Legends of King Arthur: from medieval literature to modern myth
57:53 Share

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

Visit Safeway.com for more details.

At Lowe's, our members get more. With the MyLowe's Rewards Programs, you can shop member-only deals for your home and business every week. Plus, members earn points on eligible purchases. So what are you waiting for? Join for free today. Lowe's. We help. You save. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowes.com slash terms. Subject to change. Free standard shipping not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusions and more terms apply.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are saddling our noble steeds and galloping back to the Middle Ages in search of the legendary King Arthur. And to help us on our quest, we have two chivalrous companions at arms.

In History Corner, she's a lecturer at the University of Bristol, where her research focuses on the literature of late medieval and early modern England. Luckily for us, she's also the author of the prize-winning book Local Places and the Arthurian Tradition in England and Wales, 1400-1700. It's Dr Mary Bateman. Welcome, Mary. Hi, thank you so much. What a joy to be here.

And in Comedy Corner, making a triumphant return to the show, he's a comedian, an actor, a podcaster. You'll have seen him in Taskmaster, Man Down, and again in Taskmaster as Rosematter Fayot's assistant on the wonderful Junior Taskmaster, which is lovely. Plus, you'll have heard his dulcet tones on many podcasts, including my absolute fave comedy podcast, Three Bean Salad. Check it out. But you'll know him best from our previous episodes, including our festive special about Charles Dickens himself. It's Mike Wozniak. Welcome back, Mike.

Thank you very much for having me back. I'm very excited. I'm particularly excited about the topic. Interesting. I mean, you're a total legend, but King Arthur, total legend. What do you know?

I think it's the sort of thing you carry through your life if you've grown up in Britain. Oh, yeah, I know about that. But do I know about it? I don't know. That's partly why I'm so excited to be here. I think it's a huge subject. There's quite a lot you can know without knowing the details. Yeah, and is it just because I'm familiar with it? Is it just because of some sort of Osborne book as a kid? Or because I played a King Arthur battle as a ten-year-old? It's so familiar, but I doubt there's any detail. I'm very excited about getting into it. We'll find out if there's any detail. Yeah.

So, what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And I think like Mike, you definitely would have heard of Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin. Most people will have seen an Arthurian screen adaptation, I think. That's your Disney Sword in the Stone, your boisterous King Arthur with Keira Knightley and Clive Owen, your John Borman's weird and wonderful Excalibur. You've got the kid who would be king. You've got the sing-along Camelot.

You've got the BBC series Merlin, there's Dev Patel in the swoon-worthy Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, quite weird but good. Obviously the best Arthurian movie ever is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a film I love so much I wrote my master's thesis about it. I am on home turf today. Amazing. Finally, something I know about. And that's not mentioning all the operas, plays, poems, video games, paintings and books about King Arthur.

But where do these stories come from? Was the medieval Arthur the same as our Arthur today? And just how big was a round table anyway? Ooh, let's find out. Right, Dr Mary, Hollywood's vision of Arthur, or Arthuriana, I think is what we call it, the collective world of King Arthur. Hollywood makes it all sort of shiny armour, knights riding around, ladies in pointy hats, dangerous forests.

It's very 14th century. Is that where we start our quest for King Arthur? No, absolutely not. And actually the first mentions that we really get of a possible Arthur figure are a lot earlier than this and they suggest Arthur is a lot earlier than this.

They place him in kind of post-Roman Britain, okay? So just after Emperor Honorius has withdrawn troops in 410, there's that couple of hundred years that we often hear called the Dark Ages. Yeah, I know. I feel the same. This is when some of the earliest texts place Arthur's rule as having happened, which makes sense because...

The province of Britannia is being invaded and raided by a series of different groups. You have the Picts and the Scots from the north, and you've also got Angles, Saxons, Jutes coming in, those Germanic groups who would form the first kingdoms in England.

Britain needs a hero. And so there are lots of bits of poetry written about heroes. And this is where we see the first mention of Arthur. So the earliest texts we have about him seem to suggest he might have been a military leader of some sort in post-Roman Britain. We're talking sort of 450 to 550 CE. So about a thousand years earlier than your pointy hats.

Okay. And they're written at the time or they're written later? Key question. They're a bit later, but they're sort of set at the time, aren't they? Yeah, they are quite a bit later. Yeah, so the earliest references to Arthur are very enigmatic and fragmentary, which just add to his appeal, really.

There is a very early Welsh poem, now I say Welsh, but we think it was written in the very, very north, kind of south of Scotland, north of England, called A Godothan. It's part of a bigger text by a poet called Aneirin. It's a series of laments about fallen soldiers who've been involved in great battles.

And in Agadothen, which is about this battle that we think happened somewhere near Catarach in modern day Yorkshire, there are lots of men who fall. And one of them has a very Arthur-y sounding name, but he's not Arthur. And we're told he's not Arthur because the poet says that his name was Gwarthor, but he was no Arthur. Oh. Oh. Which is...

Really interesting because it suggests that Arthur is well known enough that he can just be used offhand like that as a point of comparison. So the poet likes this guy? Yeah, he's commemorating him. He's good but he's not like him. But no Arthur. It's a bit of a backhanded... It's a bit mean, isn't it? What's a guy got to do? Like...

And the thing about this poem is we don't know how old it really is because as with a lot of these early Welsh texts that we'll talk about today, they're not written down until quite a long time, we think, after they were originally being circulated and composed orally. And to make matters more confusing, there's two versions of A Good Oath In as well, and one of them does not mention Arthur. So that makes it even more enigmatic. So King Arthur, not necessarily a king, possibly a Roman, might be a Briton or a Romano-British. Right. Just to return to these early texts, the other, the really,

important mention, the first detailed mention we get of Arthur comes quite a bit later in around 830 and it's in this text called The History of the Britons. For a long time we thought the author was this guy called Nennius, now we're not sure. Oh really? Yeah, we're not sure anymore. I learned it was Nennius when I was at university. Me too! Well, people call him Pseudo-Nennius. Pseudo-Nennius. I know people like that.

And it's an attempted history that traces the origins of Britain right back to this hero called Brutus. The Trojan dude. Yeah. The Trojan dude, yes. Yeah. OK, yes. All I know about him is that he left Troy, had a few adventures and then came here and...

in a classic sort of conqueror style killed some indigenous giants or something and then said this is mine by the way yeah exactly that and yet you see him in the middle ages being called the founder of Britain and there seems to be a kind of oversight of these giants who were originally there these poor sweet giants

Yeah. There is a prequel that comes up later about some giant sisters who lived there before. I think the giants even lived near me. I think they're from Totnes. Yes. I live in Exeter and I think they're Totnes based. So if they were Totnes, they're probably quite nice. They're probably quite into sort of building their own guitars. Provincial giants. Yeah. Wearing woolens.

Going to a farmer's market on a Sunday. Exactly, they've been looking after the environment. Cultured giants. Yeah, cultured and general. And then Brutus shows up with his Greek ways and stabs them. Exactly. Swinging it about. Yeah, I think Totnes is the place where Brutus' right-hand man chucked one of the giants over the edge of the cliff. That's right, yes. It's not very nice. No. So this document, Historia Brittonum, or The History of the Britons. Yes. We're not sure who writes it. Maybe Nennius. Pseudo-Nennius. He...

He doesn't call Arthur King Arthur. No, crucially, he describes these 12 battles that Arthur has led people in, but he's not described as a king. He's described as a dux bellorum, which means a leader of battles in Latin. Yeah, dux bellorum. Lovely. It's nice, isn't it? That's a really lovely phrase. So I have to ask the big question, is he real? No.

Well, I mean, the big problem for all of the Arthur truthers is that there is really only, because it is dark ages, scare quotes, there is really only one piece of writing, piece of writing about what's going on in Britain that is roughly contemporaneous with Arthur. And it's written by a British monk called Gildas, who, again, we don't know much about.

And for a Briton, he doesn't really big up his own team very much. The text is called On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, De excedio et conquesta Britanniae. It basically describes Britain as being kind of a muddled mess at this time. So he's a classic columnist? Yes.

Sort of broken Britain. Yeah, it is. He thinks that Britain's downfall is due to a series of just not very nice, very ungodly, immoral rulers. He does say that there is a British victory at the Battle of Baden, which sounds exciting and, oh, you know, exciting.

could match up, but he doesn't connect it with Arthur. He connects it with another victor, another figure called Ambrosius Aurelianus, which is another wonderful title. It means the golden immortal in Latin. Ambrosius Aurelianus. Is he a Roman? He's a Roman. A Romano-Briton. But he's there after the Romans have left? He's hanging about? Yeah, there are still military commanders, we think, in Britain after the Romans have left because they've...

They've left lots of skills and training and things in place. Son of a Roman, grandson of a Roman. The utility bills are coming to their address and they're settled. They've got friends and family and hobbies and...

And they've managed to let people know that their name is the Golden Immortal. Yeah. You don't want to move on from a place where people are calling you that, do you? No, you don't. So we don't know if there was a real King Arthur. Not to say that there wasn't, but I'm not convinced. Maybe King Arthur is just a friend we made along the way. He's just an idea. It brings us together.

So the next text we have to talk about would be a Welsh classic. My pronunciation is going to be dreadful, but Mabinogion? That's great. Yeah, Mabinogion. And actually, that's a collection of texts, a Mabinogion. Within this collection of tales, there are some interesting Arthurian examples. The Mabinogion, it doesn't appear, as with my other example, until quite late in manuscript form. We're talking sort of 14th, 15th century manuscripts.

But we think the texts contained within them were actually probably first written down as a collection much earlier in the 11th or 12th century. And here's the kicker, they probably have oral origin, some of them that are even earlier than that. So written maybe sort of post-Norman conquest, but before...

But possibly even older stories. I would say so, yeah. The stories themselves seem to have much earlier roots, a bit like a Godothan, really. There's a few of them that mention Arthur, but one of my favourites and one of the earliest is a tale called Coluch a Colwen. You sometimes hear it in English called How Coluch Won Olwen. This seems to have really quite early roots. It doesn't bear any resemblance to the other kind of big Geoffrey of Monmouth tradition Arthur texts.

And Arthur is most definitely a king in this story. At last! Yes, he's got there. And it's just a fantastic story. So basically, Arthur has a cousin called Culloch, who's a young man. And he's fallen in love, potentially through a curse, but never mind, with a young woman called Olwen. And her father is a terrible giant called Isbavardin, chief of all giants.

In order to win Olwen's hand, Killoch is given a series of tasks, impossible tasks, 40 of them, that he has to complete. He can't do this on his own, you know, he's just a weedy young guy. So he goes off to King Arthur's court and enlists the help of Arthur and his kind of almost superhuman knights, his superhuman retinue. All I'm hearing here, Mary, is he invented Taskmaster.

That's what I'm hearing, Mike. 40 tasks, off you go. That's a series of Taskmaster. Here's a bunch of guys around a round table who might be up for a challenge. The Mabinogion I'm vaguely familiar with. It's incredibly weird. Yes. It's wonderfully... It's really complex. ...wonderfully weird. Yeah. But it's brilliant. It's amazing. It's quite Studio Ghibli. It's quite like...

animals and weird forests. There's lots of people turning into boars and people sort of seem to change form quite regularly. It feels quite, I don't know. I assume at some point someone's got to kill a boar, right? Normally they sing someone's got to kill a magical boar. How did you know that? That's brilliant. I think that's just kicked into my memory. It's just dragged up from the back. He is King Arthur. It's coming back to him. It's you.

Yeah, no, that's the climax point, really, of the whole. So these 40 tasks are very varied and they involve some quite scary things from kind of impossible husbandry, agricultural tasks to retrieving a magic cauldron and the blood of a black witch who lives at the uplands of hell. And the climax is this hunt for this boar called Turchwuth. And the interesting thing is about half

A large number of the tasks relate in some way to preparing for this great boar hunt that happens at the climax of the story. And the reason why they need to hunt Tuyhtruith is that this giant scary boar has between his ears on his hairy little head... He's got a male grooming set. Yes, he does. You do know this story. Is that what you were thinking when you were thinking it's quite out there? Maybe, yeah. So there's this sort of Miyagi-style kind of...

training, secret training going on. And then, yeah, he wants to trim his beard and get his dream curls going for wedding day. He wants all the bells and no frizz. That's it. Exactly. Yeah. But this is not the Arthurian map that we know. Okay. So first off, there's no Camelot here. Okay. And it's nowhere near Cillian, which is where it is for much of the Middle Ages after later writers get involved. Arthur's court is called Kellywig and it's in Cornwall. Okay.

So in quite a different place. Is it a tentagel thing, is it? Or is that imposed later? I think that's a later development which comes with Geoffrey of Monmouth. There are other candidates put forward all the time for Kettleywig and where it might have been based on the place name and things like that. Oh, you can't go anywhere rural in

In England and parts of Wales without someone claiming... Arthurian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because otherwise how are you going to shift pencil sharpeners? Exactly. The gift shop needs... It's all about merch. Arthurian tat. Yeah. I mean, there was an early 20th century scholar who said that there is no name more ubiquitous in the British landscape other than the devil than Arthur. So, yeah, he really is everywhere he gets something.

Absolutely. What's Excalibur called? Because it's not called Excalibur yet, the sword. No, it's not. It's called Caledvilch, which means hard cleaving. So it's a serious sword. But there are some recognisable characters here. So amongst Arthur's superhero knights, there is Kay or Kay. When the author is describing all of the superhuman characters,

qualities that this massive list of names from Arthur's court has. Kai has lots. He's kind of, I don't really know much about superheroes, but he would be the superhero that has all of the superpowers. Sure, yeah, multi-powered, yeah. There are familiar names. So we have Bedvir or Bedwyr, Gwalchmai, which doesn't sound very familiar, but it's the Welsh name for Garwain. Right. And Arthur's wife here is Gwenhwyvar, which sounds very familiar. That's good, isn't it? So we're definitely edging towards...

Guinevere, we're getting towards Gawain. So it's starting to feel Arthurian. Beginning to feel familiar, yeah. But it's not quite there yet. And there's lots of weird names in Arthur's court as well. Yeah, and according to the tale of... How do you pronounce it? Killough? Killough. According to the tale of Killough and Oren, we've got King Arthur and a host of 260 warriors. Oh, blimey. Quite a lot of people he's gathered around his table. They've got some special talents. Yeah.

Some of them are quite weird special talents, Mary. I mean... Yes. We've got Sight, Son of Seer. Sight, Son of Seer, who has amazing eyesight. Okay, that's good. Which sounds useful, but then you also have Penpingyan, who walks on his head to save his feet. LAUGHTER

Amazing. Less useful. Can you describe how he does that? I assume he's just walking around upside down on his hands all the time. But surely that's a superpower. Not a very helpful one. I don't think his nightly peak years are going to last him long, to be honest. He's more of the show pony end of things. You don't want to trust him in a fight, do you? He's prattling about in his handstands, showing off to local peasants. We've got Ear, son of Hera. He's got fantastic hearing. Yes.

I feel like the guy who stands on his head didn't get the memo. No, maybe they left him behind. They don't all go on the quest, just the useful ones. Someone's got to stay behind and guard the castle. Upside down, on his head, slowly shuffling around the moat. Mike, what talent do you think Lip, son of Placid, possesses?

Yeah. Is he a polyglot? Is he a man of many tongues? That's a very, very good guess. Yeah? No way. Too useful. I mean... Magical kisses? Can he kiss it all better? That would be... What a wonderful thing. For the Indian knights. Oh, that would be so good. Like a kind of rogue figure. No, his skill is... Well, I'll read you the quote. On days when he was sad, he would let his bottom lip drop down to his navel. Oh.

And on the other day, it would be a hood over his head. Yeah, so the party trick he does with his bottom lip is it goes down to the navel. But I should clarify, actually, the top lip goes up over the head, like a hood. How do you see?

Wow. I don't see how that's particularly useful. So he's used to measure the emotional temperature of the squad. Maybe that's it. Is that right? Like a sort of morale barometer. Yeah. It's quite useful for leaders. Yeah, how is morale today? Well, Lip is currently wearing his lip like a hat. The knights will just say that they're fine. But are you really fine? Let's have a look at what Lip's doing. And after this charmingly weird mabinocchion, we get our first English horse, Mary. And it's not entirely English because Geoffrey of Monmouth

is a bit Welsh? It's a very, it's a really complicated question. Monmouth, yeah, Monmouthshire is in what is now modern day Wales. But for much of the Middle Ages, it was in what we call the Welsh March. So that kind of border between Wales and England. And we don't really know the extent to which Geoffrey had familial Welsh connections or whether he came from the kind of Anglo-Norman elite who were ruling or kind of

Yeah, who were the leaders in the marches at that time. He's kind of extremely famous in the Arthurian tradition because around 1136, 1137,

He produces this book called The Historia Regum Britanniae, or The History of the Kings of Britain. You're not, I think you probably have heard of this one. Yeah, yeah. This is the one that starts with Brutus. Yeah, yeah. Ends with the Saxons coming and giving everyone a wallop. And you might notice an overlap there with the Historia Britanniae. And that is a major source for Geoffrey. But he's a lot more elaborate on Arthur's life than what has come before. So much so that people think, did he make all of this up? Is it completely his own invention?

Because he claims to be, he says he found a very ancient book of an ancient tongue. In the ancient Welsh, the British language. But then obviously he doesn't name it and we don't have it and you're like, did you? Did you? Well, I think people are overly keen to be really, really sceptical about Geoffrey. I would imagine that if he'd grown up in Monmouthshire and if he did indeed have Welsh family, he would have been familiar with oral stories that we know were circulating about Arthur. Yeah.

But I think a lot of the detail is his own biographical elaborations, if you like. And it is so, so popular. So there's, I think, something like 215 copies that survive from the Middle Ages. Yeah, that's incredible. And not even just in Latin, which it was written in. I've got no idea. Is that best? Oh, that's, yeah, that's huge. That's astonishing. That's like, you know, for most of our text, we've got like...

25, 30 sometimes. And that's big. Like, that's big. You know, like Bevis of Hampton, one of the other really popular romances in the Middle Ages, there are far fewer copies than that in English. So it's really... He's the Grisham of his day. Yeah, he's the John Grisham of the 13th century. Well,

It's just like a huge, huge change in terms of the record of the history of Britain. It's hugely important, inspiring European intellectuals to think about history in a new way. So you suddenly get this sort of splitting of history into three categories. Matter of Rome, ancient history. The matter of France, Charlemagne's empire. And the matter of Britain...

Because in Geoffrey of Monmouth's text, King Arthur unifies England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. And then he's like, that's not enough. I'm going to go conquer some stuff. And he adds to that Brittany, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Norway, France and Romania. He's basically a one man Eurovision. Wow.

I mean, that's quite a... The Romania... How's he managed the supply line thing? There's a bit of a gap. There is a gap, isn't there? So this King Arthur is a conqueror and king of half of Europe, as well as king of Britain, a unified Britain, which is an interesting political idea, obviously. And of course, you've mentioned he's important, but Geoffrey of Monmouth...

We would call him a chronicler. We would call him a historian. But he's hugely important for the literature aspects of what becomes Arthuriana. So do you want to talk us through that? Yeah, massively. So because we don't have much of a biography of Arthur before, what Geoffrey adds in terms of details is incredibly important for the romancers. And even though Geoffrey is much more interested in what Arthur is doing during wartime than during peacetime, which is what the romancers are interested in,

The details added are a great starting point. We find out about Arthur's conception, which is not a very nice story. He's the son of a king called Uther Pendragon. His mother was married to someone else. And then Merlin helps Uther to trick her by disguising him as her husband. And it's all not very consensual. Yeah. What else is familiar here? He has a wife called Guamhomara, who's essentially, again, Guinevere.

He's betrayed by his nephew, Mordred, which becomes a very crucial part of Arthur's story. He has a relative called Morgan Le Fay. Who's not a baddie. No, she's not. Because I think most people will hear the name and go, Morgan Le Fay, baddie, sorceress, evil queen, witch lady. She's really done dirty by later authors. Is she Mordred's mum? No, that's...

Well, so we'll come to that later. But not here, no. So Morgan Le Fay, I think, is Arthur's half-sister here. And she's a healer and a sorceress, essentially. White magic, healing magic. Yeah. Good magic. Because she's the one behind the...

Green Knight, isn't she? Oh, yes. She is mentioned in the Green Knight story. And by that point, she's not very nice by that point. Because she wants to frighten Guinevere to death, which is horrible. Yeah, so in this early, in Geoffrey of Monmouth, she is a positive figure. She heals Arthur when he's injured. Later on, she will be turned into a villain. Yes. We do get, we sort of get Excalibur.

Caliburnus, which makes sense. You can see how the Latin could become Excalibur very easily. Because X means from, so Excaliburnus, from Caliburn. Well, funnily enough, it's supposed to have been forged at Avalon. Okay.

Which I find super interesting because I know that at Glastonbury tour they found traces of early metalworking on the tour. It's real! I mean, it's not, but it's just, I like it when there's funny little circumstances like that that line up. And Merlin is the other important addition here. Yeah, is that where he first appears?

There's an earlier figure in the Welsh tradition called Myrddin, and he's a poet and he's a prophet as well. But Geoffrey takes him and gives him a much more detailed story. He's not limited to the reign of Arthur, so he's a sort of royal advisor from Arthur's forebears right through down to Arthur. Yeah, he advises Uther Pendragon. Yeah.

He's also supposedly responsible, according to Geoffrey, for bringing Stonehenge over to Britain. Yes. So he's got some interesting stories connected with him. Now, why do you think Mervyn was renamed to Merlin by Geoffrey of Monmouth? This is just a possibility. We're not sure this is true, but why might that be the case? That's interesting. Mervyn. I don't know what would be the problem with the word Mervyn and the...

I'll give you a clue. Have a clue, please. The th sound in Welsh is produced with letters that look like a double D. So it looks like Merdin. Oh, so it looks like Merdin, it looks like...

sort of devilry business. Oh, you're thinking murder? Yeah. No, in French, merde means shit. Of course. Wow. Yeah, that's the running theory anyway. And, you know, you wonder... It's the same reason as the Toyota can't sell the MR2 in France. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Famously. I did do that. That's great. Yes. The MR2. That's it. Mm.

Oh, wow, that's great. Shitty the Prophet doesn't really have the same ring to it. It's a beautiful name in Welsh, but when you translate it to French, it's literally a crap name. It's like one of the earliest examples of rebranding, is it? Yeah, essentially. So Merlin, or Merlin in French, I suppose, but Merlin in English. The other thing that Geoffrey of Monmouth brings in is something you've already mentioned, the idea of Arthur as the once and future king as well, doesn't he? Sort of. The idea of his return to England.

I think Geoffrey leaves it open to question. Okay, right. And that becomes a lot more prominent later. So a lot of Geoffrey's other kings, we're told they died in this state. They were buried here quite often. With Arthur, we're told that he's taken off to Avalon for healing after this terrible final battle at Camelan.

And then the crown passes to the successor. But we're not actually given that information about whether he dies or how he dies. And people love to elaborate on that later on. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's lush, that stuff. Owen Glyndwr, all that kind of like, he will come again type of stuff. Exactly that. And that then kickstarts what we might charmingly cheekily call fan fiction. It's not necessarily fan fiction, but it's a sudden surge of other writers going...

"Oh, I can run with this. I can add to this." And it starts straight away, doesn't it? I think fanfiction is an excellent way of describing fantasy, right? I've heard it called that in my lectures, particularly as it really snowballs. So what Greg's referring to here is the romance tradition that starts in Europe, which is very hard to summarise because it just explodes so quickly.

Geoffrey's text is translated, so it's originally in Latin, a handy lingua franca for the period, and it's translated very, very quickly into French by a Channel Islander called Wass, into English, translations of it all across Europe and into Welsh as well, actually. So, yeah, from the 12th century, we start to see Arthurian literature being composed. The lion's share of Arthurian romance, really, most innovative Arthurian romance that we see at the earliest date is in French.

which of course is a prestige language in much of Europe. Do you know why they're called romances, Mike? Ooh, I don't know why they're called romances, no. Because we now use the word romance to mean love staff, bouquet of flowers and all that.

But it's a linguistic history, right? It's just the romance language thing. Right. Is that it? Essentially, yeah. So in French, these texts are called romans, which is still the word for novel today in modern French. And Deutsch as well, yeah. Yeah. And then in England, when you start seeing these texts called romance, it's clear that they are...

It's actually used for any text that's written in French originally. It doesn't even have to have like knights and everything else. Yeah, so we think it's to do with romance, like literature originally being written kind of in Latinate. Some of these authors in particular, I'm thinking here of Marie de France, who I'll talk about in a second. Also, Chrétien of Troyes, Chrétien de Troyes. They really are interested in these big questions about how a knight balances his power.

Shivarik, his martial obligations with, you know, being courtly and refined and being a lover. He's a lover and a fighter, ladies. And Arthur in these texts becomes, we call him a raffanian, a do-nothing king. He's a lot less important than his knights and all of their affairs and adventures and things like that. And Lancelot is actually, he isn't even in the Arthurian tradition before.

prior to romance. Well, let's do a mini quiz for you actually, Mike. So, Chrétien de Troyes is probably the most important writer of this period, writing in sort of the 1170s, 1190s. Yeah. Adds

quite a lot of iconic elements to the Arthurian canon. So which of these five iconic elements was not Chrétien's invention? So I'm going to give you five. One of them is not from Chrétien. One, Camelot. Two, Lancelot. Three, Lancelot's tragic romance with Guinevere. Four, The Round Table. Five, The Quest for the Holy Grail, which was not Chrétien's invention? I'm going to say The Quest for the Holy Grail.

It's a good guess, but it's the round table. Is it really? Yeah, the round table. That comes first. Critia didn't come up with that. Critia came up with the others. So who invented the round table? The round table is first mentioned in... Do you remember earlier I mentioned Wass, the Channel Islander, who translates Geoffrey and adapts it, makes it more interesting. Yes, and one of the additional details that he includes is that a circular table is produced that can seat...

nights all the way around it with no hierarchy. So it's to get rid of squabbling about seniority. In the Grail texts, this is developed a bit. So there's always a seat that's left vacant called the siege perilous or the dangerous chair, the dangerous seat. Yeah, siège means chair in French. Yeah. And the idea being that it's deadly to sit in. The only person who can sit in it has to be the most pure night going. And that's the only one who can achieve the

the quest for the Grail. Robert Wass, that's the Roman de Brut, so that's the story of Brutus. That's 1155, so that's 15 years before Chrétien. But Chrétien de Troyes describes something that he does invent, which is the Holy Grail. Right. Now...

What do you think of when you think of a Holy Grail? Beyond the Monty Python film. Well, OK. What do you think of in terms of what it looks like, what it is? Well, I'm a follower of Indiana Jones. Good, good. So it's going to be a basic cup, you know, perhaps wooden. Yeah, that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. And I think the legend was that if it could be restored to Britain, that that would heal the nation. I think that is also involved in this kind of...

Joseph of Arimathea. Yes. Did he come to Britain? If so, did he bring Jesus as his apprentice? Did he buy a cup from a gift shop in Glastonbury while he was here? Did he take it back? And then is it like nicking a Hoegaarden glass from a pub? Was it not actually his glass and he was supposed to return it to the barber? He didn't. He didn't know any better. He's not from this, in other words. Do you know what I mean? Is that...

Chrétien says? Chrétien says that it is a flat serving dish for presenting the Eucharist wafer. Yeah, it is. And there's moments where they see this vision of it being brought out in a sort of parade. And it's actually gained a lot more importance since the romance. It's kind of become this huge object that people are looking for. But actually, the original Grail romances, it's part of a collection of mystical objects, really, if you like. I need to ask also, we've mentioned the round table. Yeah.

How many knights are sitting around the round table? I always imagined it was like a baker's dozen. You're thinking 13? I was thinking King Arthur and then a dozen knights. You're bang on for one of the sources. Yeah.

But we also get, I mean, various numbers, right? Yeah. So it ranges from 12 nights up to a lot more than that, sometimes 150. That's quite simple. In the Welsh tradition, 24, a pedwa marthog, sometimes 225, sometimes 300. If you want to know how crazy it gets, Lachman, who is the English translator of Geoffrey, Geoffrey's text,

In Lachemont's Brut, he says that a carpenter builds this fold-out portable table that can be carried around that can seat as many as 1,600 knights. 1,600 knights. And this thing is portable, we're saying. So the round table can seat...

or 1,600. Or somewhere in between. Or somewhere in between. It really depends. So each Arthurian text was changing core elements, Mary. We're seeing here writers coming in, adding bits, tweaking bits, taking a name, running with it, you know,

We get Morgan Le Fay being transformed from helpful healer into traitorous sister to Arthur, becoming the incestuous mother of their child, Mordred. And then we've also got the knights who become the prominent, the famous knights of the round. How many can you name off the top of your head? Oh, blimey. Here we go. So Lancelot, of course. Gawain, we mentioned. Galahad, Percival.

K. Mm-hmm. Bors. Yeah? Yes. Ooh. I don't know if that's it. That's a lot. It's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. There's hundreds of them. There's so many. There's loads.

Other mainstays include Gehaerys, Agravain... Sir Mordred, Sir Gehaerys, Sir Gareth... Tristan, of course, yeah. We also need to mention Marie de France. Yeah, so she's a really important figure because, first of all, there aren't many female Arthurian authors, to be honest, at this early date that we know of.

And Marie de France translates this group of stories that she says are Breton lays, which were kind of sung to a harp in Brittany, which is very intriguing because that might suggest a route into the French tradition. But also a route in perhaps the British tradition, the Breton, Brittany, that sort of link. Yeah, potentially. And some of these lays are Arthurian in nature.

And some of them are quite typical. Some of them are a bit more unusual. There's one called Lanval about a knight who is overlooked by Arthur and Guinevere and just not treated very well. And he ends up being rescued by a fairy lover who he has...

a very good time with in a meadow in a tent somewhere and she rides in to rescue him and he leaps on the back of her horse and rides off just as he's about to be given this terrible trial at Arthur's Court. Yeah. Lovely stuff. Great, isn't it? So she's great. I love Married France and they're a good length as well. You can just kind of dip in it. She was writing in the late 1100s. Yes. There's also Robert de Boron who invents another motif.

Do you want to guess what Arthurian motif he adds into the canon? Sword in the stone. Yes! Is it? You're doing very well at this. That was a guess, but I was trying to think what's missing from the classics. You're doing great, Emma. That's amazing. And what's interesting after that is we get what's called the Vulgate cycle. Yes. A slight pivot in the direction of the themes. Yeah, a little bit. It's also really the first time that we start to see a lot of these disparate stories being brought together into a kind of very epic story.

coherent whole but um yeah the volgate cycle we're not sure exactly who wrote it but we think it may have been written by someone possibly a secular author who had spent time in cistercian circles and they were all about kind of mystical things which explains why so they were monks yes which explains why the grail is such an important part of that part when is this when is this early 1200s okay so we start to see a slight pivot away from the kind of

The Adventures of Knights, and it's becoming a little bit more about Christian purity and the idea of the ideal knight. And this is the time of Crusades, right? Yeah, and so it really is answering to that image of the ideal knight as a Christianised kind of a knight. And it also raises the question as to whether there are forms of knighthood...

that are not so ideal that shouldn't be idealized so much and I think by drawing that connection between the Grail quest and the death of Arthur the mortatou which is kind of the the end point in the story in the Vulgate collection if you like it's really reinforcing the potential for the failure to achieve something as being potentially something that could lead to the downfall of somebody great yeah like Arthur have

Have you heard of Le Morte d'Arthur as a book by Thomas Mallory? Have you read it? No, I haven't read it. I have heard of it. He's sort of a Rapscallion figure, isn't he? Yeah. It's a prison book.

You know your stuff, don't you, Mike? I have to confess, I think it's one of those things that I've intended to read for a long time. I've never... Do you know what I mean? It's on the list behind all the Grishams. I may have even owned it at some point, you know, and it's been put on the bookshelf in front of the Grishams. Yeah. LAUGHTER

But then you reach for aggression. Yeah, you're spot on. OK, you haven't read it, but you know that he's a bit of a character. Yeah. I mean, Mary, this is very much the Marvel Cinematic Universe of the 15th century. Here is someone trying to grapple with an enormous, sprawling collection of stories where people are rewriting, rewriting, rewriting, and he's gone, oh, we need to standardise this. We need to bring this all into one coherent narrative, a beginning, middle and end, about King Arthur, and he dies at the end.

So what is the mess that he tries to cohere? I mean, it's really massive. We think Mallory was using sources written in French and sources written in English. But there is at least one book in the book. It's a book split into books, confusingly. And there is at least one book in there where we don't know what his source was, which is very intriguing.

It's an amazing fate of being able to synthesize a huge amount of stories and weave them together into a master narrative. We call it Le Morte d'Arthur. Yes. Which sounds pretty sexy. Yes. No, it wasn't. And it's a major spoiler. Yeah, yeah, actually, that's true. Yeah, you're right, actually. Yeah. It does massively give the game away. The original title in English was different. It was the whole book of King Arthur and his noble knights of the round table, which I think is more, it leaves you to guess what the ending's going to be.

Yeah, Le Morte Tartu, you're right, it's a real... Sure, but it's less easy to put in... It's not such a sort of front-of-the-bookshop type title. So it's written in 1469, 1470, so we're talking quite late at this point in the Middle Ages, quite a bit later than the other romances we've been talking about. So it's just before the Tudor era, it's right at the end of the Middle Ages. Wars of the Roses, yeah. And 1485, it's actually printed, and it's printed by this...

printer called William Caxton, and Caxton retitles it Le Morte d'Arthur, presumably because it sounds kind of classy in French. I don't know. I feel I've heard that name before. What's he famous for? Yes, he's the master printer. We have an episode on him. We did an episode on him earlier. You can check out. I've got Robin in. That's probably why. He was the first great printer in English language. And so Le Morte d'Arthur is his sort of rebrand of this great text that

Mallory is a politician, he's a sort of sheriff, he does some bad stuff, he ends up in prison. So tell us, who was he? Well, we had three candidates. We weren't sure which Thomas Mallory Knight who was imprisoned it was. As it turns out, there were three candidates. But the one who looks most likely, he was from Warwickshire. And yeah, he had a very colourful career, shall we say. He was a sheriff, he was a justice of the peace.

five times he was an MP. But he was also accused of some pretty terrible crimes and spent time in prison for them. And these range from cattle rustling and things like that to robbing a local abbey, all the way up to attempted murder of the Duke of Buckingham, theft, rape and extortion. So all in all, no

known as being a particularly nice guy. It's not his oldest time, right? The guy's seeking office. Got to get in office again just in case the law catches up with him. It's the Donald Trump strategy, isn't it? Yeah, it's effective. And yet he's accused of all these terrible things. And actually we think that he may have written Le Morte d'Arthur, which I don't know if you've ever seen a copy, but it is massive. It's huge. It's one of those books that people say that they've read sometimes when they haven't read all of it because it's so, so long.

And we think that he wrote it during a period of imprisonment, possibly Newgate Prison or possibly... Tower of London. Maybe somewhere where he would have had access to manuscripts that contained enough of his source material that he could use them. What's the thing that he didn't, where there's no source? What's the story? It's the Book of Sir Gareth.

So Gareth. Yes. So the Mort d'Arthur is a sort of compendium of stories. We break it down into eight tales. So it takes you right from Arthur's conception through his rise to the throne. You've got the sword and the stone story in there about him pulling the sword from the stone and becoming king. He goes over to Europe and conquers the Roman Empire after a nasty challenge from a Roman emperor. Yeah.

We're introduced to all of his round table nights, as in some of the other romances. He's got 150, hasn't he? 150 of them. Yeah, a good round number. Quite a lot. Lancelot is more important than in other English romances in Mallory because of his French sources. And this is where you get the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, that great love triangle. Mallory's kind of squeamish about the sex stuff. So they don't have sex. Probably for the mass market, right? Yeah. Well, and...

possibly a slightly more prudish audience, I don't know, until quite late in the text. And then after everything goes wrong for Arthur and he's betrayed by Mordred and the knights fall into kind of infighting and factions, partly because of what happens with Lancelot and Guinevere, it all goes very wrong. Arthur is mortally wounded and is taken off to Avalon. This is one of those texts where we are told some people think he doesn't live anymore and this is where we first hear Arthur called the once and future king. Yeah.

And then there's a funny postscript with Lancelot and Guinevere where they become a monk and a nun, respectively. Which is... That's a...

greatly elaborated upon by Mallory. And it's worth just saying also that Galahad sits on the siege perilous, the sort of the scary chair. Yes, he's the dude, isn't he? The Grail quest is very much in there. And he does it. He does a Grail. He's like, bosh, nailed it. Does a Grail, gets made a king, dies. Yes. Yeah. So this is the kind of classic text that students read, well, try and read, and then very quickly give up. So it's a romance, but it's not that romantic as everyone dies at the end. Yeah.

Struggling to get out of bed? It might be time for an upgrade. Leesa makes exceptionally comfortable mattresses designed for everybody and budget. But what truly sets them apart is their commitment to giving back. Since 2015, they've donated over 41,000 mattresses nationwide. Elevate your sleep in your space with Leesa.

Go to Lisa.com for 20% off their award-winning mattresses, plus an extra $50 off with promo code iHeart. That's L-E-E-S-A.com. Promo code iHeart for an extra $50 off. Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. It's stock-up savings time. Now through March 27th, spring in for store-wide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in-store tags to earn on eligible beverage items from San Pellegrino and Pepsi.

or breakfast favorites like Chobani Greek Yogurt, Dan and Oikyo's Yogurt, and Pete's Coffee, plus many more. Then clip the offer in our app for automatic event-long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Restrictions apply. Visit Safeway.com for more details. With the best all-inclusive vacation deals to Mexico and the Caribbean, booking your getaway with Cheap Caribbean Vacations means you have more freedom to do your deal. Whether you want to enjoy snorkeling, endless margaritas, and more, or simply

Or find a featured all-inclusive package to Ocean by H10 Hotels and do your deal at cheapcaribbean.com.

So we've discussed literature. We should talk quickly about Arthurian artefacts or Arthur-facts, if you will, which is to say that in the Middle Ages people started finding proof.

Question mark? I think we think of Arthurian tourism as a kind of post-Victorian thing, but absolutely not. You know, like people were going to pilgrimage sites and churches and things like that that claimed to have objects connected with Arthur and all of the people who populated his world. Some of these were kind of clearly propaganda objects as well, right? So when Edward I defeats Llewellyn at Griffith, he seizes a crown from him that is supposed to have been Arthur's crown that then gets stored quite safely in Westminster for a while. OK.

There's Arthur's sword. Yeah, that's Richard the Lionheart. Richard the Lionheart gives Arthur's sword. Yes, he does. He gives it to, I think, King Tancred, I think. He gives it to the King of Sicily. We've got King John. He's got Sir Tristan's sword. Yep. Some say it's still used in royal coronations. So they say. It's not.

It is not. No. And Dover had Gawain's head. Yes, and we know this based on people who visited and tell us that they were shown Arthur and Gwyneth's chamber, Gawain's skull and his bones because he dies in Dover, according to Geoffrey. Winchester built a round table. Yes. Edward III built it? I think Edward III

We think possibly to do with a grand tournament. And it's still hanging there. You can go and see it. Clearly not, you know, authentic in any way. Henry VIII had it repainted as well. Beautiful. So it's been continually an object of royal propaganda. And my favourite one of all, Cambridge University in the 1400s claims that King Arthur had given them a tax exemption and it was hand-delivered by Sir Gawain himself. Yes! LAUGHTER

But the real Arthur aficionados in the medieval world were big on it, but the Victorians...

They loved a bit of Arthurian honour. Yeah, this is kind of a period that we call the Arthurian revival, when interest in Arthur just explodes again. And there's various reasons for this. Arthur is a powerful Christian imperial symbol. You can see how he might be appealing to certain Victorians. He's a conqueror, he unifies Britain. Yeah, all of that. He's a morally upright figure at a time when people are being more thoughtful about morals, and particularly morals among the upper classes as well. He's got big muscles, but he will hold the door open.

A lady, right? Some of the more dodgy bits of the medieval Arthur, like things like the incest story where Arthur kills a load of babies because he doesn't want Mordred to come and overthrow him, his incest child. The Victorians don't like that very much. It's very King Herod. Yeah, it's very King Herod. It's covered, right? Don't do that, please. Mallory is actually republished. It's censored. Some of the nastier bits are tweaked for Victorian tastes.

And then Tennyson. So Tennyson actually kind of rediscovers a lot of the Arthurian stories, partly through Mallory, but also partly through the Welsh tales that by that point had been translated by Lady Charlotte Guest.

and by other people that he knew. And he's really well known for his rewrites of the Arthurian story. You've got his poem, The Lady of Shalott, which is very, very famous. And also his grand Arthuriad, which is called The Idols of the King. We also get, of course, Victorian print books have beautiful illustrations. That's another big appeal. You see gorgeous art. And in a previous episode, we've talked about the arts and crafts movement, and they were obsessed with Arthur as well. Paintings. Paintings and all sorts of things.

So we've got a kind of really rich sort of Arthurian poetry and so on, but there's also women involved here too. We've got more important figures here. Yeah, and actually I would suggest that we can partly thank women for the Arthurian revival. Only partly though. You know, like they were interested in the Arthurian stories even when people were passing them off as kind of frivolous and not valuable. I mentioned already Lady Charlotte Guest earlier,

You have poets like Louisa Stewart Costello, whose funeral boat probably influenced Tennyson with His Lady of Shalott, which is interesting. One of my favourites is Elizabeth Stewart Phelps. So she's actually writing in America. She's American, but she's writing in the same sort of time period as Tennyson. And she's an early feminist. So she paints these amazing reimagined...

featuring Arthurian characters, but very much set in kind of contemporary, lower and middle class America. So you'll get a vision of kind of Guinevere with a toothache sat on her little cricket stall by the fire, lusting over their lodger. That sounds amazing. And like opium fever dreams and everything. I've never heard of that.

Yeah, a lot of people haven't, but actually some of the most important innovators, I think, in Arthurian literature at this time were not Tennyson and that lot. It was actually some of the female authors. I'd love to read some of that. That's so, yeah, fan fiction unleashed. Yeah. Nice. So Gawain out on the porch with his shotgun. Yeah. Cool box. Interesting stuff. And then also in the art world as well. So there's a photographer called Julia Margaret Cameron who...

A very famous photographer, really important. Very well known, yeah. And often we'll see lots of exhibitions about her these days. She's sort of back in vogue. Yeah, and her Arthurian portrait series that she is asked to do for Tennyson for an 1874 edition of his Idols is very, very famous. It contains these kind of photo portraits of people from the Arthurian world. These are people who also were using Arthuriana to justify the British Empire. Yeah.

Yeah. Julia Cameron was born in Calcutta and she owned coffee plantations in Sri Lanka. And her and Tennyson were both very, very pro-empire. And they saw the Arthur story as a story about a king who's a civilising force. I mean, Tennyson's poems describe... Yeah. Yeah, it really is. I mean, Tennyson describes Arthur taming people like wild beasts. It's all very uncomfortable. Yeah.

There's a famous painting, actually, by George Frederick Wyatts of Sir Galahad that is hung not just in Eton, the original, but all over schools and nurseries across the British Empire as a kind of propaganda tool, really. The platonic idea of a man. Ideal, upright, civilised masculinity. Go forth, do a quest, grab a treasure from somewhere. Stick a flag in it. Really stick a flag in it, yeah.

Home for neighbours. Yeah. I think it might be your moustache, Mike, but there feels like a slight 19th century leadership quality to you. I feel like I want to follow you into battle. But you won't be invading Britain any time soon, I'm assuming. Well, I'll try not to. I'm fighting the urge every day of learning. There are lots of landmarks. I know we've talked about some already. Just very quickly, what are sort of the real classic landmarks

landmark, Tintagel, Mike's mentioned. Tintagel is still a massive tourist hotspot. One of English Heritage's most successful. Obviously Glastonbury, people still flock to Glastonbury. And the grave of Arthur and Guinevere was found. Was found there by some Glastonbury monks in 1191. When they needed some funding. Yeah, and it's been visited ever since. Oh right, so it's genuine to get a bit of...

It was a very useful discovery. Why not upgrade to annual membership? Potentially. They'd had a disastrous fire. They'd had a fire and they needed to rebuild and suddenly, out of nowhere, King Arthur! What are the chances? Six years later. I fancy that. There's all sorts of stories even today about Arthur sleeping beneath a hill or in a cave somewhere ready to come back. That's classic though, isn't it? Everywhere's got one of those. Everywhere. The poles have got one of those. Well, Mount

Aetna in the Middle Ages. Is there? Yeah, it's theorised as this is where Avalon was in a medieval text. The poles have got the sleeping knights of...

Givant, I think it's called. Your Polish heritage is coming out there. I'm aware of this. It's one of those, like the knights or the king who will rise again type thing. They're sleeping. They're in a cave. You've got Snowdon, Alderley Edge in Cheshire. Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, of course. Arthur's Oven in Scotland as well. There's all sorts of landmarks with Arthurian names. Mike, do you know which British city has Arthur's seal, Arthur's coat of arms on their modern civic seal?

I want to say Winchester. It's a good guess. They've got the round table, right? Yeah, exactly. I would guess Bath because, you know, we talked about the Battle of Bath-Budden. It's none of those. Aberystwyth. No, it's... It's Hull. Is it really? Yeah. Yeah.

Viking Hull, for all places. Hull up in the northeast. Why Hull? It's a very long story that I don't have much time to get into today. Can you do it quickly? I can do it really quickly. This particular coat of arms with the three crowns on blue was used by other figures as well. Hull was the king's town founded in 1299. Yes, Kingston upon Hull. Kingston upon Hull. I don't think that the arms date to that time.

early but they were used later on and continue to be used and they happen to be Arthur's coat of arms you see most commonly as well Hull Hull is the great King Arthur seat wouldn't have guessed it maybe that's where the round table is could be the nuance window

So it's time now for the nuance window. This is where Mike and I sit quietly at the round table for two minutes with our many, many, many other nights. And we give Dr. Mary two minutes to tell us something we need to know. So my stopwatch is ready. Without much further ado, the nuance window, please. Okay, so we haven't spoken much today about the period between the 16th and 19th centuries. And that's because a lot of people think of this as an Arthurian Nadir. No one is interested in Arthur. No one is writing about Arthur. And actually,

Actually, this is the time when you see some of the weirdest and funniest texts being written about Arthur. I'm going to give two examples today, but there are tons of others. Two of my favourites. The first is a little pamphlet published by a famous balladeer called Martin Parker. A famous history of King Arthur...

1660, so just on the cusp of monarchic restoration. And it seems fairly normal until you delve into his massive list of Arthur's knights, which alongside Garwain Lancelot includes names like Sir Doggery, Sir Bored, Sir Frisky and Sir Bigot.

And I love this because people talk about Parker and this particular text as examples of royalist propaganda. And it just goes to show how even the more sober Arthurian genres at this time are becoming playful. There's some tongue-in-cheek stuff going on here. It's not attempting to be history anymore. And because of that, things get a lot more diverse and interesting.

Because we mentioned Hull earlier, did you know that there is a Merlinic prophecy, a prophecy supposedly attributed to Merlin about Kingston upon Hull, and it's invasion by parliamentary forces? Lots of people don't, and I don't know why you wouldn't.

But I find it really funny that Merlin, who is a royal advisor, is co-opted as a prognosticator, as a prophet for parliamentarianism, you know, around the Civil War period. I just find that completely wonderful. And a great testament to how, even in this Nadir, things can continue to be reinvented. Amazing. Thank you so much. There you go to King Arthur. He's the once and future king because actually he keeps coming back. Yeah.

But with a new... Yeah, whatever's needed at the time. Right. So there we go. How do you feel about King Arthur now, Mike? I thoroughly enjoy it. I love that. It's been an absolute feast. You knew way more than you let on. You said earlier on that you had rough outlines. I wasn't sure. I'd loved it as a kid, I think, in particular. And there's so many brilliant movies and things that will remind you of... There really are. There are so many movies about King Arthur. Excalibur in particular. I'm going to have to go back and watch that.

Excalibur's a great one. First night, not so good. We seem to share the knowledge between us, which I love. Everyone has something a bit different. Exactly, exactly. So what do you know now?

It's time now for the So What Do You Know Now? This is our quickfire quiz for Mike to see how much he has learned. Are you feeling confident? I don't think I am feeling confident. Yeah, there's been a lot of details, names that I probably haven't grasped, but let's see. I feel like you contributed very well to the overall conversation, so I'm not going to hold it against you if this is where you fall down. So, ten questions.

Here we go. Question one. Which English chronicler wrote A History of the Kings of Britain, inspiring others to create Arthurian romance literature? Your friend and mine, Geoffrey of Monmouth. It was. Question two. The round table seated as few as 12 knights or as many as how many? 1,600. It was way too many knights. Question three. In the story of Colic and Elwynn, what weird talent did Lip, son of Placid, possess?

Oh, when he was blue, when he was feeling low, his lip could go down to his navel or he could also put it over his head, like a backwards hood. What a skill. OK, question four. Why might Geoffrey of Monmouth have changed Merlin's name from Merlin? So it didn't sound like the word for Geoffrey.

to the French audience. Beautifully done. Question five. How did Morgan Le Fay's character arc change over the medieval period? She was originally a healer and a sort of magic positive creature and then became villainous. Yeah, a treacherous half-sister, an incestuous mother of Mordred, yeah. Question six. A name one Arthurian artefact that allegedly medieval kings claimed to own.

There's, for example, Richard Braveheart claiming to have the Excalibur itself and giving it to the... Richard the Lionheart. The Lionheart, sorry. Giving it to the King of Sicily or some Duke of Sicily? Yeah, yeah, Tancred, yeah, well remembered, very good. You could also have the Sword of St Tristan, Arthur's Crown as well. And Gawain's head was in Dover for some reason. Question seven. Who wrote Le Morte d'Arthur while in prison? Thomas Mallory.

He was. He was the Geoffrey Archer of his age. Question eight. According to Chrétien de Troyes, what was the Holy Grail? Oh, it was a serving platter. It was. It was a cup after all. Yeah, it was a serving platter for the Eucharist. Question nine. Juliet Margaret Cameron's photographs illustrated the ideals of the king written by which famous poet laureate? Tennyson. Ten.

This for a perfect ten, Mike. Which British city has King Arthur's supposed coat of arms in its crest? Hull. Ten out of ten. That's amazing. Mike Wozniak. You are King Arthur, after all. You're back. It must be true. You're great at this. Pluck a sword out of your stone. Create my rightly kingdom. Can't wait. I think I would try to be your sort of benevolent dictator. Right, OK. I think it's worth giving that a go. Sure. Even for a couple of years. And how big is your round table going to be?

Ooh, I think... Oh, golly, this is like wedding invites because there'd be so many people that would be offended if I didn't... You've got to think about colleagues, you've got to be old friends from school you're not being in touch with. I'm going to say 240 because then people can never kind of like bring a friend, that kind of stuff. OK, plus ones. Yeah, plus ones. I'll say 240. You're both invited, obviously. Thank you. Thank you. There you go. All right, well, thank you so much. Listener, if you crave more Wozniak in your life, of course you do. Check out our episodes on Stone Age Cattle Hoyuk.

Do you remember that? Or of course Dickens at Christmas, a very festive episode. And for more lovely legends, we've got an episode on Atlantis, which was not real, but very interesting. And remember, if you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review, share the show with friends, subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode. But I just want to say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had the brilliant Dr Mary Bateman from the University of Bristol. Thank you, Mary. Thank you so much. This has been great.

been lovely. And in Comedy Corner, we have the marvellous King himself, Mike Wozniak, the once and future Arthur. Thank you, Mike. It's lovely. I've loved it. Thank you so much. Fabulous. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we ride off on another historical quest. But for now, I'm off to go and trim my beard. First, I just need to find a wild boar. Bye! Bye!

This episode of You're Dead to Me was researched by John Norman Mason and Hannah Cusworth. It was written by John Norman Mason, Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Neguse and me. The audio producer was Steve Hankey and our production coordinator was Ben Hollands. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, me and senior producer Emma Neguse and our executive editor was James Cook. You're Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4.

Strong message here from BBC Radio 4. I'm Amanda Yannucci. And I'm Helen Lewis. A comedy writer and a journalist teaming up like a pair of unkempt and unlikely superheroes. Our mission is to decipher political language. Stress testing to destruction those used and abused buzzwords and phrases. Finding out what they really mean. And looking at whether they're meant to deceive us. Or to distract us. Or to disturb us. And our pledge...

is to help you spot the tricks of the verbal trait. But be warned, this series does feature strong political language that some listeners may find an inverted pyramid of piffle. Strong message here from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sound.

Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. It's stock-up savings time. Now through March 27th, spring in for store-wide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in-store tags to earn on eligible snacks like Alshine fruit bars and Ritz crackers or sweet treat favorites like Nestle drumsticks, Nerds gummy clusters, and Lindor chocolates, plus many more. Then clip the offer in our app for automatic event-long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Restrictions apply. Visit Safeway.com for more details. With the best options,

all-inclusive vacation deals to Mexico and the Caribbean. Booking your getaway with Cheap Caribbean Vacations means you have more freedom to do your deal. Whether you want to enjoy snorkeling, endless margaritas, and more. Or simply soak up the sun and sand in a tropical paradise. Cheap Caribbean Vacations has your deal for that. Plan and book the exact getaway you want at exactly the right price for you by using our exclusive budget beach finder. Or find

a featured adults only all inclusive package to Seekers Resorts and Spas and do your deal at