Most people have heard of King Arthur, but how many really know what he really was? We know of a character half mythological in his existence, but is there more to King Arthur than meets the eye?
Indeed, in understanding King Arthur, can we grasp a better understanding of other icons, such as those of the present day like Elvis Presley, or Marilyn Monroe, or Diana, Princess of Wales? I think the Arthurian Legend speaks volumes.
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The story is a simple one. A questioning boy realises his destiny when he pulls a sword from a stone, guaranteeing him invincible powers. This is the beginning of the story of the greatest of British heroes, King Arthur.
And what we see is a representation of spiritual action leading to a form of charisma, as if young Arthur has transformed himself from a doubting wreck to a potentially great man. It is the story of all mythological heroes.
Arthur goes on to establish Camelot and his Knights of the Round Table, assisted by the magician Merlin, and wife Guinevere. Slowly, a deeper spiritual quest manifests, imbuing each knight to transform himself.
This is the quest for the Holy Grail, which will bring purity. And the search consumes them, puts them all on their own heroic path. This form of transition is vital to Arthur and the Knights, but also to society as a whole.
For as the quest for the Holy Grail continues, the story of Merlin, the great pagan wizard, fades into its final outcome, as he becomes entrapped by his own magic. This is not only a story of the mythological character, but also the story of the times. For the story narrates known history, with a tranformation during the Dark Ages from paganism to Christianity.
Merlin is that paganism, guaranteed to die out, whilst the Holy Grail represents the purity of the new Christian ideals arising. Eventually, Arthur is killed, and in his death a transformation appears in society, changing from a wasteland to the Medieval world.
OF FOLKLORE PAST
The story of Arthur has a folklorist beginning in the many tales in ancient Britain of the Fisher King, a wounded hero who transforms society by searching for his own cure - a cure that requires his death for society to change, thus encompassing all aspects of the modern icon, who changes society best if he dies young and tragically.
However, Arthur is thought, also, to be based on a real person - a Roman general who stayed in Britain after the Roman Empire collapsed, helping the Celts to fight the Saxon invaders.
A 6th century manuscript by a monk called Gildas mentions a great victory by the Britons at Mount Badon, an unknown location, but does not mention a leader. A later ‘History of the Britons’ by the Welsh cleric Nennius lists a further eleven earlier battles all won by the commander-in-chief, Arthur.
Appearing in the early 9th century, it also mentions a certain miraculousness about him. In the poem, ‘The Spoils of Annwn’ a century later, he is going overseas in search of a magic cauldron, a similar concept to the future Grail.
MEDIEVAL ROMANCE
By the 1130s Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ appeared, Arthur portrayed as a weak character, but the centre of Medieval romance, elements of the Fisher King making a definite appearance.
We also find here the mystery of Arthur’s birth and youth, the known infidelity of Guinevere with his knight Lancelot adding a touch of scandal, his defeat by Mordred and his mortal wounding and burial on the Isle of Avalon.
Glastonbury was then to become the centre of Arthurian legend when, about 1150, the ‘Life of St Gildas’ appeared, detailing how the Abbot of Glastonbury once helped Arthur. In 1180, the monks of Glastonbury confirmed the importance of hoax in such stories, when they claimed to find Arthur’s grave in the Abbey’s Lady Chapel - the bones of a large man and a woman.
A cross by the grave said: ‘Here lies the famous King Arthur in the Isle of Avalon buried.’ At the time, Glastonbury was separated from the sea by marshes, so could appear to be an island. Twelve miles away is an ancient fort on Cadbury Hill, often thought of as the home of Camelot.
Over the couple of centuries following, other elements entered the story, including Excalibur, his sword, and the Round Table itself, the whole myth as presently told coming together in Sir Thomas Malory’s 15th century ‘Morte d’Arthur’, or Death of Arthur.
Malory’s main source was the writings of 12th century Frenchman, Chretien de Troyes, which included the myth of the Holy Grail. Chretien himself was influenced by Christian mystic Bernard of Clairvaux, the force behind mystical chivalry and the Knights Templar, embodying what the Medieval world stood for.
Hence, we find in Arthur a forever re-formulating story - a conspiracy, if you like - with the man being a reflection of his society; an embodiment and force-for-change in society - the ultimate icon.
SOCIETY-CHANGING ICONS
King Arthur is therefore an early template for the icon today. Whilst such icons may not be particularly religious, nor political in terms of what they do for history, the similar life pattern – going from average child, to questioning soul, to charismatic, and finally to icon - nonetheless results in similar social change.
At a societal level the processes are identical. For instance, Presley invented modern youth, with all the consequent social changes involved. Diana embodied the new touchy-feeliness of society and validated it.
The cultural interpretation may change and be very different, but the psychological and social mechanisms involved are timeless.
Such concepts tie the psychology of an icon to the sociology of followers. And nowhere is this more obvious than in fashion.
In a real sense a follower subverts his life to echo the life of his icon. He wears similar clothes, adopts similar language and follows similar traits. Although secular in nature, the followers of an icon are partially taken over and become devoted in the same way as a cult disciple or a Christian who follows the ways of the Bible.
In other words, the process is identical to age-old religion, and represents a real mechanism of social control. The icon becomes a real expression of a Jungian archetype, literally getting under the skin of society, the process becoming almost unconscious in the way it affects us.
CHANGING REALITIES
Of course, the really great icons are those who die young and tragically. And it is here where conspiracy theory seems to play an important part in the process of iconography. In nearly all cases of modern icons - King, the two Kennedys, Monroe, Presley, Lennon, Diana - death was tragic, but the result of accident, over-indulgence, suicide, or assassination by a loner.
But this is insufficient for the creation of a legend; the process by which immortality is assured. A legend must have mystery and a touch of the fantastic. Hence, just as Arthur’s life and death have been changed and embellished over time, an icon’s death must be changed.
Facts must go out of the window, and the event becomes relative to interpretation after the event. The event, and its later perception, conspire to produce an event which rises the icon above normal humanity. The icon is turned, through mystery, conspiracy and a re-telling of the story, into a god.
By Anthony North, December 2007
