The Arthurian Legends and Their Legacy

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Bayreuth, language: English, abstract: 'There would be a day - there must be a day - when he would come back to Gramarye with a new Round Table which had no corners, just as the world had none - a table without boundaries between the nations who would sit to feast there. The hope of making it would lie in culture. (...) The cannons of his adversary were thundering in the tattered morning when the Majesty of England drew himself up to meet the future with a peaceful heart. RE[X] QUONDAM RE[X]QUE FUTUR[US] THE BEGINNING' (Terence Hanbury White, 'The Once and Future King') This quote from T. H. White's 'The Once and Future King' is not the only reference to King Arthur's return we can find when looking through the different Arthurian stories or that which is scattered among folk tales. Arthur is often carried away in a boat to Avalon, to be healed of his wounds and to return afterwards. In Italy, an 'Arturo Magno' is believed to live within Mount Etna, occasionally seen, and also waiting for the day of his return. The Irish say he 'rides round a rath' with raised sword, to the tune of Londonderry Air. The Scottish swear to him in Edinburgh, believing he presides from Arthur's Seat. The Britons still can hear his horn and see his armour. There seems to be a strong yearning within all kinds of people that refuses to let King Arthur die. T.H. White first published his book in 1958, about one millennium and a century after the early medieval historian Nennius wrote about Arthur, and eight centuries after Geoffrey of Monmouth's influential book 'The History of the Kings of Britain'. And even today, in the early days of the third millennium, the mystery and fascination about Arthur, his knights, his queen Guinevere and Merlin the Wizard is still unbroken.