The Mammoth Book of Arthurian Legends

The first book of the year for me was The Mammoth Book of Arthurian Legends edited by Mike Ashley. It's organised into three sections. The first deals with how Arthur became King of the Britons, the second is tales of knights of the Round Table and the third is the fall of Arthur.

The second section was definitely my favourite. It was what I expected most from the book when I first started it. The stories were an easy, enjoyable read and detailed the legends surrounding Arthur. I really enjoyed "Sir Marrock the Wolf" by Allen French. It's not a story I'd really heard about before, barely mentions Arthur or the Round Table but still captures the feel of an Arthurian story.

The feel of Arthurian stories is what was missing in the third section. Aside from the almost required story of "The Passing of Arthur" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, I found that the authors that Ashley chose to represent the final days of Camelot were odd choices. They were mostly from more modern authors who were using the legend as a framework for a story that was part of the Arthurian cycle but weren't really Arther legends themselves. "The Dog's Story" by Eleanor Arnason was a good story. I enjoyed seeing the court of Arthur from the perspective of a man turned into a dog by Merlin but I didn't think it really fit in a book that calls itself a Mammoth Book of Legends because it really didn't read like a legend.

The stories in the final section were either trying to speak of Arthur as history (which he may have been) or as myth (which he may have been, though that seems less likely) but lost the feel of legend by often suggesting that either Arthur and Merlin were lovers or that Arthur loved Lancelot more than he loved Guinevere. That's an interesting take on the story but I was hoping for something a bit more scholarly.

The first section suffered a little from being too scholarly. The stories were a little too close to the source and came off a bit dry. I enjoy reading those types of stories, like The Iliad but it does take a little time to get through the so-and-so, son of so-and-so.

Anyway, an OK read. I'll give it a 3 out of 5. The thing I came away from it was the the members of Monty Python probably did have at least a passing familiarity with the legendary Quest for the Holy Grail because Galahad had no helmet and a white shield with a red cross. He also had a small adventure at the Castle of the Maidens.