The Idylls of the King: Some Myths about King Arthur

King Arthur was a legendary British king who was portrayed in many poems and books written over the years. Many of his stories have basis in history, but they are also filled with myth and legend. We know a few things about this “king”. We know that he is married to a princess named Guinevere and that he had pulled a sword out of a stone that would only allow the chosen king to pull it out. We know that these stories are not historical because of a multitude of reasons, some of which are:

• There are no reliable historical documents that show any proof of his existence from the time when he was supposed to exist.
• Many of the battles that happened in the stories did not happen in real life.
• And finally, the time of peace and prosperity which is described in the books during his reign did not actually happen during the supposed times when they were supposed to happen.

There probably was a soldier or king named Arthur back in the day, for every myth there has to be an actual background story.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892), an English poet, wrote the Idylls of the King in which we learn about Arthur's rise to power, his marriage, his knights, and his death.

The Sword in the Stone

One of the myths about how Arthur became a king is the Sword in the Stone. In this myth, the king, Uther, dies and leaves behind no heir to the throne. On his deathbed, he had named Arthur as his heir, but no one knew who it was. There was in the courtyard of a church a sword in a stone that had appeared from heaven in front of a gathering of knights. On its blade was written that only the man who could draw the sword would be king!

One day at a tournament, a knight named Kay forgot his sword. His younger adopted brother, Arthur, went to fetch it for him and in the process of finding a weapon for his brother, he pulled the sword out of the stone. When this was found out, no one believed him and they kept attempting to redo it, but every time it was Arthur who pulled it out. Thus, he was crowned king. The creator of this myth was Sir Thomas Malory (1405–1471) who was an English writer.

The Coming of Arthur

A story about Arthur is the Coming of Arthur, which is about how the king helped a fellow kingdom and got married to the daughter of the king he had saved, Guinevere. This story tells us that after Arthur had been crowned king of England, he had gone to help some potential allies. While he was riding through the castle in Cameliard he saw the princess, Guinevere, whom he fell in love with. After winning a major battle against a coalition of kings, he sent messengers to the father of Guinevere to ask for her hand in marriage. After some consideration of Arthur's descent, character, legitimacy to Uther's throne, etc. the king allows his daughter to marry Arthur and they both go back to England.

The first mention of king Arthur's wife was in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae which was written in the early 12th century.

Guinevere

In the Idylls of the King, we find that Guinevere was secretly in love with one of King Arthur's knights, Lancelot, and that she had an affair with him. After this was found out by the knight Mordred, she was considered tainted and was not considered an immoral queen by the people of England.

After this was found out, Lancelot was fought by Arthur and his loyal knights. Guinevere then left the city to go and live in a nunnery so that she could escape the hatred of the people. One day, Arthur came to the nunnery and forgave her and left to go and fight for England. After this, she realized that she could not go back to Arthur, so she lived out her days in the nunnery, helping other people.

This part of the Idylls of the King shows us how sin has bad consequences.

The Passing of Arthur

King Arthur was going to war. His country was being ravaged by Mordred, his cousin, who had rallied all his enemies and some of his knights to fight the true king of England. The two armies of Arthur and Mordred met on a fog filled afternoon on a beach, and the result of the battle was the grievous wounding of Arthur and the death of Mordred.

The last remaining knight of the Round Table, Sir Bedivere, took Arthur to a quiet spot, after which he discarded of Excalibur into the lake from whence it came. Then the knight took his king to the shore of the lake and the king was taken in a boat away from England by three queens. This was how Arthur, the Pendragon of England, had passed away.