King Arthur
-
Celtic myths (such as the Welsh “Raid on Annwfn”)
-
The Mabinogion
-
Legends of the Grail King and the Fisher King
-
Historical documents about the battle at Mons Badis, General Arturius, and other sixth-century subjects some scholars claim are evidence of a historical basis for later legends
-
Welsh/Latin annals attributed to the so-called “Nennius” (i.e., medieval Latin writings mistakenly attributed to this person in outdated scholarship)
-
Oral legends transmitted by Breton conteurs in France between 1100-1175
-
Pseudo-histories written by Geoffrey of Monmouth (circa 1136)
-
French stories of courtly love in medieval romances (such as Tristram and Iseult, or Lancelot and Gwenevere)
-
Religious allegories about the quest for the holy grail, such as the Queste du Sainte-Graal (c. 1210)
-
Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (c. 1205)
-
Legends of King Mark of Cornwall, Tristan, and Iseult, such as the eleventh-century poems of Eilhart von Oberg and Thomas d’Angleterre, Beroul’s The Romance of Tristan, the anonymous La folie Tristan de Berne, and Gottfried Von Strassburg’s Tristan (c. 1205)
-
Layamon’s Brut (c. 1200)
-
The anonymous Alliterative Morte Arthur and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur (c. 1360)
-
The Pearl Poet’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1375)
-
Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” (c. 1385)
-
Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur (1469)
-
Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590-96)
-
Scott’s Bridal of Triermain (1813)
-
Peacock’s “The Misfortunes of Elphin” (1829)
-
Morris’s The Defense of Guinevere
-
Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott (1832)
-
Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1885)
-
Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)
-
Wagner’s operas
-
E. A. Robinson’s Merlin, Lancelot, and Tristram (1915-25)
-
T. H. White’s The Sword in the Stone and The Once and Future King
-
Marion Zimmer-Bradley’s feminist/revisionist tales such as The Mists of Avalon
-
A legion of popular films, cartoons, graphic novels, and works of fantasy literature.
List prepared by Dr. L. Kip Wheeler
READ MORE