Really Love Dynamics That Are Like 'it Honestly Doesn't Matter If You View Them As Romantic Or Platonic,

POLL TIME 2 ☺️☺️

Some background for each!

Gwalchmai: The OG Gawain, slayer of giants in Welsh myth, besties with Owain and Peredur. He's known for his gold/silver tongue and is literally like The Best Boi. I am enamoured with him. Tells Cai to do one when Peredur gives him a broken arm. Also this passage single-handedly convinced me that Peredur and Gwalchmai are a couple: 'And Peredur and Gwalchmai went to Gwalchmai's pavilion to take off their armour. And Peredur put on the same kind of garment that Gwalchmai wore. And they went hand in hand to where Arthur was, and greeted him.' Thank u, Sioned Davies.

Branwen: Is the only woman in the Mabinogi to have a branch named after her. Literally the sweetest woman ever. Her dad is the sea God, Llŷr, and her brothers are Bendigeidfran and Manawydan. Trained a starling to send messages to Bendigeidfran to say she was being abused by the Irish court in an absolutely amazing move. Sadly she passes away once she's made it back to Wales alongside Manawydan, Pryderi, and five other men (and Bendigeidfran's severed head!) '"Oh son of God," she said, "woe that I was even born. Two good islands have been laid waste because of me!" She gives a mighty sigh and her heart breaks. And they make a four-sided grave for her and bury her there on the banks of the Alaw.'

Cai: OG Kay. Depending on what u read he is either the most renowned warrior ever - 'Prince of plunder/The unrelenting warrior to his enemy' as Pa Gur yv y Porthaur says - the possession of the most fuckin batshit magical powers as Culhwch ac Olwen relates: 'Cai had magical qualities. For nine days and nine nights, he could hold his breath under water. For nine nights and nine days, he could go without sleep. A wound from Cai's sword no physician could heal.' And so it goes on. Or he is literally the most grumpo to have ever grumped and I respect him hugely.

Blodeuwedd: OWL WOMAN. FLOWER-FACE. 'Then they took the flowers of the oak, and the flowers of the broom, and the flowers of the meadowsweet, and from those they conjured up the fairest and most beautiful maiden that anyone had ever seen.' She is literally stupidly beautiful AND SHE PLOTS TO KILL HER HUSBAND, LLEU, WHO QUITE FRANKLY DESERVED IT. A fuckin queen. She fucked over Gwydion's bb boi in one fell swoop, I simply MUST Stan.

Finally, RHIANNON: HORSE WOMAN. QUEEN OF DYFED. LITERAL TYLWYTH TEG LADY. She literally says to Pwyll - who she later marries - 'Be silent for as long as you like: never has a man been more stupid than you have been.' And if a woman said that to me I WOULD PERISH. also had an amazingly fast horse and like dhdjdddj when Pwyll dies - in a, I presume, stupidity-related incident - Rhiannon marries Branwen's brother Manawydan and actually gets treated with respect instead of whatever fuckery Pwyll was pulling.

Anyways VOTE, VOTE, VOTE. Best two go through to the quarter finals. U only have 1 DAY TO VOTE SO ZOOMIES!!!!

Still fighting with the html to adjust lettering sizes but the Medieval Literature list is now two pages long :^)

I've added an updated Parzival, Iwein, Erec, Iban, Wigalois, Wigamur, Jaufre, Tristano Riccardiano, an additional translation of The Mabinogion by Sinoed Davies, & more!

Veronica Whall’s depiction of Galahad ascending, from King Arthur’s Great Halls at Tintagel

The knights as YouTube comments, No. 1

I can’t decide which knight is saying this, but it explains a lot.

( A comment on “i accidentally read the worst book of the year so far” by The Book Leo, beginning with a quote from the video)

Edit: Never mind. Knights kiss all the time in some texts. Most of the Arthurian texts I’ve read are weird and random (Gawain plays tennis, Galahad gets married, Guinevere’s mother’s ghost issues prophecies of doom…) and gave the impression that being turned into a murder-dog was more common than physical affection.

Palestinians see Israel as a colonial project that tore them away from their homeland and Jews see Israel as a decolonial project that brought them back to their homeland and we can sit here and argue about who is “right” for 7 billion years or we can hold two narratives at once and recognize that the strip of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is a homeland for both Jews and Palestinians so we need to find some common ground and a way for both groups to live their freely

Let's give a good round of appreciation for Camelot's answer to the Flash: Bedivere

Other translations of Culhwch and Olwen read:

For Comparison, here are Guinevere's servants, Ysgyrdaf and Ysgudydd:

Apparently, these two aren't as fast as Arthur and Bedivere...

Tag game: tag nine people you’d like to know better.

Tagged by: @oneshoulderangel (Thank you for tagging me!)

Last song: At the moment, I have "Losing Your Memory" by Alan Star stuck in my head, which I suppose makes it my current song, not my last song. Hm. I get songs stuck in my head very easily, but the last one I had there for a significant amount of time was a mashup of different language versions of "Les Rois du Monde" for about a week. "Lehetsz Király", the Magyar version, is probably my favorite of them. It's worth a listen.

Currently watching: Normally, the answer would be "random mostly terrible old movies/shows" or "nothing much", but I currently have a hyperfixation on the musical Roméo et Juliette and have been watching it in multiple languages. (Thus, the song).

Three ships: This is hard. Maybe as a result of being on the ace and aro spectrums, I'm more likely to care about which characters are interacting than whether it's romantic or platonic. Here goes:

Kedivere/Bedikay. It can be romantic, platonic, or queerplatonic, but whichever way, I'm here for it. I probably spend too much time thinking about how in Cullwch and Olwen, when Cai gets mad at Arthur and marches out, Bedwyr stays behind, keeps acting like nothing's happened, and isn't the one to avenge Cai's death. The feeling of betrayal on both sides has a lot of unexplored potential. And the version where Bedivere dies and Kay fights to bring his body back safely while mortally wounded himself... And the version where Bedivere survives Camlann and Kay isn't said to fight in it, so they might be left together after their world has fallen apart...

Platonically or queerplatonically, Galahad and the Grail Heroine. I really like the tragic Grail Quest friendships, but I like theirs most, maybe because there's something weird and otherworldly about them both. I like it when characters are strange and endearing and doomed by the narrative.

Ever since reading John Matthews' retelling, which I read before the original, I've had a soft spot for Caradoc and Guinier. The Story of Caradoc is very disturbing, and I have some major qualms with Caradoc over a detail Matthews cut out, but all the same, there's a reason these two have the best track record with magical fidelity tests. Each of them would go to the ends of the earth for the other, and together, they're stronger than any curse.

Favorite Color: Blue, particularly royal blue and some teals.

Currently consuming: Black licorice with chocolate.

First ship: This is a hard one, since through elementary and most of middle school, I tended to go along with whatever I thought the author's intentions were and was more likely to unship something. The first non-endgame ship I got invested in was Sonya/Nikolai in War and Peace. I didn't like Nikolai, but Sonya did, and she was my favorite character, so I wanted her to be happy. The first non-canon couple I thought was meant to be together was also in War and Peace: Marya Bolkonskaya and Julie Karagina. My eighth grade self did not think their letters could be interpreted platonically. I still don't.

Last movie: If the musical doesn't count, the last movie I watched was Quest for Camelot, which was awful. Though not Robot Monster-level bad, Robot Monster has an elegance to its simplicity which Quest for Camelot lacks.

Currently working on: Various fics, most of them Arthuriana or CotRK-related (I am woefully behind on the Badfic Bingo), and (theoretically) an epic-style poem, though I haven't gotten much of it written for quite a while now.

Tagging: @gawrkin, @emperorcandy, @wildbasil, @gorewound, @knightsofsomethingorother, @ladyminaofcamelot, @tasosotaso, @amashelle, @gingersnaptaff (I have no idea who's been tagged so far, apart from the people on @oneshoulderangel's post, so I apologize for any multi-tags)

Coincidentally, I had Jacob wrestling as my Torah portion at my Bat Mitzvah and my parents had one on leprosy protocols and what to do with mold-infested houses at their wedding. The rabbi said that he generally dreaded having to talk about mold and leprosy at weddings but that it was oddly fitting in the case of my (future) parents: a doctor and a mycologist.

there is not nearly enough media about the bar/bat mitzvah process. anyone remember watching a kid do their fun drash about jacob wrestling the angel and thinking How the fuck. am i going to write a speech about leprosy protocols

A few things which are “canon” somewhere for people who are worried they’re stretching it too far

Arthur was killed by a giant cat. 

Arthur killed the cat.

Arthur didn’t fight the cat. Kay did.

Kay and Bedivere use salmon as taxis. 

Lucan is half giant, half lion. (This Lucan, Lucano in the original Italian, is evil and not related to Bedivere). 

King Arthur raided the land of the dead.

The human knight Caradoc Briefbras has three half siblings: a dog, a horse, and a pig.

A large portion of Arthur’s troops was killed a while before Camlann by his nephew’s attack ravens in self-defense. Arthur and said nephew were playing chess at the time and neither did much to stop it.

Merlin retired peacefully and went to live in the countryside with Taliesin.

Wherever Arthur walks, plants die. They don’t grow back for years.

Arthur had a spunky (half?) brother who died in battle after making a mysterious oath.

Dagonet is more or less able to run the kingdom when Arthur is gone. His biggest error is overspending on mercenaries.

Guinevere has an evil almost identical twin half-sister.

Hector beat up all the best knights except for Galahad while possessed by a demon.

Gawain plays tennis.

Gawain has used a chessboard as a weapon.

Near the start of his reign, Arthur left Lot in charge of the kingdom and went on a quest with a sassy parrot.

Gawain or Galahad succeeded Arthur as king. 

🧙, but also what's gringolet 👀

What's Merlin's deal, in your own words?

Merlin’s deal varies. He’s the result of mashing a few different characters into one, and he does a lot of dubious things in the texts which became most influential but does them on the side of the good guys so people want to like him and water him down into a less sinister figure. 

It’s the Historia Regum Britanniae which lays the groundwork for the character as we know him today. First a wunderkind, whose father is thought to have been an incubus, Merlin is nearly used as a human sacrifice as a child but talks his way out of it by explaining the real reason why King Vortigern’s tower keeps falling down. He’s later responsible for the construction of Stonehenge and for disguising Uther Pendragon as Gorlois so that Uther can sleep with Gorlois’ wife Igerna. She doesn’t know it’s Uther at the time, so Merlin is an accomplice to rape by deception. Later on, Merlin is the magical advisor to Uther’s son Arthur, and Arthur is considered a righteous king (even if he does some very dubious things from time to time). That puts Merlin on “the right side” most of the time going forward but also doesn’t make everything Merlin does morally justifiable. There are some texts where he’s downright antagonistic—the big example being Eachtra Mhelóra agus Orlando, where Arthur nearly has him burned at the stake for his crimes but Arthur’s daughter Melora says they should show him mercy—and some where he’s just very, very morally gray. There are exceptions. Myrddin Wyllt, the possibly-historical Welsh bard who appears in The Black Book of Carmarthen, is more sympathetic, almost Lancelotlike in personality: after inadvertently killing his own nephew in battle, he goes insane and wanders forlornly in the forest, talking to a piglet because his sister won’t forgive him. Then again, “didn’t want to kill a relative (but did anyway)” is a very low bar, and that’s not the Merlin iteration who’s in the public consciousness. 

The Merlin we see most in modern media is the archetypal wizard, the friendlier Gandalf figure who guides the righteous king, with his fouler deeds omitted or justified or glossed over, and that’s…fine. I guess. It takes away a lot of nuance, but if you want a wise, magical grandfather figure for your plucky young king, then Merlin is the closest option at hand and has a cultural resonance. I understand it, and I enjoy a good Merlin from time to time, but that’s not who he is, or at least not who he always is. I would appreciate more questionable Merlins—and they do exist. I would appreciate more meant-well-did-badly, non-Arthur-affiliated, bardic Myrddins, too. 

(P.S. At least in the BBoC translation I read, Myrddin himself says that he is “second only to Taliesin”. Mull on that a bit. Given Taliesin’s own questionable moments, I’m not sure whether it’s really a compliment or an insult).

What’s Gringolet?

Gringolet, my friend, is a horse. Not just any horse, however. Gringolet (also known as Ceincaled) is Gawain’s horse, and he is a force of nature, one of the Three Spirited Horses in the Triads. Gawain is a notorious horsegirl, so naturally he requires a horse as awesome and bloodthirsty as he is, and Gringolet is at least as well-regarded as his usual rider by members of the Arthuriana fandom (I’ve seen tier lists which ranked him higher than Gawain). In short, Gringolet is a phenomenon, and one I’m sure a Beri stan like yourself would appreciate, though I admit my enthusiasm for Gringolet is not as great as a lot of people’s because there are other awesome Arthurian horses (Guinevere’s gray palfrey who can go on water or land, Kay’s horse Gwineu Goddwf Hir, etc.) who remain overlooked while he hogs the limelight. That’s not Gringolet's fault, though. 

He also has his own Wikipedia page. Who among us can say that?

Thank you for the ask!