Detours on the Road to Camelot
If you want to see what society is worried about, look at the bestseller list. A scan of best-selling fiction reveals our current anxieties and fantasies. Who are our heroes? Are we looking for white hats? Or are we in one of those phases where a tattered gray hat holds the most fascination?
Stories have always been like that—we concoct the legends we need in the moment. When I wrote the Camelot Reborn series, I kept that in mind as I scanned the source material I referenced. Arthurian legend has many attractions, but consistency is largely absent.
One FAQ is whether King Arthur and Camelot really existed. What we know is sketchy at best. There’s some thought that Arthur might have been a fifth-century Welsh warlord who may or may not have led a miliary expedition in France, but take that with an ocean’s worth of salt. It’s enough that Arthur is the folkloric equivalent of a Swiss army knife with a persona for every occasion.
Scholars refer to the vast body of Arthurian legend as “The Matter of Britain.” The earliest mentions are in Celtic literature, but the first fulsome text is the Historia Regum Britanniae (aka History of the Kings of England) by Geoffrey of Monmouth. This fanciful account appeared around 1136 AD and established the framework of Arthur’s story as we know it. Here we find Merlin, Guinevere, Sir Kay the seneschal, and Excalibur (though Geoffrey calls it Caliburn). Geoffrey’s work is all about Britain’s heroic antecedents and Arthur’s job here is to be royal and mighty. Interestingly, Lancelot is missing.
For good old Lance, we turn to the Frenchman Chretien de Troyes, who wrote a twelfth-century cycle of stories about Arthur and co. At the time, courtly love was trending. This involved an Unattainable Lady ™ who is infinitely desirable but unapproachable (probably because she’s married to someone else) and therefore the Suitor Who Burns With Passion™ is doomed to deliciously painful yearning. Kind of like a love triangle that got run over by a spiteful unicorn. There is poetry. Thank heavens there were no movie channels.
Anyway, this is where Lancelot’s doomed love for Guinevere enters the picture. Not all the early Lancelot stories feature this romance, suggesting he predates de Troyes as a figure in medieval legends. That said, there are other constants among the various works about him: Lancelot was raised by a supernatural female (the Lady of the Lake, who appears as Niniane or Nimueh or even a mermaid), and he rescues assorted ladies in distress. No doubt there’s a knightly quota of damsel-rescuing required. It’s worth noting that in this Gallic version of the story, Arthur (English king) is a third wheel and Lancelot (hot French knight) is the man of the hour.
As time goes on and the bloom of courtly love fades, Lancelot becomes a troubled character. The darker parts of his legend—the betrayal of Arthur, the destruction of Camelot, guilt and madness—are later additions. Much of this material comes into English literature via Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. When we get to later authors like Tennyson, it’s clear what was once seen as romantic if unrequited love has become morally compromised. Only the purest of the pure, Galahad, succeeds in the Grail Quest whereas reprobates like Lancelot fall by the wayside. For the record, I always found Galahad vaguely irritating.
When I came to write Enchanted Guardian, I kept with the less angsty versions of Lancelot—the rescuer, the true friend, and the man who owed allegiance to the Lady of the Lake. Not that he doesn’t have problems—it wouldn’t be a compelling story otherwise. For one thing, there’s not much call for knights in the twenty-first century. At least, not until the dragon shows up.