by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: July 22, 2008   Last Updated: March 29, 2010

Yes and No to King Arthur being real. He is real only in your imagination and in the imagination that created this fictional character of England. During those times they needed to believe in something other than the scandals and the injustices and the evil that was rampant. Supposedly he was a masterful king who lived and ruled and fought the Saxons, a group of invaders that sailed the North Seas around the time of the decline of the Roman Empire.

Whether or not the tales about him were fashioned after some powerful king of the time, such as Charlemange, the Frankish King who was a great conqueror, although not of British territory. He is uncertain. It was the later writers who made much of him and the legend grew with each pen stroke his literary developers imagined.

There is no denying that the stories were thinly disguised tales incorporating Christian ideals while embroidering on a few facts. Yet, following the ideals of Classical Greek, the hero's and heroine's were down to earth characters who were treacherous and not at all saintly. It's almost as if the early renaissance writers were trying to invent an epic character to represent England. It worked.

His kingdom supposedly was a magical place and Camelot has since been played up as the magical place everyone longs to eventually live. Symbols such as the round table represent the idea that all men are created equal, that no person sits at the head of the table or at the foot of the table. The first is last and the last is first. We all serve and no one is slave to another seems to be the theme. In short, I suppose you could say that the idea of King Arthur as an ideal ruler is a composite of earthy virtues and heavenly desires intertwined.

His Knights of the Round Table were portrayed as strong, virtuous, capable, sympathetic and powerful warriors that sought to help those in distress. Damsels in distress that was rescued by one of the knights of shining armor - with a little honorable flirtation thrown in for good measure - always made a good story and was a theme running throughout the tales told in the name of King Arthur.

Some of these are: Le Morte d' Arthur, by Sir Thomas Mallory; King Arthur and the Holy Grail and much, much more is to be found on the internet. Whatever your fancy concerning this legendary king, you can find enough imaginative tales on line to whet your appetite. The knights themselves have their own individual stories and their own history.

Merlin is supposedly the one who invented the round table; the sword, The Excaliber, is as famous as the knights because it was used by King Arthur and was broken during a battle. It was returned to him whole at the time of his death by the lady of the lake. This came from the story The Lady In The Lake, by Sir Walter Scott.

The Quest of the Holy Grail is a favorite among the many legends of King Arthur. The legend goes that Joseph of Arimathea, the man who took the dead body of Jesus when he was taken from the cross and buried him in his own tomb, brought the Holy Grail to England. Jesus supposedly drank from the cup at his last supper.

As I said earlier, the legends of King Arthur are essentially legends. There are truths woven here and there among it all as well as many fabrications. All actually are to be considered fiction and read as such.

Source:
http://students.mountainstate.edu/students/

Learn more about this author, Effie Moore Salem.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.