy is how history is transformed into fictional legend or myth that serves as propaganda. Thus many aspects of the story conflict with or subvert the familiar Arthurian legend, but this account is supposed to be the true story, before it was distorted, and particularly before it was distorted by Christians.