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Back in the days of the prophet Samuel, so the story goes, a grandson of Trojan hero Aeneas brought civilisation to the British Isles.
Geoffrey of Monmouth (?-1155) was residing in Oxford when, in the 1130s, he wrote his majestic History of the Kings of Britain, in which he entrances us with tales of Merlin and Arthur. He also seized on a throwaway remark in the ninth-century chronicle History of the Britons, that ‘The island of Britain derives its name from Brutus, a Roman consul’, to romance the following tale.
The Old English epic ‘Beowulf’ tells how Scyld, beloved King of the Danes, was committed to the ocean at his death — just as he had been at his birth.
The poem Beowulf opens with the death of Scyld, King of the Danes. Scyld had not been born to the crown: the Danes had found him lying in a boat, a helpless infant bedded upon wheat-sheaves. Yet he had risen to govern the people like a beloved father, and when he died in great age his mourning subjects, knowing his mind, with reverence cast Scyld adrift once more upon the retreating tide.
In a lonely castle upon a remote island, Sir Lancelot’s wanderings brought him once more into the presence of the elusive cup of Christ’s blood.
Sir Lancelot has been searching many years for the Sangreal, the Holy Grail or cup which Christ gave to his Apostles at the Last Supper. Now he has taken ship and sailed many seas, and come at last to a lonely isle, and a castle kept only by lions as door-wardens. Entering within, he finds a brightly lit chamber, filled with heavenly song, and prays fervently to Jesus: “Show me something of that I seek!”
Walter Map was so tired of being on the road in the entourage of King Henry II, that he began to wonder if the whole court was under a spell.
King Henry II (r. 1154-1189) spent much of his reign on the road, in England and his estates in France. This gruelling schedule of marches took its toll on his retinue, among whom was Walter Map, a churchman and lawyer. It was as if Henry, he complained, had been laden with the burden of King Herla. What follows here is a summary of the tale that Walter then told.
Sir Ector, who has searched fruitlessly for his brother for seven years, finds him at last, lying in state in the Joyous Gard.
At the close of Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, written in the reign of Edward IV (1461-1470), the deaths of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere have afflicted Sir Lancelot with such grief that he too has died. His half-brother Sir Ector, who had been searching for Lancelot seven years, came too late; but over Lancelot’s body, lying in state in the chapel of the fortress called the Joyous Gard, he spoke these words.
After driving the man-eating ogre Grendel from Hrothgar’s hall, Beowulf must now deal with Grendel’s anguished and vengeful mother.
Beowulf has driven Grendel, the man-eating ogre, from Hrothgar’s hall and mortally wounded him. Thinking his mission complete, Beowulf took his leave of Hrothgar, only for the creature’s anguished mother to steal into the king’s hall and snatch his bosom friend in revenge. Now she has vanished beneath the waters of a mire, but Beowulf is not to be put off. Commending his soul to God, Beowulf leaps after her.