The Arthuriad Volume Two

Zane Newitt

Description

The Saxon conquest of the Blessed Isles has failed. The enemy without is decimated, its fighting-aged men annihilated; twenty years of peace born of the blood-bathed blade Excalibur, wielded in glory and honor by the sandy-haired Silure sovereign.  

The Golden Age of King Arthur. 

Not since David of the Hebrews and not to be again until the End of Ages is the Summer Kingdom of the Cymry. A flicker of freedom and a light of liberty in a dark world. Justice, love and equal opportunity for every individual reigns. 

But no good thing long endures, and all things end… 

The second volume of the Arthuriad continues to weave and guide us through the dark and complex journey that is the Arthurian saga from the time of Mynydd Baeden to the brink of Civil War, giving us healthy portions of Morgaine of the Faeries, Lancelot, and Taliesin, along with hints and shadows of Cups and Perfect Knights, and supposedly long dead wizard along the way.

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Folk Tales
• Fairy Tales
• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Legends
• Historical fiction
• Epic
• Mythology
• Erotica
• Fiction
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Rowanvale Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 18 décembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781911569633
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Arthuriad Volume Two: The Madness of Maelgwn
Zane Newitt
Text copyright © Zane Newitt 2018
Design copyright © Billie Hastie 2018
All rights reserved.
Zane Newitt has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is meant to be educational, informative and entertaining. Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at the time of publication, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for loss, damage or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident or any other cause.
No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by electronic, mechanical or any other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publisher and Author. You must not circulate this book in any format.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, or you were not provided with a review copy by the Publisher or Author only, then please return to rowanvalebooks.com or our online distributors and purchase your own copy, as well as informing us of a potential breach of copyright. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
First published 2018
by Rowanvale Books Ltd
The Gate
Keppoch Street
Roath
Cardiff
CF24 3JW
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBNs
e-Pub: 978-1-911569-63-3
Mobi: 978-1-911569-64-0
PDF: 978-1-911569-65-7
Acknowledgments
The process by which the first book, The Arthuriad Volume One: The Mystery of Merlin , was completed was a life-changing experience and exercise in humility. Having first a third-party expert and then the world, evaluate one’s art brings many ‘blushes and bruises’ to the pride and growth to the soul. For her guidance and support (and softening of my idiosyncrasy, sans diminishing or changing it) and humor over many late nights and early mornings, I am eternally and deeply grateful to Emma and the team at Rowanvale Publishing, without whom the book would still reside as an unfinished manuscript, waxing and fermenting since 2003, on my laptop.
To the Arthur-haters guised as ‘experts’, who start with the premise that the Silure King never was, or was an amalgamation of many, or was a children’s story, to those ‘academics’ who mislead and misdirect in the cesspools of social media… thank you too. Thank you for exposing the fallacious logic that renders every other culture’s history as that, history, and makes Welsh history ‘guilty of fraud and forgery until proven innocent’. The double and triple standards only serve to alert thinking people to the fact that something is amiss, that the fix is in, and that the more they cover up, the more they expose themselves. There is an unbroken chain of evidence in manuscripts, epic poetry, kings’ lists, charters, stones, hills, wells and streams that proclaim the veracity of the great King Arthur without controversy and beyond disputation. So again, thank you, doubters, for shedding light on your lies, for opposing yourselves. ‘The Truth Against The World.’
I am thankful for Alec and Pam, shop owners of Awen Celtic Spirit in Caerleon, Cymru. By being living ensamples of ancient codes of druidic hospitality, for the biscuits and tea, the hours of poring over maps, and for the ongoing exchange of the Mysteries, these two, along with the dear late Dr. Russell Rhys (he was the Merlin), have most influenced my contribution to the Great Conversation concerning our Once and Future King.
Lastly, I wish to acknowledge my children. My everything. My Avery, Camden and Olivia.
To quote my favorite band, ‘They are what my story is all about.’
On Linguistics, Places and Names
Ninth grade Creative Writing class.
With salivating anticipation, we had finally reached a segment on Arthurian Literature in the curriculum.
I was an Arthurian and ‘Celtic’ radical at the time. While the potheads would visit “Stoner Hill” and the jocks would cut class to eat amino acids like captive sharks at feeding time, the vice of my youth was stealing away to the library to ingest as much Arthur, Lancelot and Merlin as I could get my hands on.
When the teacher, reading from a poorly rendered textbook summary of Mallory’s Le Morte , opened class with the words “Arthur, King of England,” all at once feelings of isolation, betrayal and subject-matter-specific arrogance consumed me.
“How could Arthur be king of a country that did not exist?” I demanded.
An alligator’s death roll rant followed.
“The defeat of the Angles, Jutes and Saxons are the primary focus of Arthur’s military campaigns! England would not exist as such for some two centuries later than the Arthurian period!”
With one final gasp, I pronounced: “Calling King Arthur the King of England would be tantamount to making Geronimo Chief of the United States! You have ascribed to the king of the Britons the very title of his enemies.”
I learned that day that there are two distinct camps when it comes to students and fans of matters Arthurian:
1. Students/readers who care very much about Arthurian accuracy.
2. Students/readers who care very little about Arthurian accuracy.
Over the ensuing years, I have observed a great spectrum amongst readers in general, and Arthurian fans in particular.
Some, moved by the romance of Arthur, care little that the knightly and ecclesiastical orders described in medieval Arthurian literature did not exist in 6th century Britain.
Contrastingly, the opposite extreme exists. The contemporary obsession with Celtic primitivism, of long-haired naked warriors running to and fro in skirts screaming in mania, has no place in legitimate Arthurian history.
The ancient British culture was the most advanced, perhaps save Rome, of the Ancient World. Men, though styles were diverse, wore their hair ‘high and tight’ and, for functions of health and cleanliness, had no body hair. As for armor and attire, the Cymry worked in fine silks, decorative crests denoting tribe, cantref (similar to our ‘county’), sub-kingdom and nation. They wore a diverse range of battle arms, depending upon the situation. The ancient British were sophisticated, and it was the Saxon who was bankrupt of culture, virtue, or God, in the Arthurian setting. That modern academia has turned this truth on its head is historical revisionism that would shock and anger any objective inquisitor.
As with the first volume, the author here has endeavored to have a balanced approach, combining fidelity to the linguistics, culture, places and names, while at the same time providing some minor synonyms and modernity for ease of reading. This is primarily found in the use of the word Cymru, which is now rendered ‘Wales’. The term ‘Walles’ is a Saxon pejorative that means ‘foreigner’. This crude, if not callous and ingenious, form of racial imperialism, whereby the invader renders the invaded as the ‘foreigner’, remains a grave national insult to the ancient and glorious people of Wales. Thus, Wales is rendered as Cymru.
Other terms, such as Britannia, the Isles of the Sea and the Blessed Isles, are also used. As for its people, ‘the Cymry’ or ‘Britons’ is used throughout the story.
The Vale of Glamorgan (South East Wales), named after King Arthur’s son Morgan the Courteous, has been left in its modern form as such for ease of pronunciation by the reader.
With regard to personal names, it is important to understand that many Welsh names are titular, some are descriptive, and others are given at birth. To fully bring forth the rich and powerful names in the Matter of Britain, the book toggles back and forth between nomenclature.
For example, in history Morgana Le Fay is Arthur’s sister, Gwyar (mother of both Gawaine and Mordred). In the book she is presented as either Gwyar or ‘Morgaine’, depending upon the circumstantial punch needed.
Bedivere has been rendered Bedwyr and Guinevere as Gwenhwyfar. Gawaine will be found as Gwalchamai. Arthur is unchanged.
As for the historical model, this piece is set against the skeletal framework of the Arthur of Glamorgan and Gwent position, of which the greater portion seems, in light of current scholarship, to be most accurate.
The Seeds of Civil War
Dr. Zane Newitt
A Poetic Entry in the 2014 AmeriCymru Eisteddfod (Revised for publication, 2018)
Civil Wars are a garden, not a rose. Whose seeds are sown in the deepest soils, rich with not hatred and envy unaided, but rather as much with love.
The place of this Civil War was sown in the like manner that pricks all common men. Woe for Cymru that it smote Princes!
’Twas a contest of ‘who saw her first’, and by the smallest grain of time, ’twas Arthur whose eyes first met those of amatory Gwenhwyfar.
At school.
Perhaps, rather, it is the age and not the setting that makes the scholastic years so paramount. The music a man enjoys at fourteen, he enjoys at eighty. The scents that ignite his memories at forty and ten were first ponged at ten and four. His policy of strife and forgiveness, of style and disposition, all established at fourteen.
And so it is meet that Arthur should both be crowned at such an age and see her in school the same year; twin events to forever impact the Blessed Isles.
Maelgwn was sixteen. And again, he yielded to the young Pendragon from the South.
Controversy already and always surrounded the Bloodhound Prince of Gwynedd. Already two heads taller than any Briton, lean with muscles and sinew,