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| - The Arthurian Legend is a legend of the great King Arthur. Many aspects, especially characters, have influenced The Dark Tower Series.
- The Arthurian Legend is the center of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It follows King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable.
- The earliest known literary (that is, non-historical) reference to Arthur is in Welsh literature, in a collection of heroic death-songs known as Y Gododdin, attributed to the 6th-century poet Aneirin (c. 575 - 600). In one stanza, the bravery of a warrior who slew 300 enemies is praised, but it is then noted that despite this "he was no Arthur", that is to say his feats cannot compare to the valour of Arthur. Y Gododdin is known only from a 13th-century manuscript, so it is impossible to determine whether this passage is original or a later interpolation. John Koch's view that the passage dates from a 7th-century or earlier version is regarded as unproven; 9th- or 10th-century dates are often proposed for it.
- Some novels based on the legends include
* The Once and Future King by Terence Hanbury (T. H.) White
* A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
* The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
* The Mabinogion, Gwynn Jones (Editor) Poetry:
* Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
* Idylls of the Kings by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Stories that are related in other ways:
* The Dark is Rising series, especially The Grey King by Susan Cooper Collections of information about the Arthurian legends:
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| abstract
| - The Arthurian Legend is a legend of the great King Arthur. Many aspects, especially characters, have influenced The Dark Tower Series.
- The Arthurian Legend is the center of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It follows King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable.
- Some novels based on the legends include
* The Once and Future King by Terence Hanbury (T. H.) White
* A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
* The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
* The Mabinogion, Gwynn Jones (Editor) Poetry:
* Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
* Idylls of the Kings by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Stories that are related in other ways:
* The Dark is Rising series, especially The Grey King by Susan Cooper Collections of information about the Arthurian legends:
* The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Arthurian Legends by Ronan Coghlan
* History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a largely fictitious history of Britain and its kings from the nation's founding until the Anglo-Saxon conquest, the ultimate source of most Arthurian legends and of William Shakespeare's King Lear.
- The earliest known literary (that is, non-historical) reference to Arthur is in Welsh literature, in a collection of heroic death-songs known as Y Gododdin, attributed to the 6th-century poet Aneirin (c. 575 - 600). In one stanza, the bravery of a warrior who slew 300 enemies is praised, but it is then noted that despite this "he was no Arthur", that is to say his feats cannot compare to the valour of Arthur. Y Gododdin is known only from a 13th-century manuscript, so it is impossible to determine whether this passage is original or a later interpolation. John Koch's view that the passage dates from a 7th-century or earlier version is regarded as unproven; 9th- or 10th-century dates are often proposed for it. Several poems attributed to Taliesin, a poet said to have lived in the 6th century, also refer to Arthur, although these all probably date from between the 8th and 12th centuries. They include "Kadeir Teyrnon" ("The Chair of the Prince"), which refers to "Arthur the Blessed", "Preiddeu Annwn" ("The Spoils of Annwn"), which recounts an expedition of Arthur to the Otherworld, and "Marwnat vthyr pen[dragon]" ("The Elegy of Uther Pen[dragon]"), which refers to Arthur's valour and is suggestive of a father-son relationship for Arthur and Uther that pre-dates Geoffrey of Monmouth. Other early Welsh Arthurian texts include a poem found in the Black Book of Carmarthen, "Pa gur yv y porthaur?" ("What man is the gatekeeper?"). This takes the form of a dialogue between Arthur and the gatekeeper of a fortress he wishes to enter, in which Arthur recounts the names and deeds of himself and his men, notably Cei (Kay) and Bedwyr (Bedivere). The Welsh prose tale Culhwch and Olwen (c. 1100), included in the modern so-called Mabinogion collection, has a much longer list of more than 200 of Arthur's men, though Cei and Bedwyr again take a central place. The story as a whole tells of Arthur helping his kinsman Culhwch win the hand of Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden Chief-Giant, by completing a series of apparently impossible tasks, including the hunt for the great semi-divine boar Twrch Trwyth. The 9th-century Historia Brittonum also refers to this tale. Finally, Arthur is mentioned numerous times in the Welsh Triads, a collection of short summaries of Welsh tradition and legend which are classified into groups of three linked characters or episodes in order to assist recall. The later manuscripts of the Triads are partly derivative from Geoffrey of Monmouth and later continental traditions, but the earliest ones show no such influence and are usually agreed to refer to pre-existing Welsh traditions. Even in these, however, Arthur's court has started to embody legendary Britain as a whole, with "Arthur's Court" sometimes substituted for "The Island of Britain" in the formula "Three XXX of the Island of Britain". While it is not clear from the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae that Arthur was even considered a king, by the time Culhwch and Olwen and the Triads were written he had become Penteyrnedd yr Ynys hon, "Chief of the Lords of this Island", the overlord of Wales, Cornwall and the North. In addition to these early medieval Welsh poems and tales, Arthur appears in some other early Latin texts besides the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae. In particular, Arthur features in a number of well-known vitae ("Lives") of post-Roman saints, none of which are now generally considered to be reliable historical sources; the earliest probably dates from the 11th century). According to the Life of Saint Gildas, written in the early 12th century by Caradoc of Llancarfan, Arthur is said to have killed Gildas' brother Hueil and to have rescued his wife Gwenhwyfar from Glastonbury. In the Life of Saint Cadoc, written around 1100 or a little before by Lifris of Llancarfan, the saint gives protection to a man who killed three of Arthur's soldiers, and Arthur demands a herd of cattle as wergeld for his men. Cadoc delivers them as demanded, but when Arthur takes possession of the animals, they turn into bundles of ferns. Similar incidents are described in the medieval biographies of Carannog, Padarn and Eufflam, probably written around the 12th century. A less obviously legendary account of Arthur appears in the Legenda Sancti Goeznovii, which is often claimed to date from the early 11th century although the earliest manuscript of this text dates from the 15th century. Also important are the references to Arthur in William of Malmesbury's De Gestis Regum Anglorum and Herman's De Miraculis Sanctae Mariae Laudensis, which together provide the first certain evidence for a belief that Arthur was not actually dead and would at some point return, a theme that is often revisited in later folklore and romance.
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