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mask131 · 8 months

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French fantasy: The children of Orpheus and Melusine

There is this book called “The Illustrated Panorama of the fantasy and the merveilleux” which is a collection and compilation of articles and reviews covering the whole history of the fantasy genre from medieval times to today. And in it there is an extensive article written by A. F. Ruau called “Les enfant d’Orphée et de Mélusine” (The Children of Orpheus and Melusine), about fantasy in French literature. This title is, of course, a reference to the two foundations of French literature: the Greco-Roman heritage (Orpheus) and the medieval tradition (Melusine).

I won’t translate the whole text because it is LONG but I will give here a brief recap and breakdown.

A good part of the article is dedicated to proving that in general France is not a great land for fantasy literature, and that while we had fantasy-like stories in the past, beyond the 18th century we hit a point where fantasy was banned and disdained by literary authorities.

Ruaud reminds us that the oldest roots of French fantasy are within Chrétien de Troyes’ Arthurian novels, the first French novels of the history of French literature, and that despite France rejecting fantasy, the tradition of the Arthuriana and of the “matter of Bretagne” stayed very strong in our land. Even today we have famous authors offering their takes, twists and spins on the Arthurian myth: Xavier de Langlais, Michael Rio, Hersart de la Villemarqué, René Barjaval (with his L’Enchanteur, The Enchanter, in 1984), Jean Markale, Jean-Louis Fetjaine or Justine Niogret (with her “Mordred” in 2013). He also evokes the huge wave and phenomenon of the French fairytales between the 17th and the 18th century, with the great names such as Charles Perrault (the author of Mother Goose’s Fairytales), Madame d’Aulnoy (the author, among others, of The Blue Bird), and Madame Leprince de Beaumont (author of, among others, Beauty and the Beast). He also evokes, of course, Charles Nodier, which was considered one of the great (and last) fairytale authors of the 19th century, the whole “Cabinet des Fées” collection put together to save a whole century of fairytales ; as well as the phenomenon caused by Antoine Galland’s French translation of the One Thousand and One Nights – though Ruaud also admits this translation rather helped the Oriental fashion in French literature (exemplified by famous works such as The Persian Letters, or Zadig) than the genre of the “marvelous”.

Ruaud briefly mentions the existence of a tradition of “quests” in French literature, again inherited from the medieval times, but quests that derived from Arthurian feats to romantic quests, love stories, “polite” novel of aristocratic idylls or pastoral novels of countryside love stories – the oldest being Le Roman de la Rose (the Novel of the Rose, the medieval text began by Guillaume de Lorris in the early 13th century and completed by Jean de Meung one century later), and the most recent L’Astrée (THE great romantic bestseller of the 17th century, written by Honoré d’Urfé). But overall, Ruaud concluded that between the 17th-early 18th century (the last surge of the marvelous, abruptly cut short by the French Revolution and the reshaping of France) and the 1980s (the time during which role-playing fantasy games and the English-speaking fantasy was translated in France), there was very little “fantasy” to be talked of as a whole, a gap that resulted in people such as Gérard Klein declare in the 90s: “Fantasy is a literature made by ignorant people for ignorant readers, and with a true absence of any kind of challenge”.

At least for literature… Ruaud however spends a lot of time detailing the “fantastical” and “marvelous” traditions of visual art – from the stage performances to the movies. There was quite a rich tradition there, apparently. He starts by evoking the massive wave that the release in the United-Kingdom of “The Dream of Ossian” caused. France ADORED Ossianic stuff – even when it was proven that it wasn’t an actual Scottish historical treasure, but a work made up by Macpherson, people still adored it – from Napoleon who commissioned enormous paintings illustrating the Ossianic stories, to the colossal opera by Jean-François Lesueur, “Ossian ou les Bardes”, created for the then brand-new Imperial Academy of music.

There was also the fashion of the “féeries”, a type of stage-show that was all about depicting stories of fairies, gods, magics and other fairytale elements – the “féerie” fashion was at the crossroad between the opera, the ballet and the theater, and in the “dreary, drab and modern” era of the 19th century, people were obsessed with these “little pieces of blue sky” and “golden fairy-clouds”. However, despite the quality of the visuals, costumes and sets (which made the whole power of those féerie, it was their visuals and their themes that drew people in), the dialogues and the plots were noted to be quite bad, simplistic if not absent. The “féeries” were not meant to be great work of arts or actual literature, but just pure entertainment. Gustave Flaubert, right after finishing Salammbô (see my previous post), was exhausted and trying to escape the colossus of the historical novels, he tried to entertain himself by getting into the fashion of the féeries. He read thirty-three féeries in one go, and he was left sickened by so much mediocrity. He decided to create his own féerie that would rehabilitate the genre, and the result was “Le Château des Coeurs”, “The Castle of Hearts”. Nine “tableaux” written by Flaubert on a “canevas” by his friend Louis Bouilhet: “The gnomes, the new avatar of the bourgeois, are stealing the hearts – and thus the ability to love – of humans, to keep them locked up in the vault of the Castle of the Hearts, as their treasure. But the fairies are afoot: they will try to revive love on earth, through two human beings that are said to still have a heart, and to still have the ability to love”. Unfortunately this play, while entirely created, was never actually showed on any stage due to two things. One, at the time the féeries were falling out of fashion and nobody wanted to see them anymore ; two, Flaubert was carried away and placed a LOT of special effects in his play, many which were incredibly more complex than those used at the time. A typical féerie special effect would be for example for a table to turn into a chair, or for a bed to turn into a hammock – but Flaubert demanded for a YOUNG MAN to turn into a DOOR LINTEL.

Anyway… The use of legends and myths was also reigniting in operas thanks to the enormous success of Wagner’s pieces. Claude Debussy created a “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune” in 1894, based on Mallarmé’s work (Prelude to a Faun’s afternoon), and later created a Pelléas et Melissande in 1902 based on Maeterlinck. But again… In France, the literature was all about the “fantastique” rather than the fantasy – the supernatural was supposed to be of this disquieting, disruptive, bizarre magic, wonders and horrors that entered the normal, rational, logical reality we all knew. It was the reign of Gautier, Maupassant and Poe through the lenses of Baudelaire). In the 20th century a lot of authors touched upon the “wonderful” and the “marvelous”, but they were discreet touches here and there: André Dhôtel, André Hardellet, Jacques Yonnet, Charles Duits, Henri Michaux, Marcel Aymé, Pierre Benoît, Marguerite Yourcenar, Sylvie Germain, Maurice Maeterlinck, Julien Gracq… Once again, the visuals won over literature – and to symbolize the French fantasy cinema of the 20th century, Ruaud only has to mention one name. Jean Cocteau. Cocteau and his two most famous movies: La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast, 1946) and Orphée (Orpheus, 1949). They stay to this day the greatest “fantasy movies” of the 20th century.

But unfortunately for France, there never was any “popularization” of the fantasy through media like the pulps of the USA. Science-fiction as a genre was accepted though, to the point that anything that was a “marvel”, a “wonder” or a “supernatural” had to be science-fiction, not magic. The 70s and 80s were the supreme rule of the science-fiction in France: Jean-Pierre Fontana had his stellar ark/arch, Alain Paris his antediluvian continent, Michel Grimaud his spatial colonization, Bernard Simonay his spy-satellites, Hugues Doriaux all sorts of sci-fi gadgets… In this time, if you wanted to do something out of ordinary, you had to go into speculative science, else you wouldn’t be taken seriously. Again, it was Klein’s opinion that fantasy was for “ignorant” readers and writers who didn’t like to “challenge” themselves.

However, in this “desert” that preceded the true fantasy boom of the 90s in France, Ruaud claims that there are actually true French fantasy novels: five “ancestors” of the French fantasy. And those I’ll reveal in a second post…

#fantasy #fantasy literature #french culture #french literature #france #french fantasy #opera

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fierysword · 1 year

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The Marian cult cannot be viewed apart from the ancient worship of the waters. The same is true for Lourdes, as in all the chapels dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In the immediate vicinity of these sanctuaries, if not inside the sanctuary itself, there is always a well or a spring, or sometimes a simple pond, or often a washing place that serves as a swimming pool.

Cathedral of the Black Madonna by Jean Markale

Edit, since this came up in the notes: I'm not thrilled with the term "worship" but I do think there's room to consider water sacred.

#water #black madonna #mary #virgin mary

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flo-nelja · 22 days

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@patoune-prod asked for : Cúchulainn !!

Why I like them: For the tragedy, mostly. Also I ship him very hard with Ferdiad (it's part of the tragedy). I also love the weirdest aspects, the effect of his anger, the almost shape changing. Why I don’t: To be honest, it's rare I root for the strongest guy in action stories ^^ I wish he had to use his brain more often. (he has a brain, he's just never in a bad situation enough that it's needed)

Favorite story: Damn maybe the story of his death where he's put in a situation where he has to break a Geas? Kind of horrific, really.

Favorite quote (from them or about them):

‘Death was a jest, the fight a game

Till to the ford Ferdia came.’ (Alice Milligan)

BrOTP: Scáthach, kind of

OTP: with Ferdiad.

an-oh-god-why-did-that-have-to-happen: The death of his son

Unpopular opinion: I'm rooting for Curoi in the stories where' he's the villain. Which is wrong, he is the asshole here, but I'm kind of biased about him.

if you could say one thing to them: About two questions ago, to warn him against killing his son, without an hesitation.

Favourite portrayal of them: I must confess I have discovered him through Jean Markale's summary, that are very shippy, and they're still the ones I think about in my head.

LEAST favourite portrayal of them: I haven't read enough of them.

#myths and legends #meme replies

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tonka-bean · 8 months

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Epigraph from Women of the Celts by Jean Markale

#quote #ocean #women

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marie-chatelaine · 1 year

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Fontaine de Neptune sur la Piazza Navona de Rome . 📹 Bianca Loðbrók

A-t-on suffisamment remarqué que le nom latin de Rome, Roma, est l’inversion exacte du mot latin Amor qui signifie Amour ? Coïncidence ? Hasard ?.

- Jean Markale -

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subjects-of-the-king · 1 year

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A New Theory on the Saxon Settlement of England

An original essay of Lucas Del Rio

Note: My previous recent essay had focused on the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and to some extent it was a more general historiography. Continuing with a historiographical theme, I had initially intended to follow it with an essay comparing primary accounts of conflict and warfare between Brythonic and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the early Middle Ages. During my research, I developed a personal theory that I propose below.

Little is known for sure of the years that immediately follow the withdrawal of the Roman army from Britain sometime around 410. The Latin works that were characteristic of the Roman era almost completely vanish except for a few texts penned by a handful of monks. Literature in Old English does not appear for centuries and is long limited to hymns and poetry, as is virtually everything written in Welsh. Histories written on Britain that discuss this era are mostly from much later in the Middle Ages. The first manuscript of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a historical text on England commissioned by King Alfred the Great, does not appear until 891. It is sometimes difficult for modern historians to determine when their medieval counterparts recorded the truth versus when they jotted down contemporary legends, especially when they were often writing centuries after the alleged events occurred. Meanwhile, conclusions from archaeological evidence are largely guesswork.

Several names have been coined for this era, including “Sub-Roman Britain,” “Dark Age Britain,” and “Britain in the Age of Arthur.” Developments that historians do know of are reflected in these terms. Roman Britannia now ceased to exist, and the provinces there which had for centuries been under the central control of Rome had fragmented. The Britons had regained their former autonomy, with the Romans that stayed behind now dwelling in the decaying remains of once prosperous towns. Petty tribal kingdoms reappeared and resumed their old quarrels with one another. Decentralization of national authority meant that there were numerous tiny armies led by local chiefs rather than a massive imperial force that could crush insurgencies. With no organized administration beyond competing warlords, society no longer functioned the way that it had before. Roads ceased to be maintained, aqueducts fell into disuse, bandits opportunistically plundered the countryside, Irish and Norse pirates raided the coasts for loot and slaves, and a barter economy took the place of the discontinued system of Roman coinage.

Not all historians agree that everything about Britain after the Romans left represented a “Dark Age,” however. French writer Jean Markale goes as far as to call the era a “Celtic renaissance.” It is true that the end of Roman administration allowed the Celtic Britons to govern themselves once again, and not always in small chiefdoms. The medieval Welsh clergyman Geoffrey of Monmouth writes of a new Brythonic dynasty emerging in the wake of Roman withdrawal. While Geoffrey of Monmouth is very frequently criticized by scholars, modern historians do recognize that Britain did indeed have some very powerful Celtic kings such as Urien ruling over vast realms like Rheged at the start of the Middle Ages. Some of the wars between these kingdoms were said by contemporary Britons such as the bard Taliesen to have seen massive battles, descriptions of which can still be found in Welsh poetry. Local economies, infrastructure, and security all collapsed, but Celtic culture clung on through these calamities. Christianity fused with traditional pagan elements to form the British Church, which held certain unique beliefs from Rome despite occasional accusations of heresy by popes. Through the efforts of members of this church, especially St. Patrick, the other Celtic nation of Ireland also saw most of her population converted to Christianity.

Sub-Roman Britain has thus sometimes been romanticized by the Celts of later eras, who do not hold the view that this was truly the Dark Ages. The most immortal hero of the Celtic Britons symbolizes this phenomenon to a greater extent than anyone or anything else that can be said about the period, hence why the term “Age of Arthur” has been used by some scholars and enthusiasts. On one hand, Arthur can be viewed as representing the glory of the Celtic Britons, although he can also be said to be a personification of their downfall as told by their descendants in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. By the late Middle Ages, there had been a number of popular “Arthurian romances,” and these novels tended to focus on classic tales such as the sword and the stone, the knights of the round table, and the quest for the holy grail. While some aspects of these stories had roots in Celtic lore, the King Arthur that authors were writing about in the 1400s was far removed from Celtic society. Descriptions of Camelot and his court were actually more representative of that time than the Brythonic era. To the old Britons, however, Arthur was a king intent on preserving the traditional Celtic ways. His earliest appearances in two early medieval chronicles, the 833 work The History of the Britons and the 1136 work The History of the Kings of Britain, portray him as a heroic leader who battled the invading Saxons.

More modern archaeological finds do not indicate there being a sole “King of the Britons,” as Arthur is often called, anytime after the Romans withdrew their armies. Perhaps the Celtic Britons had a system where a single figurehead took charge of the different regional kings during a time of crisis, just as Cassivelaunus had done centuries earlier when the Britons resisted Julius Caesar. Maybe the knights of the round table were an echo of elite Brythonic warriors in the battles that Arthur led. The historicity of Arthur is irrelevant, however. What is more important is that the greatest significance of the most iconic figure of British lore is his involvement in an epic struggle between two peoples laying claim to the land that would become England. Such a narrative dominates much of English historiography. Gildas, the Venerable Bede, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry of Huntington, and many other early chroniclers highlighted a Saxon invasion that pitted them against the Britons in the southern half of the island. It created England, thus transforming the island of Britain forever. Since medieval times, historians have continued to tell this story.

Like all intellectual disciplines, of course, the study of history evolves. Recent evidence has caused some scholars to challenge the notion that there was a grand war between Britons and Germanic peoples such as the Saxons. They say that the old idea that the Britons were systematically killed off and England was conquered is not supported by the new science of genetics, as the English today still share similar genes with the inhabitants of the region millenia prior to the alleged invasion. The remains found in 1995 of a prehistoric individual in Cheddar Gorge, despite being nine thousand years old, were discovered to be quite genetically related to the locals. A much larger genetic study stretching from 1994 to 2015 concluded that as little as twenty percent of modern English DNA is Germanic. Both of these findings are examples of why these scholars say that the earlier inhabitants of England were never exterminated by the Saxon newcomers and that they merely blended with the indigenous population. D. F. Dale, in his book The History of the Scots, Picts, and Britons: A study of the origins of the Scots, Picts, Britons (and Anglo-Saxons) in Dark Age Britain based on their own legends, tales, and testimonials, even suggests that there may have been a Germanic population in some parts of England even prior to the Roman conquest. Nor can the Britons be considered a homogeneous people, they say, for the same study that was completed in 2015 found great genetic variation between the modern Welsh, Scottish, and Cornish populations.

All of this new evidence from a rapidly growing scientific field has prompted certain researchers to deny that there was a Saxon invasion at all. Instead, they say, there was a process of gradual settlement. Such a notion completely contradicts primary accounts, however. While medieval chroniclers can certainly be unreliable, they did genuinely understand aspects of their era that we undeniably cannot, and the fact that all of them agreed that there was a Saxon invasion makes it difficult to deny that it happened in some shape or form. Another finding from the aforementioned study could potentially show some degree of ethnic cleansing, for example. People living in Wales today show substantial genetic differences from all other regions of Britain, with the Welsh being more related than everybody else to the original British hunter-gatherers. Wales is a predominantly Celtic region and is notable for the fact that many of the locals still speak Welsh, a Celtic language, unlike Cornwall and Scotland where Cornish and Gaelic, respectively, are spoken only by a small minority of the populace. The Celts, then, can be shown genetically to be either the indigenous population of Britain or at least one who eventually mixed with an older group, and there was likely a great deal of violence in England to cause fewer of their descendants to live there than in Wales.

Considering, however, that all parts of Britain show far greater diversity than mere Germanic descent, it can be concluded that simply more Celtic Britons survived in Wales than in England. This does not mean that there was a genocide against the Britons per se, but rather that ethnic identity in early medieval Britain was closely linked to politics and war. Celts, Saxons, Scandinavians, and the Irish lived in every region, but certain areas were increasingly dominated by clusters of kings from one group or another. The Celts, once the unchallenged masters of the entire island, would go on to rule Wales and Cornwall. Meanwhile, England became the domain of the Saxons, and the Scottish emerged from earlier Celtic, Pictish, Irish, and Scandinavian inhabitants of the north of Britain. English, Welsh, and Scottish kings all had their own armies, of course, each composed primarily yet not not exclusively of their respective nationalities. These armies periodically clashed, and the fact that the kings and nobles belonged to certain ethnicities meant that civilians of other groups were more likely to be victims of violence during wars, even when a kingdom may have been very diverse. Within the various kingdoms in the different regions, one group may have had the privilege of controlling the nobility while another was forced to be under the yoke of serfdom. To put it simply, kings throughout the island had an array of subjects, although the hierarchy of society was still dependent on ethnicity, and the importance of this during wars led to regional stratification.

To support these arguments, consider the writings of medieval chroniclers. Their stories share both many similarities and differences. All seem to agree that the island had once been the exclusive domain of the Britons, with the Picts and Scots arriving sometime before or during the Roman era. According to the English monk the Venerable Bede, in his 731 work Ecclesiastical History of the English People, states “some Picts from Scythia put to sea in a few longships, and were driven by storms around the coasts of Britain.” Later, “the Picts crossed into Britain, and began to settle in the north of the island.” In describing the origins of the Scots, the Venerable Bede writes “they migrated from Ireland under their chieftain Reuda and by a combination of force and treaty, obtained from the Picts the settlements that they still hold.” He tells both of these stories prior to his description of the arrival of the Romans. Welsh clergyman Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his 1136 book The History of the Kings of Britain, differs in this respect, instead writing of the Picts and Scots appearing at the time of Roman imperial control. Geoffrey of Monmouth writes that “a certain King of the Picts called Sodric came from Scythia with a large fleet and landed in the northern part of Britain which is called Albany.” Next, “Marius thereupon collected his men together and marched to meet Sodric” and “once Sodric was killed and the people who had come with him were beaten, Marius gave them the part of Albany called Caithness to live in.” Regarding the Picts and the Scots, he says that the latter “trace their descent from them, and from the Irish, too.”

These events occurred before the dawn of the Middle Ages and the subsequent coming of the Saxons to Britain, but they demonstrate a similar historical trend of wars based on ethnic control yet not ethnic cleansing. It was a middleground of sorts between genocide and mere settlement because there was indeed violence, although it was to assert political control rather than carry out a campaign of complete extermination. King Sodric of the Picts had the ambition of violently wrestling from the Romans territory that they controlled in Britain, with the Romans then tolerating a local Pictish presence once this hostile foreign king was removed as a threat. Reuda of the Irish would conquer territory that had formerly belonged to the Picts. They must have subjugated the Picts rather than killing them off, however, for the two peoples later mixed to form the Scots. Geoffrey of Monmouth writes that the “five races of people” in Britain were “the Norman-French, the Britons, the Saxons, the Picts, and the Scots.” When he wrote his chronicle, the Normans had conquered England relatively recently, and this shows that they made know attempt to wipe out the Saxons despite stripping them of their power. In his book History of the English, the last edition of which was completed in 1154, Henry of Huntington asserts that the Picts “have entirely disappeared, and their language is extinct.” The Picts thus eventually did die out. Since they survived for as long as they did and the evidence for their decimation was the fact that their language was no longer spoken, it can be concluded that the Picts were gradually assimilated after a long period of Scottish domination.

The appearance of the Picts and Scots in Britain was long before that of the Saxons and the coming of the Normans long after. Medieval accounts show that the newly arrived Saxons were initially quite aggressive towards the local Brythonic inhabitants. At the time that the Saxons emerged on British soil, there were already ongoing political struggles between kings of different ethnic groups. In the most contemporary account, the 540 text On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, the Romano-British monk Gildas describes how the Britons were to be ruined and conquered while “inviting in among them like wolves into the sheepfold, the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations.” These “northern nations” were presumably the Picts, for the Venerable Bede writes that the Britons “for many years this region suffered attacks from to savage extraneous races, Irish from the northwest, and Picts from the north.” They were vulnerable to attack because the Romans “informed the Britons that they could no longer undertake such troublesome expeditions for their defense.” According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, “about this time there landed in certain parts of Kent three vessels of the type which we call longships” which were “full of armed warriors and there were two brothers named Hengist and Horsa in command of them.”

Apparently, according to The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles commissioned by King Alfred the Great of Wessex centuries later, the reason that the 443 plea for aid was refused was because the Romans were struggling to fight Attila and his horde. With the Britons desperate for any form of help, Hengist and Horsa are said to have earned their trust and then stabbed them in the back. Historians today have no direct evidence for the legitimate existence of Hengist and Horsa other than chronicles written long after the Saxons had established a foothold on the island, yet the story nonetheless reflects a genuine historical timeline. Gildas, for example, claims that the Saxons arrived with full permission from “that proud tyrant Vortigern, the British king.” In The History of the Britons, a work of disputed authorship which may have been penned by the monk Nennius, the Saxon brothers are said to have become friends of Vortigern after their exile from Germany. The Venerable Bede says the result was that the Saxons commanded by Hengist and Horsa fought the Picts on his behalf and “received from the Britons grants of land where they could settle among them on condition that they maintained the peace and security of the island against all enemies in return for regular pay.” These events are early evidence that Britain in this era may have been divided into kingdoms with rulers of particular ethnic groups, but their subjects were a different story. Vortigern was a Britons who presumably was in a power struggle with one or more Pictish kings, although he was willing to both incorporate Saxons into his army and grant them fiefs. Furthermore, his kingdom was structured in a way where society was built around its ethnic makeup. Saxon warriors employed by Vortigern sound as if they earned actual wages, an extremely rare practice in the Middle Ages and even more so in the earliest centuries of the medieval era.

Hengist and Horsa were two Saxons who had the ambitions of being kings of their own. The Venerable Bede writes that “a larger fleet quickly came over with a great body of warriors, which, when joined to the original forces, constituted an invincible army.” It was then that they chose to rise up against the Brythonic leadership, and the fighting did not strictly pit all groups against each other, for he also says “the Angles made an alliance with the Picts.” In these wars, it was the power of a king and not the power of the ethnicity he belonged to that mattered, and he would fight or partner with whoever he had to. Unfortunately for the Britons, they appeared to be cornered on all sides by the newer inhabitants of the island regardless of who fought alongside who at a given time. Gildas records the final and unsuccessful Romano-British plea for help from the imperial forces as including the haunting phrases “the barbarians drive us to the sea” and “thus two modes of death await us.” However, local leadership may still have been deliberately misrepresenting as genocidal persecution of what really just threats to their own power from Picts, Scots, and Saxons.

Chroniclers in the centuries that followed demonstrate in their writings that the local rulers went many years without letting battlefield setbacks break their resolve. While both Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth tell of Vortigern fleeing to a remote hideout and eventually being killed, several of the historians note the victories won by a Romano-British general, or perhaps even king, named Ambrosius Aurelianus or Aurelius Ambrosius. According to the Venerable Bede, he was the last remaining leader in Britain from the Roman era and in 493 led the Britons to win a battle against the Angles for the first time. In one battle that Ambrosius apparently led, Henry of Huntington says that Horsa finally met his death. Geoffrey of Monmouth claims that Ambrosius and his brother Uther Pendragon both were poisoned by Saxon assassins, but the latter was the father of Arthur. Nennius writes of Arthur being chosen by the different Brythonic kingdoms to lead their warriors in twelve victorious battles against the Saxons. He states, however, that this did not cause Saxon leaders in Germany to cease continuing to provide support to those fighting in Britain.

All of these details suggest divisions in Britain between native kings and the Saxons, but none of them demonstrate anything beyond that. Vortigern must have been a highly influential king over large parts of Britain, or else he would not have had the power to have incorporated enough Saxon vassals into his domain for them to gradually muster such enormous military strength. If Vortigern was a king who exercised significant hegemony, it was strategically important for ambitious Saxon war leaders to drive him out of power, but nothing suggests a full-scale deliberate attempt to exterminate the native Britons of his kingdom. The chroniclers all record widespread violence against civilians, but this would have been a tactic of forcing the majority of them into submission. Gildas writes that the Britons “constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves forever to their foes.” Class divisions based on ethnicity, often very severe, were emerging in the new kingdoms that were ethnically diverse despite the ethnic divisions in the area of kingship. Mutual oppression unquestionably would have created major animosity and was certainly used by war leaders, such as Ambrosius and Arthur on the side of the Britons, to rally support. Saxons undoubtedly did the same.

In the centuries that followed the arrival of the Saxons, their kings assumed control of more and more of the island. Kingdoms led by Britons persisted in the southwestern regions of Wales and Cornwall, while in the north the Scots settled down and absorbed the Picts. Just as the Britons had historically quarreled, so, too, did the Saxons, who began to be called the “Anglo-Saxons” as they mixed with the Angles. Some of their kings, including Edwin and Oswiu of Northumbria, started to become quite powerful. The Anglo-Saxons found a sense of national unity when they faced a foreign invader of their own, the Vikings, in the 800s, with strong leaders such as Alfred the Great taking charge. During the 900s, the Kingdom of Wessex established the Kingdom of England after uniting all of the Anglo-Saxons and securing a dominant position over Wales and Scotland. A Welsh poem from that century called “Armes Prydein” prophesied that the greatest of the Brythonic leaders from the 500s and 600s would be reincarnated and unite Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Scotland, and Ireland against the English, yet this has long proven to be wishful thinking on the part of whichever wandering bard wrote its words. Many centuries later, however, the Anglo-Saxons have never fully replaced the indigenous Celts of Britain or her neighbors. Wales still has the Welsh, England still has the Cornish, France still has the Bretons, Scotland still has the Scots, and the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland still have the Irish, even though all but two of these six countries are now a part of the United Kingdom. Britain was diverse then and is diverse now despite the tensions still caused by differences in national identity.

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rausule · 9 months

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Keltiese 03

Druïde d'ruida van hom wat die woord het om te spreek, Latyn.

Ate'Dio Cassio, wat die gebruike en gebruike van die Britte beskryf het, noem, soos ander Latynse skrywers, die "heilige woude" met die Griekse term afsus, ekwivalent van die Latynse woorde lucus en nemus (siklus). Die Keltiese heiligdom by uitstek moes dus die "Nemeton" gewees het, 'n term wat 'n heilige oopte aandui, vanwaar dit moontlik was om die lug te sien, in die middel van 'n woud of bos. Hierdie interpretasie word bevestig deur die woorde van 'n ander Latynse historikus, Marco Anneo Lucano, wat gepraat het van 'n Galliese heiligdom naby Massilia (vandag se Marseille, in Frankryk), dit in 'n woud plaas.

"Ela dat verskriklike offers beoefen word, en dat growwe standbeelde wat die gode verteenwoordig gevind word Druïdes aanbid die gode in die bos sonder om een van tempels te maak

(La Farsaglia, I, vers. 339, 452)

Aangesien baie seremonies in eikebome uitgevoer is, is sommige hedendaagse geleerdes (Jan de Vries, Gerhard Herm) meer geneig om die term "Drynemeton" te gebruik, wat afgelei is van die Griekse woord drys of drus (eik).

Volgens Jean Markale, 'n geleerde van Keltiese literatuur en legendes, moes die Kelte die gevoel gehad het dat dit onmoontlik was om die gode in 'n afgeslote plek in te sluit; hulle het eerder gedink dat daar plekke is, simbolies of werklik, waar die wêreld van mense kan oopgaan vir die wêreld van die gode, en omgekeerd. Die Nemeton was hierdie heilige handelsplek, dit kan 'n oopte in die woud wees, die woud as geheel, die top van 'n heuwel of 'n eiland in die middel van die see. As daar dan in hierdie heilige plek 'n fontein was, was dit 'n besonder bevoorregte plek vir die druïde, aangesien 'n mens benewens die kommunikasie van die aarde met die lug (nem) voordeel kon trek uit die kontak met die lewende en vrugbare kragte wat geheimsinnig uit die middel van die kweekhuis ontstaan het

3. Die Druïde: wagters van die lug

Direkte verwysings na druïde as waarnemers van hemelverskynsels is uiters skaars, as gevolg van die verbod op skryf wat deur hulle aanvaar is. Plinius die Ouderling praat van die ritueel van die oes van maretak, 'n parasitiese plant wat verkieslik op eikebome groei en wat 'n aansienlike gewig in Keltiese liturgiese feeste gehad het, sê

"Die Druïde hou niks heiliger as die maretak en die boom wat dit dra nie, en hierdie boom is altyd veronderstel om 'n eikeboom te wees. Hulle versamel dit op die sesde dag van die maan omdat die maan reeds aansienlike krag het sonder om nog in die middel van die verloop daarvan"

(Historiae Naturalis, XVI, 249)

Plinius se teks noem geensins dat die versameling van maretak eers tydens die wintersonstilstand gedoen is nie, soos sommige jou wil laat glo deur die analogie van die gebruik van maretak tydens Kersfees of Nuwejaar. Plinius spesifiseer dat die versameling op die sesde dag van die Maan plaasgevind het, wat waarskynlik regdeur die jaar kan wees. Ook die Nuwejaarsgebruik op 1 Januarie is relatief onlangs. Plinius, wat sy verhaal voortsit, sê ook dat die druïde by daardie geleentheid 'n wit rok moes dra en die maretak met 'n goue sekel moes breek en dit in 'n wit lap bymekaarmaak. Die versameling van die mistel is gevolg deur die

#afrikaans #south africa #kelte #Plinius #Druïde #Cassio #Keltiese #lucus

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lingocurio · 1 year

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My alternate self has been in Lisbon for a week now, and my real self still knows nothing about Portugal. Sad.

Wikipedia is always a good place to start. I thought this section about how Portugal got its name was pretty interesting.

The word Portugal derives from the combined Roman-Celtic place name Portus Cale;[24][25] a settlement where present-day’s conurbation of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia (or simply, Gaia) stand, along the banks of River Douro in the north of what is now Portugal. The name of Porto stems from the Latin word for port or harbour, portus, with the second element Cale’s meaning and precise origin being less clear. The mainstream explanation points to an ethnonym derived from the Callaeci also known as Gallaeci peoples, who occupied the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula.[26] The names Cale and Callaici are the origin of today's Gaia and Galicia.[27][28]

There are some Hungarian folk songs that refer to "Galicia" and I'm not sure why. I just remember wondering where the heck Galicia is. It's in present-day Portugal? Why would Hungarians be singing about that? Maybe there's more than one Galicia.

Another theory proposes that Cale or Calle is a derivation of the Celtic word for 'port', like the Irish caladh or Scottish Gaelic cala. These explanations, would require the pre-Roman language of the area to have been a branch of Q-Celtic, which is not generally accepted because the region's pre-Roman language was Gallaecian. However, scholars like Jean Markale and Tranoy propose that the Celtic branches all share the same origin, and placenames such as Cale, Gal, Gaia, Calais, Galatia, Galicia, Gaelic, Gael, Gaul (Latin: Gallia),[29] Wales, Cornwall, Wallonia and others all stem from one linguistic root.[27][30][31]

Whoa! That's cool! I love when you can see the connections between different languages and see the changes and divergence over time.

A further explanation proposes Gatelo as having been the origin of present-day Braga, Santiago de Compostela, and consequently the wider regions of Northern Portugal and Galicia.[32] A different theory has it that Cala was the name of a Celtic goddess (drawing a comparison with the Gaelic Cailleach, a supernatural hag). Further still, some French scholars believe the name may have come from Portus Gallus,[33] the port of the Gauls or Celts.

So basically, lots of great guesses.

Around 200 BC, the Romans took the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. In the process they conquered Cale, renaming it Portus Cale ('Port of Cale') and incorporating it in the province of Gaellicia with its capital in Bracara Augusta (modern day Braga, Portugal). During the Middle Ages, the region around Portus Cale became known by the Suebi and Visigoths as Portucale. The name Portucale evolved into Portugale during the 7th and 8th centuries, and by the 9th century, that term was used extensively to refer to the region between the rivers Douro and Minho. By the 11th and 12th centuries, Portugale, Portugallia, Portvgallo or Portvgalliae was already referred to as Portugal.

The Carthaginians. I remember learning about the Carthaginians during my university studies an eon ago. I don't remember who they were or what happened to them. Time to delve into some ancient history, perhaps?

The 14th-century Middle French name for the country, Portingal, which added an intrusive /n/ sound through the process of excrescence, spread to Middle English.[34] Middle English variant spellings included Portingall, Portingale,[note 5] Portyngale and Portingaill.[34][36] The spelling Portyngale is found in Chaucer's Epilogue to the Nun's Priest's Tale. These variants survive in the Torrent of Portyngale, a Middle English romance composed around 1400, and "Old Robin of Portingale", an English Child ballad. Portingal and variants were also used in Scots[34] and survive in the Cornish name for the country, Portyngal.

Excrescence! Gesundheit. Thank you.

Well that was an interesting little linguistic side trip. I'm always curious about how countries got their names.

#portugal #etymology #linguistics #historical linguistics #europe #roman #celtic

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shesarainbow · 2 years

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La vecchia scrittura aveva allora un ruolo magico, inquietante: si poteva pronunciare un'invocazione, una maledizione, un'esecrazione, ogni specie di satira contro un individuo, ma era sempre possibile, in seguito, togliere il sortilegio, vale a dire pronunciare altre invocazioni che neutralizzassero la prima. Ma se, per esempio, si scriveva l'esecrazione, questa assumeva un carattere assoluto e perpetuo.

Jean Markale, Il Druidismo, religione e divinità dei celti

#jean markale #druidismo #druidi #celti #celtico #citazione #letture interessanti #storia #scrittura

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ardenrosegarden · 3 months

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Kathy Carter, Arthur I, Duke of Brittany, in History and Literature Julia Smith, Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians Jean Markale, Celtic Civilization Bernard S. Bachrach, The Origin of Armorican Chivalry dir. Anthony Harvey, The Lion in Winter Euripides tr. David Rudkin, Hippolytus Céline Fallet, Arthur de Bretagne Gwenno Piette, Brittany: A Concise History Tri Yann, Arthur Plantagenest

#what's that? you almost completely changed your identity to your wife's country and customs?#and the most accepted version of your death is after you fell off the most necessary component of said country's combat? 🔍👀👀#Duke Geoffrey #web weaving #twelfth century #*the 2nd one is 100% addressing xenophobia in chroniclers of the time but I do find interesting #that the stress on horsemanship echoes Bachrach‚ Littleton‚ Malcor‚ etc.

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mask131 · 9 months

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Fantasy read-list: A-3.5

After an article about “Greco-Roman fantasy” or Antique fantasy, I also have found an article evoking the role and importance of the Arthurian myth in fantasy (well, two articles actually).

The first one is an article by Sara Doke, who offers her own chronology of the Arthurian literature. You will be able to compare it with my original Arthuriana post, and see the slight differences.

1) For Sara Doke, the beginning of it all, the foundation of the Arthurian literature, the first works of the Arthurian world as we understand it today, would be Geoffrey of Monmouth’s works: The Prophecies of Merlin, The History of the Kings of Britain, and the Life of Merlin. (You will often hear these orks referred to by their Latin names, such as Vita Merlini or Prophetiae Merlini).

2) Then, there was the “spark” that actually ignited and gave life to the Arthurian legend and literature. This “spark” was a set of two authors, who used the work of Monmouth as a basis for their work. On one side, Robert Wace with his Roman de Brut, followed by his Roman de Rou (not to be confused by Layamon’s own Roman de Brut, an English rewrite of the original French epic). On the other side, the author I heavily talked about in my original post: Chrétien de Troyes, the “father of the matter of Britain”, and the shaper of the Arthurian myth as we know it today - with his five novels, Erec and Enide, Cliges, Yvain the Knight of the Lion, Lancelot the Knight of the Cart, and Perceval the Story of the Grail.

3) The third step of the Arthurian evolution was a series of works that slowly shifted the focus of the plot and stories away from the knights of the Round Table themselves, away from their individual and personal adventures, to rather follow the quest of the Grail, which became the main “end-goal” of the Arthuriana. This was the time of Robert of Robon who, through his cycle of works (Joseph d’Arimathie, Merlin, and others lost to time), opened the way for the Vulgate Cycle (or “Lancelot-Grail”), with its History of Merlin, Lancelot Proper, Quest for the Holy Grail, Death of King Arthur... The Vulgate Cycle was then followed by the Post-Vulgate Cycle, which took back the material, books and stories of the Vulgate, but fused them with another very popular literary work of the time: the Prose Tristan.

4) After the Post-Vulgate Cycle, Sara Doke notes that there was a disinterest in the matter of Britain and the Arthuriana throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. We will have to wait until sir Thomas Malory’s work, Le Morte d’Arthur, for a new Arthurian boom/Arthurian wave. By gathering together the versions of the Vulgate, of the Post-Vulgate and of the Chrétien novels, sir Thomas Mallory created a work that would become THE defining story of the Arthurian legend, and the main reference for all posterior Arthurian authors. Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, T. H. White’s The Once and Future King (later adapted into the famous Disney movie The Sword in the Stone), Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Stenbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights... They all were inspired by and taking their Arthurian vision from Le Morte d’Arthur.

5) Sara Doke concludes her chronology by a handful of more modern works, that truly turn the Arthurian myth into moder “fantasy”. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon. Mary Stewart’s Arthurian novels (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment, The Wicked Day). Bernard Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles. Lawhead’s The Pendragon Cycle. Doke also mentions French authors that English-speaker might not be accustomed to: René Barjavel with his L’Enchanteur (The Enchanter), Michel Rio with his Merlin et Morgane, Jean Markale with his Le Cycle du Graal, Jean-Louis Fetjaine with his Le Pas de Merlin followed by Brocéliande...

To conclude this post, we leave Sara Doke for another article, this time written by P.J.G. Mergey, who is rather focused on movies based on the Arthurian myth. He does mention a non-movie piece, Wagner’s opera Parsifal, to prove that the Arthurian texts have always been producing visual entertainment. In terms of actual movies, Mergey mentions 2004′s King Arthur, John Boorman’s Excalibur, 2007′s The Last Legion and 1995′s The First Knight. As he speaks of The Last Legion, he mentions that the mystery of the “missing legion” was notably brought to the public by Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth, a historical novel that was adapted two times nto a movies - in 2011, by the same name, and in 2010 as “Centurion”.

Two last mentions. Talking about the character of Mebd/Mabd, Mergey mentions an old Irish epic I am not sure I talked about before: Tain Bo Cuailnge, The Cattle Raid of Cooley, of which Mebd/Mabd is one of the main characters.

And finally - since this is a French article talking about king Arthur, one work HAD to be evoked. Kaamelott. The British have their Arthurian parody in the shape of Monty Python’s Holy Grail, we have Kaamelott. Kaamelott started out in 2005 as a humoristic shortcom depicting the daily life of king Arthur and the characters of the Arthurian legend, who are either completely logical and reasonable characters faced with the inherent craziness and absurdity of the Arthuriana, or actually incompetent, flawed and caricatural characters a far cry from their original fictional selves. On top of deconstructing the myth itself, the humor of the series was also historical, since it replaces the king’s life in the context of the crumbling of the Roman Empire and the invasions of the barbarians from the north. This series’ massive success led to it having six full seasons, that slowly went from short comedy skits to actual full, serious, dramatic television episodes - and its fame hasn’t stopped, since very recently a trilogy of movies meant to conclude the series was announced, with the first movie being released in 2021.

#fantasy read-list #fantasy watch-list #watch list #movies #fantasy literature #arthurian literature #arthuriana #arthurian movie #arthurian legend #arthurian myth #read-list

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