The Back Of My Siege Perilous

The funny thing is that in Knight of the Parrot, Arthur leaves KING LOT HIMSELF in charge and somehow everything turns out swell.

i’ll leave my nephew in control of the kingdom while i go to fight in rome it’ll be fine 

if the sight of a jew doing culturally jewish things and/or practicing the religion makes a person go 🫵 POTENTIAL EVIL LYING CHILD KILLING ZIONIST, APPROACH WITH CAUTION🫵 they are already antisemitic. and it’s going to take a lot of research and self-reckoning and uhh talking to jews in good faith for them to come back from that mindset. and many won’t undergo that process because it’s uncomfortable and shame-producing. and i honestly can’t show grace to folks who have unknowingly fallen down that rabbit hole because the conflation of “jewish” with “evil and bad” has already gotten jews killed this year. and it’s gotten jews killed for thousands of years. and unless gentiles start unpacking that long-ingrained cultural assumption that Jew = Suspicious, Probably Evil, Destroy Now we’ll see more pogroms in the future.

and before you come into my mentions with “but israel,” please understand that gentiles have never needed proof to believe jews are evil and murder them. right now, antisemites are gleeful that they have a “reason” and too many of y’all are just following their lead because you refuse to engage with this information. because you’re not an antisemite, right? you just hate zionists, not jews. and you definitely know what zionism is and you definitely can surmise when zionist is being used as a dogwhistle. right! of course! there is no historical precedent that would lead me to not believe a single word you say.

so like. if you truly want to help fight antisemitism, you have to engage with these ideas even if the process is uncomfortable and shame-producing. you have to unlearn 2,000 years of lies about us and the deeply ingrained instinct to believe we are evil. idk why i’m making this post i just wish gentiles would be believe us when we say It’s Really That Fucking Dire.

To add a little clarity, Jenny Rowland in that book isn't actually saying the poem is bad; she finds it very interesting and is mostly analysing it from a detached perspective for the antiquarian traditions it records. There's some commentary on the poetic skill, both positive and negative, which is where the section I posted is from; it's mentioning there's slightly less metrical, technical skill vis a vis the rules and forms of medieval Welsh poetry than some other saga *englynion*, supporting her proposition this dialogue dates from after the form's heyday. I just screencapped a bit I thought was funny out of context because I have a mutual who likes Gwyn a lot and thought they might enjoy seeing him getting kinda bullied, ahah

Fair enough, I can agree with that, and I probably should have read into it further before reblogging. I suppose from my own reading I've become accustomed to vicious authorly attacks on Welsh anti-blorbos. Like this:

Wow, Laurence Main, tell us how you really feel with those sarcastic parentheses on "St" Illtyd! (For the record, I have met that author, and he is a delight to know, but he does not hold back about "Old Ill-Tide" or Gildas and also hates Taliesin with a burning passion).

Or this, from Adam Ardrey:

More sarcastic quotation marks and more hate for Gildas, who was not gentle in his own works and didn't mention King Arthur in any of his surviving writing and is still getting flamed for it around a millenium and a half later by people who are Maelgwyn fans, are trying to prove Arthur was real,* or both. I have written mediocre Gildas fanfiction at two in the morning with this as the fuel, because I think he probably gets too much hate, though having never met him, I can't judge any better than the people who claim he burned his praise of Arthur for petty reasons.

Anyway, this post went off the rails a lot, but all that is to say that literary scholarship can get incredibly opinionated, it's easy to fall into one viewpoint or become overly cynical about it in general, and I think I have mostly done the latter. Also, that Jenny Rowland book sounds rather interesting; I might have to check it out.

*For the record, I have no firm stance on the matter, since as far as I can tell it can't be proven or disproven. In my head, he both was and was not real. Schrödinger's King. Or warrior, rather.

Dindrane: claimed I could remember my unborn sibling from Heaven, then gave a description of said sibling which turned out to be accurate 

Taliesin: went outside during a lightning storm and tried to fly away by using a Mary Poppins umbrella to catch the wind while making dramatic poetic declarations (I got about two feet in the air)

Sebile: tried to practice necromancy to talk to a dead Monarch butterfly

.

This isn’t something I did, but an evangelical organization once showed up at my family’s house to see whether one of us was the Messiah, and that seems pretty Galahad-esque.

arthurian legend characters as weird things i did as a kid

Arthur: created clubs for the sole purpose of making myself in charge of them

Guinevere: played barbies, but the plot of the game was that they were fighting in world war iii

Lancelot: pretended to be an exterminator by spraying actual hornets with a hose, and somehow not getting stung, against all odds

Gawain: held stair-jumping competitions, and regularly jumped down around 10 stairs at a time

Merlin: designated a particular tree branch for reading and refused to let anyone climb this branch

Gaheris: held ‘screaming contests’ in my backyard to which invited my friends (this is exactly what it sounds like and it was banned by my mother immediately)

Dinadan: eaten spaghetti while riding a bike

Galahad: made a graveyard for bugs

Morgana: recruited a friend’s little brother to spy on said friend because she wasn’t talking to me

Mordred: accidentally made a gallon of poison

Shoutout to Howard Pyle for shooting down the Lancelot/Guinevere plot line in the funniest way possible.

Lynette's family in Arthuriana

We all have heard of Lynette. We either have met her in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem, “Gareth and Lynette” from the Idylls of the King, or in Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. From the mid-19th century to the present day, many works have included her either as a minor character or as the main character of her own story. As is usual, it became a curiosity of mine to find out more about her and about her family as well. In order to do so, I researched four different Arthuriana, three from the 12th century and the other one from the 15th century.

The first Arthuriana is the English one, titled “Le Morte d’Arthur” written by Sir Thomas Malory in the 15th century. In Book IV (Winchester manuscript), a damsel appears at the Pentecost feast, asking Arthur for his assistance. She withholds her identity and where she comes from. All she wants is one of Arthur’s best knights to fight for her sister who is being besieged by a tyrant.

Naturally, Arthur says no because she won’t give him more information. As we know, Beaumains (in reality, Prince Gareth of Orkney) volunteers. This pisses the damsel off because she thinks he’s a kitchen boy. During the journey, she and Beaumains clash constantly with each other. It takes them time to earn each other’s respect. It also leads for them to trust to each other. It is at Sir Persaunt of India’s city that their names to each other are revealed.

Sir Persaunt reveals her name as Lyonette (Linet in the Caxton manuscript), to which she admits it is so. Further down the text, Beaumains makes them swear not to tell anyone (which they swear not to do so) and reveals his own name.

In the end, Gareth wins against the Knight of the Red Lands, also known as Sir Ironside. He also falls in love with Lyonette’s sister, Dame Lyonesse. But she shoos him away by telling him to wait until a year later so that he gains experience and more renown. However, she changes her mind and tells her older brother, Sir Gringamore, to kidnap Gareth’s dwarf. The narrative reveals that Sir Gringamore is married. Moreover, he lives in the Isle of Avalon as it is revealed much later.

After a lot of shenanigans happen (one of them involving an undead knight), a year later Gareth marries Lyonesse. In addition, Lyonette and her niece Laurel (most probably Sir Gringamore's daughter) are married to Gaheris and Agravaine in an arranged marriage.

On the other hand, in the 12th century Arthuriana, “Érec & Énide”, written by Chretien de Troyes, Sir Gringamore, called Guigomar in the narrative, appears as a guest in the wedding of Érec and Énide. He is called the Lord of the Isle of Avalon, as well as Morgan le Fay’s “friend”. His younger brother Graislemier of Fine Posterne also appears as a guest, alongside twenty companions that came along with him.

It is of interest to mention that in another of Chrétien de Troyes’ poems, “Yvain Or The Knight Of The Lion”, Lunete mentions to her mistress, Laudine, that she got a message from her contact Demoiselle Sauvage informing her that Arthur will be coming around Laudine’s lands and she still doesn’t have anyone to defend her fountain. Similarly, in Malory, Lyonette is also called Damsel Savage as well. There is the probability that Malory took inspiration from this unnamed damsel from Chrétien de Troyes and ascribed the title to Lyonette. However, there’s not enough research that proves this possibility.

Lastly, in the First Continuation of Chrétien de Troyes’ “Perceval” written by an unknown author, Sir Gringamore makes a reappearance once more in the narrative. He’s called Guingemuer rather than Guigomar. In the story, Guerrehet (Gareth as he’s called in the narrative) avenges his half-fairy son King Brangemuer, whom he had with Queen Brangepart (a fairy). The king was named after both his parents and it is implied in the narrative that now that his mortal side is gone, he’ll still live through his fairy side of the family.

If these sources are conflated together, it can be thus concluded that:

Sir Gringamore is the Lord of the Isle of Avalon. He was at one time a lover of Morgan le Fay and he was also the lover of a fairy called Brangepart with whom he had a son called Brangemuer. He later got married and had daughter called Laurel. He’s the eldest of four siblings.

Sir Graislemier of Fine Posterne is the second brother of Sir Gringamore, and most probably lives in Avalon or in a territory adjacent to it.

Lady Lyonesse of Castle Perilous is the third sibling and youngest sister of Gringamore and the eldest sister of Lynette. She holds her own lands close to the Isle of Avalon. Moreover, she holds a magic ring that changes appearances. She married Sir Gareth of Orkney.

Lady Lynette is the youngest sister of four siblings. She's a healer, knows the magic arts, riser of the undead and wandering damsel. She’s otherwise known by Damsel Savage. She has different contacts, one of them being Lunete. She married Sir Gaheris of Orkney.

Lyonesse, Lynette and Laurel are close in age, since they married three of the Orkney brothers.

References

De Troyes, C. (2015). The complete story of the Grail: Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval and Its Continuations (N. Bryant, Trans.). Boydell & Brewer Ltd.

De Troyes, C. (2018a). Érec & Énide (A. S. Kline, Trans.). Poetry in Translation. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/French/DeTroyesErecEnidehome.php

De Troyes, C. (2018b). Yvain Or The Knight Of The Lion (A. S. Kline, Trans.). Poetry in Translation. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/French/DeTroyesYvainhome.php

Malory, T. (2009). Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur: A New Modern English Translation Based on the Winchester Manuscript (D. Armstrong, Ed. & Trans.). Parlor Press LLC.

That would indeed be awesome. My first thought was that Melora would be the most competent of the siblings because of her better track record, but unless I’m mistaken, Amr and Loholt were pretty young when they died and never got much of a chance to prove themselves. It would be especially great and chaotic if instead of just having Bhalbhuaidh visit occasionally, they had a full-on exchange program with Alastrann’s court and, if you warp the timeline to its utmost, the Paladins. I would enjoy Bhalbhuaidh and Medoro confronting Bors and Roland and telling them off for being bigoted.

All the Canons, All at once

I am always thinking about the vast Arthurian Mythos and its various traditions and canons. All of them being mutually exclusive to each other...

...Aaaand I can't help but want to smash them together like playdough. Its my favorite past-time as of late.

Like, don't tell me no-one has ever amused themselves of the fact that the Celtic Gods like Gwyn ap Nudd and Manawydan just hanging out in Arthur's court with Palamedes, Dubricius, Galahad and Nasciens.

Or my very favorite concept of Guinevere being a giantess AND a sorceress while also being Morgan the fairy's ex-girlfriend Best-friend-turned-Arch-nemesis. Nevermind what this means for Lancelot, Arthur, Galehaut, Meleagant and the other abductors.

Or the various children that's been given to every character, including Palamedes, Merlin and Tristan. Even Freaking Lancelot and Guinevere have children together. They even have a grandson in Gargantua.

You could literally have your own next-gen version of the Round Table, led by Amr, Loholt and Melora. Staffed by: Guingalain, Ysaye, Lohengrin, Brisan, Bronsidel, Melehan, Munsolinos, Amren, Garanwyn, Kelemon, Andronia, Florismarte, Pantagruel, Vanoc, etc.

And then Dragon Knight Branor, (From Uther's Generation of Round Table Knights) shows up and kicks their asses.

At one point, Dagbert describes his curse by saying that in his thirteenth year, the firstborn son of “the Lord Grimwald” must kill or be killed by his father, which suggests that, if the character referred to as Lord Grimwald has multiple names, the title Lord Grimwald is the most official, the one he most favors, or the one which is most closely linked to his identity. Regardless, it’s a hereditary title, which means that, by the end, Dagbert is the Lord Grimwald and has his own castle. (This is never additionally ).

From the way Dagbert and Lord Grimwald describe it, it sounds like they started calling Dagbert “Dagbert Endless” for the heck of it. It would be very cool if his many names came from his mother—there is so much untapped potential that comes with the half-mermaid thing—and it would also make sense if Dagbert’s many names were a necessity. If he keeps committing murder/magical manslaughter (depending on how much control he’s in), he might be a wanted criminal under some name(s) and need aliases.

Dagbert having endless surnames but Lord Grimwald only having "Grimwald" implies Dagbert either inherited his many surnames from his mother, or Lord Grimwald also has many surnames but managed to pick one. If they're from his mother, it implies that mermaids all have long names. If they're from his father, then I think it's safe to say that a man who chose the name "Grimwald" is likely to be the idiot who decided to name a baby "Dagbert". In this essay I will

Proof That Jughead is Aromantic - Masterpost

*so we know he’s asexual in canon. but he could still feel romantic attraction!!1!1

what’s this? a screenshot from the writer’s twitter??? doesn’t prove anything. that’s just one comic. i’ll put an asterisk next to the comics by this guy to prove he’s the only one writing Juggie as aro.

i’m not convinced. that’s pretty open to interpretation; he’s probably interested

well… maybe that could mean he’s aro?

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