Don: 0:27

So so not only were the bones human, they were alphabetized.

Ron: 0:33

Yeah, that's creepy that's a very kind of them I appreciate it.

Doug: 0:37

I need to open my textbook for that one. Again, I wouldn't have done a good job yeah, yeah, it's a lot work.

Ron: 0:43

At least they help you remember your letters.

Doug: 0:48

Wishbone is letter Y if you look at it close enough.

Don: 0:51

Yeah.

Doug: 0:52

Yeah.

Don: 0:52

Where's your wishbone In my heart?

Ron: 0:58

My collar. It is in your collar. Break me open and make a wish baby. I tell my wife when I'm past my prime.

Don: 1:10

Well, on that note, welcome everybody back to the Uncannery. I'm Don, I'm Doug and I'm Ron, and we're glad that you're joining us again for this conversation about breaking Ron's chest open.

Ron: 1:25

You signed up for this listener.

Don: 1:27

Indeed.

Ron: 1:29

You can go find an NPR podcast.

Don: 1:31

We're going to talk about some legends today.

Ron: 1:32

you guys, I love legends Me too.

Doug: 1:35

Yeah, I love the film legend as well.

Ron: 1:37

Legends are legitimately cool.

Doug: 1:39

Yeah.

Ron: 1:40

It's kind of weird that they exist at all, right? Is that a weird quirk of human psychology? We even have legends. It kind of weird that they exist at all, right? Is it a weird quirk of human psychology? We?

Don: 1:46

even have legends, it kind of is, especially when we look at how they change over time.

Doug: 1:50

I think and I mean, I think we're talking about legends in terms of a tale, but we also describe things as being legendary.

Ron: 2:00

Right, because we think they're tale worthy. I will tell a tale of these wings. These wings are legendary and I tail worthy. Yeah Right, I will tell tale of these wings. Right, these wings are legendary, yeah.

Don: 2:08

And I often do. Yeah, and and another quirk of human psychology, as long as you brought that up right, is this that we all have for you guys to, to, to start us off is as legends in our own minds? And when future generations tell the legend of you. What do you want to be different about your story? What do you want them to get wrong?

Ron: 2:40

That every man and woman in his company left satisfied.

Don: 2:48

Ron, this is a rated PG podcast.

Ron: 2:51

You can be satisfied in many ways Satisfied in this conversation, satisfied with the attention he paid them, satisfied in the money he gave them.

Doug: 3:01

Yeah, satisfied in the company of sharing a donut together.

Don: 3:04

You never know.

Doug: 3:07

Wow, yeah, I mean, I've always been satisfied. So thank you, I don't know, I'll take a moment.

Ron: 3:11

You're what I call a good legend spreader trying to cut out bad legends from my life, that's good, very selective in your legend spreader.

Don: 3:21

So yeah, choosing yeah.

Doug: 3:25

Um, I think as a new dad I've been working on um some of my scary dad aura.

Doug: 3:32

I've tried to bring that in of just, uh, the more haunted part of me. That's like I. You have to, I don't know. There's just a part of me that thinks got to kind of start to conjure the presence that when my son is about to do something devious with his friends, he goes. My dad will get so mad. You've met my dad right. I feel like that's something that's important. Yes, Please, keep cultivating. I'm going to see what I can do. So along those lines, I'm hoping that maybe it's the X-Men fan in in me, but I want to be remembered as having like mutations, that's that's what I want.

Don: 4:07

To be wrong like 12, like six toes.

Ron: 4:11

You know my dad, you know how scary he is. He's got 12 toes exactly he turns into a toad.

Doug: 4:20

He runs faster than anyone. With that extra toe, exactly, yeah. So mutations would be great. Extra eyeballs Other years, to hear you with my dear Speaking of legends A good legend does have a sort of has a physical quality to them usually right.

Don: 4:38

That sets them apart.

Ron: 4:39

Maybe it's just physical prowess, or they're incredibly tall, or like Andre the Giant he was so big. He was a freakishly large man or the elephant man, right.

Don: 4:52

Both of which are real human beings, right, but then, like Paul Bunyan, would be the legend.

Ron: 4:57

Literally the tall town, but they have like legendary status. I think so. Do you think a real person can't become a legend?

Don: 5:05

I just was clarifying that those like those are real people. Like I can. I can pull up a picture of andre the giant, and and yeah, but it's not not the same as pulling up an illustration of paul bunyan?

Ron: 5:15

but there can be like a transformation, right like non-fiction becomes I don't know what do you think adopts fictional qualities there's a there's, there's a certain type of fidelity that is, you know, forgotten, partly forgotten but like I feel like parts of their personality remain in the, in the imagination, and maybe get inflated beyond George Washington.

Don: 5:52

Yeah, exactly Right.

Ron: 5:53

Like oh, his teeth were his main thing.

Don: 5:58

When I think about the legend of George Washington, the cherry tree is what I think of. Yeah, I think of his teeth, his hippopotamus teeth.

Doug: 6:06

Yeah, definitely.

Ron: 6:08

We just grew up in different neighborhoods, I guess.

Doug: 6:11

Don and I were over on Cherry Lane. Yeah, I think of legendary and again real person but gets conflated to legend, the samurai Miyamoto Musashi, are either of you familiar? No, probably worth revisiting. Um, at a certain point, although many have talked about him, but just famous as um many would describe, would would give him the title as the greatest swordsman of all time because he defeated so many people in single-handed combat, left behind a book called the book of five rings, talking about how to engage in combat and learn to be a great warrior in that sense. And again historical figure, but very much kind of legendary in the way that he's portrayed in art. And and again no photograph, and this was a very long time ago, of course, before all of that. But I feel like he's passed into something that almost represents more of um, kind of kind of a mythical, you know, samurai type of a figure.

Ron: 7:09

Yeah. And what will people get wrong about your legend, Don yeah?

Don: 7:14

You know, there's there. We've mentioned before that we're all educators and, uh, there's actually, I think, a legend that kind of is attached already that I like to cultivate, um, there, even, and it's it's attached to that scary dad, or you're talking about doug right like I think that, uh, that, that, uh, I'm kind of known as a scary, oh scary educator and I don't know why, like I've never I've never been mean or or anything, and so uh, but I it's fine, like it's a good thing to cultivate, yeah, um, so uh, so they can learn how nice I am.

Don: 7:47

Later it's coming to be. It's definitely better that way, yeah, than the opposite, it's true yeah, yeah, if you're the nice guy, it's hard to be the scary guy, absolutely I'm gonna be scary now don't make me go scary absolutely you want it, you got it.

Don: 8:05

It's never good yeah, well, so we can, so we can. Can circle around on this a little bit like what, what legends you think of? We've mentioned paul bunyan. Okay, yeah, I don't know anything about pico's bill, except that he is associated with paul bunyan because those stories are together. I think it's because they were cartoons together, yeah, at some point. Yeah, what other, uh, who else do you think of when you think of legends?

Ron: 8:27

um, who was the guy that was building the railways? What's that guy's name so many?

Doug: 8:33

guys, where do you want to start?

Ron: 8:34

there's one right, and he was. He was like the strongest dude. He could drive a rail pile, you know, in one swoop, and eventually he died. I think he worked himself to death, or or the man worked himself to death, or worked him to death. Who am I thinking of?

Don: 8:50

John.

Ron: 8:50

Henry. Yes, john Henry yeah.

Doug: 8:53

Yeah, think of legendary cowboys. That's a big one. You know like things like Jesse James, billy the Kid, billy the Kid right, billy the Kid's a big one. You know like, uh, things like Jesse James, billy the kid, billy the kid Right, um, billy, your kids are killing. Yeah, and another example of real people. But then the legend continues on and continues to inflate.

Doug: 9:16

Uh, you brought up Andre the giant. Of course I'm going to throw Brett Hart in there. You know, incredible professional wrestler that we all have a lot of respect for in this room.

Ron: 9:25

We should probably also throw rick priestly, the guy who wrote the first edition of the warhammer, just get all our people, blanche great artist.

Doug: 9:36

That's right, um no, but I okay, but I will say this. There's all of that to say. I think that I instantly go. It needs to be older, though. Yeah, there's something, there's something inherent.

Ron: 9:53

These are all American legends, right, and I think the American legend I think I think looms large in the American psyche but is has a certain is a little rubs, a little too close to reality. Sometimes, if I can see a picture of Billy the Kid, he becomes less cool, you know.

Doug: 10:08

Right, right yeah.

Don: 10:10

I agree with that. All right, and we have an international audience, so it's all right. Cast the net wider. What international legends?

Doug: 10:18

Do we get into mythology as well? Sure, Because I mean.

Ron: 10:22

Is a myth, a legend. Yeah, there's got mythology as well, sure, because I mean, there's a myth of legend. There's gotta be a difference there, right?

Doug: 10:26

I don't know, I think, myth, I feel like I've wrestled with this before and I don't know where I'll either. Yeah, I mean at least for my own personal, if you're asking me in the chair right now, where, where?

Ron: 10:37

do you sit with? You're in the chair, you're locked in.

Doug: 10:39

I'm actually on the couch, but that's fine. No, you're locked, okay. Um, big lighting your face. I'm thinking that I'm sweating. Mythology. I immediately attribute to the structure of how the story's told. I think, I think about that, that it's. It's about it having some greater significance yeah, almost a parable. Like almost a parable almost religious connotation in a sense so like hercules right myth or legend or both I, I think both, whereas legend, I think of the fact that it has a certain amount of universal appeal.

Ron: 11:17

I think what is a legend? Now, I'm just confused. Yeah, I think, I think a legend.

Don: 11:21

I think hercules is a legend that exists in the context of mythology. Okay so mythology right, We've got explanatory myths, so they're based in in the natural world and explaining why natural phenomenon are what they are.

Don: 11:34

and they are a religion originally Um, and so it was a religious way to explain phenomenon that you did not know. Right, we're legends, and I think Hercules is a good example of one of one. Right, it's a story that describes an extraordinary deed or an extraordinary event, or an extraordinary person that is then involved in a series of those deeds and events. Yeah, so the mythology has more of the belief system attached. Where the legend is is just a story. However, I think what you said about the societal purpose of both of them is very closely linked, and I think that's. I think it's actually something we're gonna be talking about a little bit later today.

Doug: 12:07

Oh yeah, do you have a legend, you guys? You guys are good at this.

Don: 12:10

You dance so close to what I want, to what I want to talk about so, or are you a great question, asker?

Doug: 12:15

we don't know, we don't know. Would you say it's a legendary? It might be. We'll tell you at the end of this podcast keep listening folks. This next sponsor is brought to you by Folgers coffee the word legend, though, is immediately interest grabbing.

Ron: 12:31

Oh yeah. If someone says like I got a legend, I'm like, oh yeah, like I want to hear what's going, what there's something about the. If you made it into legend, right, it has to have been such an extraordinary or interesting or dynamite kind of persona or event, right?

Don: 12:49

Yeah. There are some things you just got to know about, and a myth is a sacred story that explains why the world is the way it is. A legend is a story that grows through whispers about what might have happened or how it might have happened. Right, so it. It kind of has the ability to grow over time and in a way, that myth doesn't grow over time.

Ron: 13:14

Right, and it's remains relatively static, right, like we. We don't change what we think about the odyssey. The odyssey is just the odyssey. You can present that with like some new set dressing right, but you're not gonna like yeah, even in its structure.

Doug: 13:30

I want to hear book 17. Yeah, you want to hear exactly what's happening in book 17.

Ron: 13:35

Yeah makes sense. He's gotta hug his boy. You know, he's gotta, he's gotta good guess, mess up the suitors yep, which one's the seventh? Isn't that when he gets back, I don't know how many books for him? Is that the end?

Doug: 13:50

I was just finishing up the Iliad. I think there's 24, if I'm right. So yeah, I don't know, odyssey, I'll have to go back.

Don: 13:56

What if we went to England?

Ron: 13:58

Legends you know about.

Don: 13:59

England.

Ron: 14:01

Dreary, dismal capitalist country, that's not legend. That's just description Legends from the Isles Beowulf, beowulf, king Arthur Big guy.

Don: 14:21

When was King Arthur king?

Doug: 14:26

Medieval times.

Don: 14:29

Before Henry VIII or after Henry Before Way before.

Ron: 14:33

He's an antiquity king, I'm gonna say Antiquity he's. I'm gonna say before the Middle Ages. I'm gonna say oh, no, I know, I feel like, okay, before the Norman Conquest there was a king arthur yeah, oh oh well, probably before the anglo-saxons, I'll say too and I wouldn't be so bold to even start.

Doug: 14:57

That's my bet to enter this put money before anything.

Ron: 15:00

But you guys know about king arthur, yeah, all right, so tell me what you know round table pizza round boy he had a wizard who could turn him into an owl, and sometimes a squirrel how do you know those things? Because the sword in the stone was my favorite movie as a young child. The disney really needed adaptation of these tales, yeah, um, yeah, merlin the wizard is his, is his advisor. He, at a very young age, pulls a sword out of a stone and that means he is going to be the king. It's a sort of prophecy scenario Excalibur.

Ron: 15:37

I don't know actually what happens once he's king. I really only know the like origin story. Guinevere shows up.

Doug: 15:44

Oh, yeah, he has his knights.

Ron: 15:46

One of them betrays them and sleeps with Guinevere. Galahad, Lancelot.

Don: 15:53

He just named Galahad Lancelot. He just named it Galahad slept with Guinevere.

Doug: 15:55

Is that what you just said yeah, that's a good one. We're really slow at reaching 10.

Ron: 15:58

One of them, Galahad the perfect knight Perfect. Yeah, I said Galahad. I thought that was the. It's an exploration of the hypocrisy of the knightly cast.

Doug: 16:06

No, it has to be a guy whose name is Lanc lot, which I've always found very funny. He's out there lancing that makes sense.

Ron: 16:11

Yeah, they call him lance a lot um.

Doug: 16:14

My wife is actually obsessed with the uh television show merlin, so she we saw yeah, that's pretty good with john hurts the dragon I, I have not watched it at all.

Doug: 16:25

I just know you boot that up for my wife. She's going to be entertained. Get the popcorn. Um, and I know that the certain amount of betrayal and romance and chivalry that's involved is enough to keep her going. She, she really enjoyed it, to say the least. Um, many a quest, just many a quest, is what I think of the holy grail of course, but it's a tragedy too, right, because, yes, his reign ends before his time.

Ron: 16:49

He's betrayed by his sister or one of the witches or something, or a god's son I think it depends on the version if I remember correctly, but yeah, are you thinking of morgana? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doug: 17:01

Morgana lefay, yeah, yeah, yeah okay, yeah, uh, what else we got here?

Don: 17:07

all right, let's, let's uh you. You mentioned sword in the stone. Yeah, which is disney movie?

Doug: 17:12

yep um and disneyland, you can also try to pull the show.

Don: 17:16

You can try to pull the sword out of stone in disneyland or stay at the casino in las vegas, that's right um sword in the stone is actually based on a novel. Do you know which?

Ron: 17:30

uh, is it once in future king? It is by, by th white, oh so that's very late in the game.

Don: 17:36

I'm assuming it is development that's 1958 so okay um, so arthur's been around for a little while. Um sort of the show is just the first section of of white's book. Um, but white's book is super interesting, so big, big recommendation if you haven't read it yet. Um, but the the stuff with changing into animals is in there and that's all the magical first part of the ones in Future King.

Ron: 17:59

Well, we say that's the most like contemporary spin on the Arthur legend. I mean, I'm sure there's like a thousand young adult novels that are adding things, but like that's the last big one, right?

Don: 18:09

I wouldn't say so. I think it's super important, one no-transcript Morgan Le Fay's point of view, yeah, um, and create some interesting tensions between Lancelot and Arthur that don't quite exist in other versions of it because of that focus on the, the feminist telling of it. Um, she introduces Arthur as, uh, he was their King, but was also his mother's son, his sister's lover, their people's pawn in a game they barely understood, right. So what a great tagline categorizes everything in in context of the female uh characters yeah which have gotten some short shrift for yeah, a good section.

Doug: 19:10

I very much remember my first initial reading going through Le Morte d'Arthur and just thinking, like this is so much original sin, like it's so much like. And then the woman ruined it again with a temptation and wily ways. So, yeah, I could see that being a necessary addition.

Don: 19:29

Yeah, so credit to both of them. White's novel is really good at presenting these pithy little nuggets of of wisdom. Um, so, in a lot of it's in the first section, because because you're right, ron the story does lead to an eventual downfall. But uh, merlin used to say things like merlin said, the only way to achieve power is not to want it. That was a lesson he never forgot, even when they bowed and called him majesty. Yeah, we need more of that in the world. Sure, yeah for sure.

Ron: 20:00

That's beautiful so then do we think like the Arthur story is a sort of story about kingship and leadership, and like the sort of dream of a people for like who should rule over them? I think Arthur exhibit all those qualities.

Doug: 20:15

Dying you were about to say I well, again, it's a, it's a reading of Lamar, that's several.

Doug: 20:21

I mean it's like it's been almost a decade, but I would say I remember feeling very much that it was almost biblical and its portrayal of the eventual failure of humanity to do the right thing, like when despair hits, and like there's a certain level of despair that people will selfishly choose to go in a certain way. And Arthur, because he is so pure, often is the one who's kind of sacrificed in the pursuit of that and that he tries to continue to be noble, but his people want more, especially his nights. His nights will want more and the table falls apart, uh, because of it. Um, I remember a climactic battle, I remember fatal wounding, and then we should remember him as what we the, the better that we should have been, and then the remembrance of him is kind of what they used to inspire that england takes so many of their values and virtue from the fact that they try to pursue the england that arthur wanted. Did I do an okay job at that?

Don: 21:20

I think you did a good job, okay, thank you that was off the cuff from decade old I think yeah, I think that we need to circle back to this question over and over again, though, because okay kind of it reminds me of our alien episode, right where we have this cultural projection over time, so yeah I think because there's been. I mean, we didn't talk about them, but there's been a minor resurgence in arthurian movies recently. Yeah and I think there's like three or four of them between 2000 and 2012 or so.

Ron: 21:51

Right yeah, the last one I saw was the one where he was like a Roman uh, kira Knightley and the guy who's not Gerard Butler.

Doug: 22:03

It looks like the dude from children of men.

Ron: 22:06

Oh, who am I talking about? Um Clive Owen Clive.

Doug: 22:10

Owen yeah.

Don: 22:11

Yes, for sure that there's first night with jean-connery. There's, uh, there's been. There was another king arthur. That was not a roman one, but but I remember that yeah, guy ritchie's or something um so.

Don: 22:23

So again, we keep like this legend doesn't go away ever, it just kind of recirculates every so often. But I think, I think the the reason that we tell the story keeps changing over time. And I think we'll see that as we go further back, because we've got a little ways to go. We've only made it to 1958 so far. Sure, sure Big story. Before that Next one going back One would be Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Don: 22:45

Oh okay, victorian poet. He was a poet laureate after Wordsworth in England and his version of it is called the Idols of the King, or the Idols of the King I think is the more correct pronunciation, but I like I it always slips out idols for me. And so it's told in verse and it's it's the arc that you know, right? It's it's sword in the stone and Arthur becomes king and falls in love with Guinevere and the whole Morgaz Mordred situation pops up. But then he has his best friend, lancelot, who starts sleeping with his wife, right? So everyone remembers the love triangles. Arthur is married to his queen, guinevere. A knight comes over from France named Lancelot. Lancelot and Arthur become best friends, but in that process Lancelot also falls in love with Guinevere.

Doug: 23:31

And something we haven't talked about that I do remember is there's also a prophetic speaking over the marriage, correct? And I don't know if this is all versions, but there's a prophetic speaking over the marriage. This is not going to end well for you if you marry this woman, because I think he's captivated so much by her beauty and kindness, correct? And he says, oh, I must marry her, and it's like, no, this is not going to bode well if you decide to marry this woman.

Don: 23:55

if I remember correctly, there are versions where that happened. Um, let me see how far back that goes. Um the uh, he does, yeah. So, yeah, it's merlin that warns him, and it goes back pretty far actually. So there's mallory version, okay, yeah, which is 1485.

Doug: 24:11

We'll get to yeah, sorry skipping ahead there. I know we're skipping back skipping back.

Don: 24:15

I know we're going. We're going. Which way are we going to You're?

Doug: 24:17

going back in time. Thank you, Knott's Berry farm for many years of the dinosaur right.

Don: 24:24

The thing that I find funny about reading Tennyson is he's writing as a a love triangle where the best friend is cheating, sleeping with the wife of the other best friend Right, and so he uh, he has to be very Victorian about that, and so there's nothing explicit in the text. It's just like Lancelot and Guinevere like go off in the forest for a walk and they come back and she's got like twigs in her hair and her dress is crumpled but like nobody ever talks about what happened out there, right, we're just supposed to know, to know, um.

Don: 24:51

so he's very sort of uh restrained in that, that telling of the story. What's?

Ron: 24:57

tennyson's interest in the material like I don't know. Is it just a sort of like, oh, is this like early tennyson? Is this tennyson at the height of his powers? Or is it just like everyone's got to do a mythic cycle? You know their spin on it. He's just sort of dusting off the cobwebs, kind of thing.

Don: 25:14

Well, he nobody had for quite a long time. So, um, so he's. He's picking up a story that that has been ignored for several hundred years yeah, there's a potential like nationalist sort of return to england's folk roots and things what.

Don: 25:32

And there's a there's a moral thread that runs through arthur and victorians were were. That was a societal worry, was about the morality of the nation, especially with the industrial revolution we've got a female queen rather than a male leader, right, so we're having to make all these adjustments and there's this concern about whether or not, you know, how do we keep the world right in that situation and how do we keep the world just so? I think that's his interest is in making sure that, um, his arthur embodies the ideal ruler. Yeah, so, and it's, it's rather early in victoria's reign, uh, it's. Uh, it's published in, uh, 1840 something, and she becomes queen in 1838, I think. Okay, eight or nine, um, so it's not quite instructive to the queen. I don't think he's that presumptuous right, but but as a message to society about how do you, um, how do you be the ideal ruler, how do you maintain morality in a society that is pushing you the other way? Um, so it's, it's typical victorian instructionism yeah, disguised as a story.

Doug: 26:36

So yeah, can I throw a curveball real quick, please? And I would like us to immediately go. No, if you know nothing about it, but I'm just remembering this off the top of my head. Was there not a mark twain entry into yeah?

Don: 26:52

uh, yeah, yankee, and carter's court.

Doug: 26:53

That's what it is.

Don: 26:54

Yeah, I have not read, I am not familiar which starts the time travel version of the king arthur story okay, okay.

Doug: 27:02

So there's that as well, it's just not considered it.

Don: 27:05

it's not considered part of the arthur canon for the arthurian part of it because it arthur's not the main character of the story. The Connecticut Yankee is the is the, so it's an American story and he's going back to the okay. He's going which way?

Doug: 27:23

Back in time, okay.

Ron: 27:26

So I can't show up at the Arthur convention and talk about Connecticut Yankee. They're going to be like oh, this guy.

Don: 27:31

Yeah, probably. I mean, you can try, I've never been bringing his connecticut yankee.

Doug: 27:36

What a deep cut, though, if it's like comic con and everybody's cosplayed up and you're, there's a connecticut yankee you're gonna get a few people. They're like oh, very creative, very deep cut there, sir, yeah, okay, yeah, I'll add that to my reading list, then that'll be interesting so so that's tennyson, but, like I said, there's this big blank spot between tennyson 1840 and the, the previous major arthurian text.

Don: 28:01

Want to guess how far? 200, 200 years to 1640, 201, bob playing the prices right, the price is right 1485. Okay, yeah, it goes back a long way and I think again it's. It's part of what we were just talking about about the legend being mapped onto society needs.

Doug: 28:23

Yeah, yeah.

Don: 28:24

Um, during the Renaissance, like we didn't care about Arthur because it was, we were going more cultural and and scientific and right, so we didn't need the story as much still existed. Uh, queen elizabeth um traced her lineage back to king arthur. Um, jeffrey monmouth, who we'll talk about in a little bit, was still read as history in the renaissance. That's cool, um, by some people starting to be questioned by others. But, um, so uh and um. But do you know? You said you've read Mallory. Have you read Mallory?

Ron: 28:54

I read some of it and never finished it. Yeah, let's get you back in there.

Don: 28:59

Do you know?

Doug: 28:59

anything about Mallory himself? Not really. Um, I just remember when, originally reading it, it was considered by my professor as being one of the more comprehensive in terms of looking at different battles and cultural context within the French and English connotation of the more comprehensive in terms of looking at different battles and cultural context within the French and English connotation of the text. That's what I was given at the time.

Don: 29:20

I enjoyed it though. So Mallory was a knight in the Wars of the Roses, and he was put in prison by both sides. It happened a lot in that war.

Ron: 29:32

right yeah, Can you give us a quick?

Doug: 29:33

in that war.

Ron: 29:33

right, yeah, can you give us a quick rundown.

Doug: 29:35

Yeah.

Ron: 29:35

I understand the war of the roses is it's like a very internecine sort of battle amongst the aristocracy in England. Is that wrong?

Don: 29:43

Um, well, I mean, they were the ones trying to get the power, but most of the battle was happening between people less important than them. And than them, and it's actually called the wars of the roses plural, right, because it goes for like 40 years. Henry vi, uh, who was crowned as a nine-month-old baby, um against edward iv, so, and they flip-flop twice. So it's henry vi, usurped, re-usurps back, and then for one year, and then edward comes back and winds up killing him or so he dies mysteriously in jail and we all know, maybe murdered, maybe not.

Ron: 30:19

Jeffries, imprisoned by both sides because he flips his opinion as political rape a murder for actual crime attempted banditry, robbery, breaking out of jail.

Don: 30:36

But he also was a Lancastrian, so he was on the side of Henry VI. So when he was imprisoned by Edward IV for that reason, I see, but both sides, for different reasons, imprisoned him at different points- All of his crimes.

Doug: 30:50

The reason that knights needed a code of chivalry.

Don: 30:52

Yeah, yeah, which might be one of the reasons that he undertook a task, so he did write what today is kind of considered the canon of King Arthur literature. So when you're in prison, you've got to do something.

Doug: 31:04

Yeah, why not Time to write?

Don: 31:05

Yeah, time to write. So what he did actually was take a lot of the earlier stories that we haven't talked to yet about yet because it's about to get messy. So, like this has been a pretty straight line we've been threading for the last half hour or so. It's going to get messy as we go further back in time. But what Mallory does, and why he's sort of this, this dividing line is he takes those older stories, which are are inconsistent and don't always have the same cast of characters, and assign different, uh, assign the same actions to different people, and he kind of tries to clean that up and he says, okay, this is, this is the filter through which the story will, will now be told. So, um, he has the major arc, which is the uh, how Arthur becomes King, um, the, the um, the individual night stories, uh, the quest for the Holy grail, lancelot, the love triangle, and then the decline of Arthur when, um, lancelot and Guinevere are caught in there.

Don: 31:59

Yeah, so um that precipitates the decline it does because, um, uh, arthur is like if it were just up to him, he wouldn't punish either of them personally, personally, he loves both of them. Yeah, but the rule of law has to.

Ron: 32:17

It's very progressive. Maybe we need Arthur back, so he has to sentence Guinevere to death.

Don: 32:23

Oh, but in doing so he hopes that Lancelot is going to come kidnap her Right? So there's like this and he does, he does.

Ron: 32:30

Yeah.

Doug: 32:34

I got to read.

Don: 32:34

Arthur like this and he does. Uh, he does. Yeah, yeah, I gotta read arthur, it's pretty, it's pretty good. Yeah, so he does. Uh, lancelot comes and kidnaps her, but then uh, mordred convinces arthur that he has to go chase it. Like you can't just let him go. Arthur again would have just like oh too, you know it's kind of like a excuse. I've heard recently like oh, he's in a different country, I can't go get him in france right I have no jurisdiction.

Don: 32:53

Yeah, but Mordred convinces him to do so. And then, when Arthur is out of the country besieging Lancelot to try to retrieve Guinevere, Mordred takes over, crowns himself king. So then Arthur's got to come back and fight his own son for, and in the battle they wind up killing each other.

Doug: 33:14

Yeah.

Don: 33:14

That's it, yeah With oh my gosh, uh with King Arthur spear.

Ron: 33:22

Uh, you mean his sword, Excalibur no Um no, I don't run, I don't.

Don: 33:29

King Arthur takes a spear and stabs Mordred, and then Mordred runs down the spear in order to stab Arthur in the head. And King Arthur's spear has a name You'll never guess King Arthur's spear's name.

Ron: 33:44

It's like Sun Foe, whoa Sun Slayer.

Don: 33:52

If it were an Anglo-Saxon text, I think you'd be right. But no Dog. Do you know King Arthur Spear's name? Spear of Destiny? You know his sword's name?

Ron: 33:57

There's probably a tank named after it today. Is it Abram?

Don: 34:02

It's Rungomiant. I know it was close, but most people just call it Ron for short. Hey.

Doug: 34:11

I always knew you were sharp as a spear bud.

Ron: 34:13

I feel like that's a. Whenever I look up the meaning of my name, there's always, like feller of the King, King killer shows up some in some interpretations.

Doug: 34:23

Now we know that's it, that's it.

Don: 34:25

So that's the, that's the general story, right, that the general arc. And then underneath that, like I said, we have these single night adventures where, yeah, the general arc. And then underneath that, like I said, we have these single night adventures where, yeah, uh, gallen will go out and and search for a treasure and come back and all of them like had virtues attached to them, like they were exceptional in certain respects and challenged morally in certain respects, and so a lot of the single night.

Don: 34:46

Um uh, stories deal with that very issue the night being morally challenged and having to make a choice, yeah, and then hopefully coming out better on the other side of it, galahad being the only night who never made a mistake.

Doug: 34:58

Yeah, I was going to say they almost always blow it, which is part of the fun, I think, because it's like the, the compromise that they make makes them very human.

Don: 35:06

Yeah, and Mordred I mentioned is King Arthur's son.

Ron: 35:14

Do you know who the mother?

Don: 35:14

is.

Ron: 35:14

I thought that he's like an incest son right or, yeah, an incest son with, with morgana or something right.

Don: 35:17

I've seen this in the sam neill television series so, according to mallory, with morgana's, who is one of arthur's half sisters. So arthur has a, has a magical origin as well. So do you know where arthur comes from? Yeah, yeah, yeah, pendragon, yeah, yeah uther pendragon falls in love with a grain uh, who's already married to gorlo and uh, and has merlin disguise him like her that's right, magically, so that he could sleep with her.

Doug: 35:52

Yeah.

Don: 35:53

And Arthur is the product of that rape. Um, and so she already had three daughters, um, one's named Morgana, one is named more gauze and one's named Anna. And uh, uh, in the story they all kind of hate Arthur because he's the product of the rape of their mother.

Doug: 36:11

Right, right.

Don: 36:11

Their dad. Right, their dad dies in a battle and and uther does wind up marrying ingrain, but um, so for that reason his sisters never really like him. And so, yeah, in uh mallory there's a a ritual of fertility that arthur somehow accidentally sleeps with his sister, and uh, that's where Mordred comes from.

Doug: 36:33

So this is taking me back to the film Excalibur Immediately. I remember that from the beginning the disguise, it's so ridiculous, yeah, yeah.

Don: 36:41

So then we got to go back a little bit further. So that's Mallory and, like I said, from here on out it gets a little bit messy.

Doug: 36:47

So Mallory was kind stories.

Don: 36:58

Okay, all right. Yeah, um, the next, uh, the next one going backwards probably need to talk about is jeffrey of monmouth, um, which writes in about 11, 36 or so. Okay, um, he goes by his first name, so we can call him just jeffrey and everybody will know who we're talking about.

Ron: 37:15

Thanks, jeff that's rare for that time period sure it is well.

Don: 37:19

He just didn't write down his last name, so yeah. But he writes a book called the historia regum britanniae, in latin, which is a history of the kings of britain. That's what it means. So he's writing about all the kings of britain, and guess who's stuck there right in the middle? Papa arthur.

Ron: 37:35

That's him, yeah um, so do we have? Because I feel like part of the arthur thing is like the debate Was there an Arthur? Is there a historical Arthur? Blah, blah, blah, right In this in Geoffrey's tale, is he cemented amongst real kings? Yes, he's the only fictional king, or one of several.

Don: 37:56

He is a king in the list of kings described by Geoffrey and that's it. There's no story. There's no, there are stories, but you're asking if he's a fictional king and this is a history book and Arthur's in it.

Ron: 38:09

Oh sure, but I mean.

Don: 38:11

Don't poo-poo me.

Ron: 38:13

What I mean is I use shorthand to express that we don't have a lot of other historical evidence corroborating his existence at this time.

Don: 38:23

That's what we're searching for. That's why we keep going back.

Ron: 38:25

And I'm searching. I'm here, I got my binoculars Right, but I just wanted to clarify that, like there are kings in that book that we like, yes, we have other codices or laws with their names on it and stuff like that there are real historical kings in Jeffrey's book Okay laws with their names on it and stuff like that.

Don: 38:43

There are. There are real historical Kings in Jeffrey's book. Okay, um, in, in, um, in uh. This book, the it's much more factual. He claims he's. He's translating from an earlier Welsh text, um, and so he just kind of says things like um, arthur was a youth of 15 years old, beautiful and gallant, who gave eminent proofs of his bravery and generosity. So okay, there you go.

Ron: 39:05

He's brave and generous so it's got to be real. That's what you get.

Don: 39:09

And young right, he was a youth okay, um, he also is killed in battle. Uh, he was grievously wounded in battle, was carried to the isle of avalon to be healed of his wounds, if such fortune would allow that's another question for me.

Ron: 39:22

Yeah, is Avalon a real island or is this an island out of myth? Like, can I go to a like? Do we call that white? Now Is white.

Don: 39:30

Avalon of yore or something. No Okay, avalon's a Catalina.

Ron: 39:35

Okay, oh, I've been there.

Don: 39:38

No, it's a. It's a. It's a place like Camelot, right when it's it.

Don: 39:42

It exists in the legend, but we don't have an actual geographic but there's things in history that are like that too, which we're going to come to. So there's, it's, it's, it's maybe a real place, but it's not a place that we know today by that name, so we don't have that way to associate it. So, um the um, the additions that uh, um that Jeffrey makes to the story is Arthur is finally a king Um he. His travels go from England all the way to Rome. Um, cause he, um he does have Merlin and there's some interesting things about Merlin in um, in Jeffrey.

Don: 40:25

Jeffrey doesn't invent Merlin, but in this history book we talk about this wizard um providing aid to uh, to the King Um he he's. He does pull it from a Welsh name. So there are earlier Welsh stories of King Arthur that uh that have this character of Merlin. In the welsh it's called merlin is his name, but in welsh merlin is spelled m-y-r-d-d-i-n. So merlin, the two d's make a th sound in welsh. But when jeffrey's latinizing that right, he's got to change that name into a latin version of that name. So everyone expects him to keep the r and the d, so to be murdin, right or murdineuse. But there's actually some medievalists who have proposed that he changes it from murdineuse to murdineuse. Uh changes the r to the l, because uh, mered is meredice in latin. You know that one mered in french.

Don: 41:24

Yeah, it's feces, yeah so he changes the name of merlin so he doesn't sound like a pile of poop.

Doug: 41:31

I know, I mean, he was a good guy.

Ron: 41:32

Yeah, yeah, that is how it works, right. Just yeah, it's like no, that won't work.

Don: 41:36

Yeah so, and he doesn't invent the round table. There's no mention of a table. But arthur does recruit knights from across europe, so he is sort of starting that fellowship. In jeffrey the um, the table is invented by a different group. Um, that we will, that we'll talk about um. So that's jeffrey. History book just talks about him as a as a real, and that's the book that Queen Elizabeth uses to trace her genealogy back to King Arthur. That's cool.

Don: 42:05

Yeah, it's very cool. Then we have some other smaller writers that we need to talk about. We've got Marie de France, We've got Cretin de Troyes, Robert Barone that all write these much smaller tales based on the same set of characters. They are all French, writing about this English king, so they start writing more of this romantic story. This is where we get single night adventures from.

Don: 42:32

Cretin de Troyes brings in Lancelot with the knight in the cart, and then we get these stories told and retold by uh, a group of monks. So it's anonymous. It's anonymous set of books called the Vulgate cycle. Um, it's five books written by a group of monks in France and uh covers the origin of Merlin, the um, the origin of Arthur, the sword and the stone A lot of the like elements now that we would recognize as the Arthur story we're pulling here from. Um, the Vulgate cycle. Um, and what's? What's interesting about this cycle is it's five books, it's over a million words, it's bigger than the Bible, Wow. So these monks are that into this King Arthur story. They're the ones that make Mordred an incest baby.

Ron: 43:24

So prior to the Vulgate cycle there is a Mordred but it was a nephew of the King, and so we think they're not. Uh well, I mean, they very well could be compiling different versions of the stories they've heard, but is the prevailing theory that they're also inventing a little bit, they're having a little fun, they are?

Don: 43:42

They're changing some details, but they we know for sure that they pulled from like Robert Barone and Cartier Netoyer, and so they're. They're pulling in elements from these other authors for sure, but, uh, but they're sort of like the, the early medieval bulk. Right, they're right there. That tell the story. But where did jeffrey get the information from?

Ron: 44:12

jeffrey. Oh, let me go back a little bit further.

Don: 44:13

is this where we come in? Like, this is the misty folky it is. We're getting back in the fogs of time. Yeah, so, jeffrey's 1136, I want to go back to about 600, oh, okay, so we're going back 500, 500 years in time. And, uh, and I want to go back to about 600. Okay, so we're going to go back 500, 500 years in time. And, uh, and I want to tell you a story about a kingdom, uh, called Good Oathen. Um, good Oathen, good Oathen, good Oathen, yeah.

Doug: 44:33

Whoa.

Don: 44:34

In stereo. Let's pan those left and right for our listeners. So Good. Oathen was a kingdom that inhabited northern England, like above York, maybe the lower part of Scotland, and around the year 600, the Roman legions used to be up here north right Protecting Hadrian's Wall. They've been gone for about 200 years. So Rome fell in the fifth century and there's a king who brings all of his greatest warriors together, um, in order to fight against the invasion of the saxons. That is happening, um and uh. His name is uh, give me, here we go.

Don: 45:17

His name is monophag manwar, menwar, yeah I like that and uh, and so they meet in what we think is edinburgh today and they feast for an entire year to get ready for this battle. Great place to do it. That's a legendary feast yeah, and he marches 300 men south to confront the saxons only 300 that's all he could find in a year and they all die. Yeah, yeah it's the original 300, 300 of men it is it just was a shorter movie the feasting was the majority of the party.

Don: 45:55

Too much, bro there were a handful that escaped to tell the story, otherwise we wouldn't know about it. One of them is a poet named Anadrin and he writes this poem called Agadothan, which is a series of about 97 elegies about all these great warriors who who died in that battle. I want to tell you about two of them, okay. First one is a guy named Owain Owain. Uh huh, and just for context, because it might matter, knowing what you both know in your backgrounds, his name is spelled O-W-A-I-N. Right, but pronounced Owain, okay, and he's a real person and he dies in this battle. And we know that he was real because he is the son of his name, is Owain Mabourian. He's the son of a king, the king of Hargad, and another poet named Taliesin writes about him. And then we find him in this second poem where he died, called Agadoth. So we know he was a real human being, right, because he's existing in two different contemporary sources, both talking about one talking about how great he is. Neither talking about how great he was right, real human being, because he's existing in two different contemporary sources, both talking about one talking about how great he is, and they're talking about how great he was right before he died. Yeah, he gets wrapped into these stories we've been talking about.

Don: 47:10

So O-Line becomes E-Wayne in the Knights of the Round Table. So E-Wayne Y-W-A-I-N. Who is also a nephew of Arthur, who was the son of morgan and king lot sometimes. So parentage changes a little bit. But yeah, um is known for uh making friends with a lion, so he's got his pet lion friend that follows him around everywhere. And lion of england. Is that where it comes from? And uh, it's not but um, but I, I think that's interesting because you brought it up earlier, right? So like can a human being, a real human?

Ron: 47:46

become a legend.

Don: 47:47

Right, and here is a case where one of the characters in this legend I can. I can tell you who he was Like. I can tell you exactly which character, which human being it traces back to.

Ron: 47:59

So I'm he's like. That is an interesting thing, because now he's he and his memory have been transmuted into something that maybe bore very little resemblance to the real at some point.

Doug: 48:11

This ain't 12 toes.

Ron: 48:12

This is 300 toes I doubt he's complaining right, because no, he's you know, that's pretty cool yeah it's like you became spider-Man's best friend. Yeah, he's like, okay, I'll take that Plus he literally can't complain. Let's not forget that Because he doesn't speak English.

Doug: 48:29

That too.

Don: 48:31

So the second character I want to tell you about is a guy named Gwarther. He appears in stanza 99. If you're going to go look it up, I'm going now. Yeah, so he apparently was a really good warrior as well. Uh, his stanza. Let me just read you the stanza. He pierced over 300 of the finest. He slew both the center and the flanks. He was worthy in the front of the most generous army. He gave out gifts of herd of steeds. In the winter he fed black Ravens on the wall of the fortress.

Doug: 48:58

Yeah, that's what I like to hear, yeah do you guys understand what the?

Don: 49:02

what the feeding black ravens is he?

Doug: 49:04

like kill corpses right yeah, yeah it means he's.

Don: 49:07

He's feeding them by by murdering them.

Ron: 49:09

But here's the last line of the stanza, although he was no arthur oh yeah, throwing a little shade on gwarther right yeah so that's what it sounds like to me too.

Don: 49:25

Uh, medievalists say no, that it's a, it's a common way to compare and actually it's a compliment. Right, because the stick you're using to measure gwarther is is still arthur, is arthur yeah?

Ron: 49:36

so, um, because no one could be better than arthur, but he was close is what they're saying.

Don: 49:41

That's right, he's getting. He's right up there Like, if you're going to, we can't have Arthur, at least we can have Gwarthur.

Doug: 49:46

Yeah, yeah, which is hilarious, cause they're so close yeah.

Ron: 49:50

Wow. So, and what year is this? This is 600.

Don: 49:53

600.

Ron: 49:59

Yeah, it's be easy. You'd want to say, oh, gwarthur was.

Don: 50:02

Arthur, the names are so similar, right, like it makes sense, but he's not, because they're mentioned in the same stanza, so they can't be so.

Ron: 50:08

Arthur has to predate even Gwarthur.

Don: 50:10

He does. Yeah, so he has to predate, so he does predate the Anglo-Saxons, like I said at the beginning of the podcast, which means I think doug owes me a cheeseburger see, a porko, yeah, but uh, um. So then we are going into clivo and roman territory with arthur. We're getting closer, um, so uh. And arthur just to clarify, arthur's not mentioned anywhere else in this whole poem, so, and I'll get over, then that's the only mention of arthur, so it's not like arthur and gwarthur.

Ron: 50:43

He's not like the, the leader of the army right, he's just a guy that's that's another pen on the wall marwar, marwar, um.

Don: 50:55

but here's what's interesting about that. That mention is, the poet is so convinced that whoever is listening to this knows who Arthur is. You don't have to explain, yeah Right, it's just enough to say his name and everybody go.

Ron: 51:07

Oh yeah, everybody knows.

Doug: 51:08

Yeah.

Ron: 51:08

So he was big. It wasn't like uh, we know Arthur because of a couple of movies and a couple of weird Victorian poets who brought him back Even back then. They were big Arthur stans.

Don: 51:25

So it's gotta be.

Doug: 51:26

It has to be somebody who is famous enough that just that reference would be enough. Yeah, this is now getting back to our original conversation about legend. Right, because if it's enough to be mentioned in one line for popular, I would assume popular can, or a consumption of the text Although I'm guessing not many read at this time but enough, like whoever's reading that they would know that it's a big deal.

Don: 51:46

Yeah, another interesting thing around the same time, around 600. So if we look at um genealogies that exist before this, we don't have the name arthur anywhere. But right around 600, all of a sudden this name arthur starts showing up in royal genealogies and in in other records. Right, so we've got uh artur mach aiden, the son of the sixth century scottish king, uh dalry alta, who died fighting the pigs in 596. Um, there's other arthur's appearing all over royal genealogies and inscriptions in celtic. So again there was somebody who carried that name that was famous enough right around that time for everybody to start saying, hey, this must be our guy.

Ron: 52:31

And do scholars think like, oh, perhaps it's one of these authors? I'm assuming there's been sort of a Jack the Ripper-esque pouring over of all of these mid-Arthurs to see if any of them even measures up in some small way or dated a woman with a G name?

Don: 52:48

There is there's a, there is a few. So you mentioned earlier that you saw that movie that proposes the Roman Legion theory right, yeah.

Don: 52:56

Yeah, the, the name of the. The person that that's attached to is a guy named Lucius Artorius Castus um, who was a Roman uh, cavalry leader. Um and uh. He lived around sec second century, so firmly in the middle of Roman Britain, so the Roman empire had expanded right and included um uh, included England. At this time. He actually has a story that goes backwards too, so this will be fun. Okay, he was a Samartian, which comes from like the area of Ukraine.

Ron: 53:33

Okay.

Don: 53:34

And was defeated in his cavalry by the Romans, and then they were absorbed into the Roman Legion, and then they were absorbed into the Roman Legion. So he was a leader in what's called the Sixth Victus Legion, and they were assigned to this area of northern England to protect Hadrian's Wall would sometimes worship their swords as like the god of war, and so the altars that are associated with that are these swords that are stuck in either a rock or dirt. Ah, that's pretty cool.

Ron: 54:15

Yeah, that's pretty. That lines up pretty well.

Don: 54:18

Yeah, it does unfortunately, with that, that thread kind of dies out right about there. So is that guy? That's the guy that has the closest name to Arthur.

Don: 54:28

That's a Roman but he would be in the second century, so in the one hundreds, and then we've got nothing that mentions his name until the 600. So most of the scholars don't think this is our guy mentioned in the in the 600 poem, because there's too much time in between. He could be the source of the name, right, but we don't think he's the guy, so who else could it be? There's another Welsh writer named Nennius, who is another monk, and he's writing a book called um, of history, right, trying to establish sort of this national identity for um, the, uh, the Britons, and the Britons being the natives of the island. So B-R-I-T-O-N. That's the one, yes, exactly, um, and he writes in in the eight hundreds and he writes a book called Historium uh, britannum and uh, and it's really not a lot there.

Don: 55:25

But he does list 12 battles and many of the battles we can't identify with a battle, so like we don't know what battle he's talking about. But the last one is named the Battle of Baden Hill, and that one we can corroborate in another source is named the battle of Baden hill, and that one we can corroborate in another source. But uh, in the battle of Baden hill, uh, arthur is described as a war leader. So he, um, he leads the Britons to victories, uh, against the Saxons, um, and he's never directly described as King or crowned as King, but he's described in these superhuman terms, one of which would be like, like these 12 battles probably lasted over 100 years so yeah um, it's, uh, uh, it's a strange way, but the corroboration that we have of this, so that name arthur is the only time that arthur is associated with baden hill.

Don: 56:16

But I know that the battle of baden hill happened because there's another writer, uh named uh Gildas, who also writes about this, and he claims that the battle of Baden Hill happened 44 years and two months after the Saxons arrived, which was also the time of his birth. He doesn't mention Arthur, he doesn't mention who led the battle of Baden Hill, but we know that the battle happened then. It would have been the early five hundreds. Yeahs, yeah, um. But he does add a couple other interesting details. He says that the leader of the britons at the time was a guy named ambrosius arelianus, which sounds roman, but it's because he's roman, uh, descendant so from the romans who had left several hundred years earlier. So b then picks up in the 600s from gildas in the 500s about this guy ambrosius. So there's a possibility that ambrosius becomes arthur in ninnies. So maybe ambrosius is this arthur that then turns into the arthur of, but that's, that's way back in those foggy mists of time. We can't quite see so.

Don: 57:23

But what I think is interesting is that we have this whole canon of literature, of stories of the king and the justice and the decline and the magic, and it's all based on probably maybe a guy who was probably a pretty good fighter. But all of those facts don't matter.

Ron: 57:43

The story is what matters gets told, and the story is true, even though none of it happened and it's weird because, like him, even probably being some you know warrior guy also doesn't really seem to matter to people you know, like. Like, yeah, I mean, you know, different time, different mindset, different priorities, I guess, guess, different values, but it's like, oh yeah, he was one of hundreds of very good fighting men. Why him? What was so unique?

Don: 58:11

I mean, that's the part that's fun to speculate about, I think, because it's like and then, as the story gets added onto and added onto right, and each generation like, adds its little twist on it. So in in agadothan, those earlier versions, right, we needed a warlord who could help us defeat the saxons. But then when we're saxon, then all of a sudden we need a king who can lead us to victory. And then all of a sudden we're, the french, are taking over and arthur basically gets sidelined in most of the french stories, um, and everybody, you know, just worried about their feelings or whatever. And then we take the story back in Mallory and and it, you know, we, we need this, this man who can lead us to justice. But then even in that, he's frail too.

Don: 58:53

And he falls too, and there's no perfection, even though we want perfection. Yeah, so the the flexibility of the story to match the yeah needs of society is interesting.

Doug: 59:05

It very much reminds me of like, uh, essentially what we see with comics, in the sense that, like, a hero continues to shift with every single, you know, changing of the tide.

Ron: 59:16

Um right, you can see that there's like so many bad men of today is different than the batman of yeah 1960 and how many different variations and versions.

Doug: 59:25

Yeah, absolutely, and I mean, maybe that's going back to what is legend, right, I think that that's a huge part of it because, um, yeah, I think that arthur definitely well, and again I'm very much thinking about the malory but it it does have the mythological aspects of almost religious connotation and sacrifice and morality and virtue that you serve and what's right and wrong. But I think the legend part of it is the fact that the character adapts, that you can kind of see yourself in it or like reflects your time in a way. That's so on the tip of your tongue that you would understand it immediately.

Don: 59:59

And maybe that's a big part of the legend and we didn't talk about it but that's absolutely one of your tongue, that you would understand it immediately, and maybe that's a big part of the legend and we didn't talk about it, but that's absolutely one of the projects of the the vulgate writers, right, that that write. That really long french version is they're taking those pagan stories and they're christianizing, yeah, the king, right and right.

Ron: 1:00:13

So yeah I've got a question do you want there to be a historical arthur?

Doug: 1:00:22

I don't know if it matters.

Ron: 1:00:23

Does it make the legend cooler or less cool If there was a real guy, who was just some Scottish guy named Artus or whatever?

Doug: 1:00:34

I think it makes it less cool immediately because it's going to bring in the historian concept of like. But what actually happened was and I want the tall and that would like deflate the legend.

Don: 1:00:45

Yeah absolutely, yeah, I like. I like that there probably was a person, even though none of the stories associated with that legend probably really happened, but that there was some. There's some Colonel, like I don't know what the Colonel of truth is Like he must've been a bad ass soldier, like that's, that's gotta be it, but, but not know it, but it so it's. It creates that intrigue for me, like Jack the Ripper, and I know that there's lots of problems that people have brought up with, you know, searching for the murderer, and why are we glorifying the criminal instead of the? I like that. It's an inaccessible piece of information that I know exists in the universe. The same thing here. Like Arthur, I like that he probably was a real person, and I don't care that that real person doesn't have anything to do with the stories, because the stories still are true.

Ron: 1:01:33

Yes, even though they're not factual. It's the sort of twist of fate that the stories even survive today and have become what they are. That's kind of the attractive thing there.

Don: 1:01:41

Absolutely.

Ron: 1:01:41

Right, absolutely.

Don: 1:01:43

Yeah, the legends build the things that we need them to be through story and whether or not it was a real person, but I like the fact that a real person like started. That was the first domino.

Doug: 1:01:56

Yeah, yeah.

Don: 1:01:58

My, but I think if I knew who it was, I might be less impressed. I think it's only because it's a mystery, like it's a known. I know that there was a person, but I don't know who he was or what he did like that I like that enigma.

Ron: 1:02:11

Yeah, yeah, because then it becomes almost silly, right, it becomes sort of foppish. Like ah he wasn't up to be. You know, I feel like you. It's a thing. Kids would tell you it's like wrestling. When they tell you it's fake, oh, he's not actually.

Doug: 1:02:27

You know doing that and you're like yeah, I know, yeah, I definitely feel that way.

Ron: 1:02:32

Thanks for bringing it back around trying to speak d Doug's language a little bit. Thank you.

Don: 1:02:39

It meant a lot, yeah, and it all grew from Gwarthur not being an Arthur.

Doug: 1:02:46

Yeah, or Gwarthur yeah, yeah.

Ron: 1:02:48

Could have been him, he could have been, could have been, we could have been talking about King Gwarthur.

Don: 1:02:52

He wasn't. No, he wasn't, he wasn't.

Doug: 1:02:55

Turns out, not everybody was satisfied with Ron's presence. I didn't have 12 toes, but we hope that the legend grows, and Don wasn't a spooky teacher.

Ron: 1:03:09

Thank you very much for bringing this to us today, don, and hopefully this has contributed in some way to our legend. That's right, of course.

Don: 1:03:18

Because what survives isn't the fact, it's the feeling no-transcript.