King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table

King Arthur is a very significant character in Britain's legendary history. According to the legend, King Arthur was the eldest son of King Uther Pendragon. Baby Arthur was raised in a secret place because Merlin, a wise magician feared that his life was in danger.

When King Uther died, there were many claimants to the throne. Merlin set a sword in a stone. The person that pulled out the sword from the stone would be the rightful heir to the throne. As luck would have it, Arthur succeeded and became King. The Saxons were gradually conquering parts of Britain. Arthur's immediate task was to stop the Saxon advance. He did this with the help of the knights. Their greatest victory was at Mount Badon.

Arthur built a strong castle at a place called Camelot. Here the knights sat at Round Table. Stories of the Knights of the Round Table speak of them gallantly fighting weird animals and rescuing ladies. Their Quest for the Holy Grail is celebrated in many literary works. The Holy Grail boasted of magical powers and was considered the answer to many of the ills. Another aspect of King Arthur's tales is the magical sword by name Excalibur, presented to King Arthur by the Lady of the Lake. He defeated many of his adversaries with this sword.

Prominent knights like Kay, Gawain and Lancelot and the beautiful Queen Guinevere (King Arthur's wife), and his half-sister Morgan le Fay are parts of the legend of King Arthur. Arthur restored peace to his country. Soon, however, Camelot became the hotbed of suspicion and ill will. Civil war resulted. King Arthur was wounded in the battle at Camlan. He was laid in a barge. Legend has it that the barge floated down the river to the isle of Avalon. His body was never discovered. The belief is that he was nursed back to good health and he rests under a hill with his knights waiting to serve the country again.

Modern historians have questioned the historicity of the king. Historical evidence relating to the period is scarce. The legend and folklore surrounding the King confound the issue. Works like Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae mention Arthur as fighting the Saxons. He is described in Historia Brittonum as 'dux bellorum' or 'leader of battles'. However, the evidence in both the chronicles is unconvincing. Modern historians consider King Arthur as a waste of time. The 'Arthur Stone' discovered in 1998 in Cornwall has not proved that king Arthur existed. In addition, efforts to correlate events and historical figures have not yielded satisfactory proofs.

King Arthur was much celebrated in the medieval literature. However, Alfred Lord Tennyson's work Idylls of the King revived the popularity of the legendary king. Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a satiric work. Richard Wagner found in the king an inspiration for his operas Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal. The musical Camelot tells the love story of Lancelot and Guinevere. His return has been the inspiring theme for John Masefield's poem Midsummer Night and C.S Lewis' novel That Hideous Strength. The legend continues to be popular in modern times with locomotives, hotels, and comic characters being named after the king and other aspects attached to his legend.