Once and Future Kings: My Top 10 King Arthur Stories

"Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England." Who did it best?

"The Death of King Arthur" by James Archer

Hello faithful readers! Last month proved rather hectic freelancing-wise, with one book project in particular taking a lot of time, involving (re)reading almost the entirety of the late Tim Keller’s books in the space of a few weeks… more on what I learned from my month of Keller in a future update!

But first, something a bit different. As a few of my readers might already be aware, I am slowly (very slowly!) working on writing a science fiction retelling of the King Arthur legend, titled The Sword in the Spaceship. From the medieval tales through to modern retellings and borrowings, King Arthur gets everywhere, from the Arctic to outer space. Here, for your interest and reading pleasure, is my top 10!

10. The Pendragon Protocol by Philip Purser-Hallard

This is a clever and criminally overlooked modern-day riff on the Arthurian mythos. The central conceit is that of a modern day Circle (knights of the Round Table), where each member carries the ‘device’ of one of Arthur’s knights – that is, they bear the spirit and strength of that character, a bit like a modern-day reincarnation of them, but given a pseudo-scientific explanation in terms of Jungian psychology and ‘culturally-inflected archetypal memeplexes’.

It’s Arthurian mythology for the age of the meaning crisis, though its politics is lightyears away from Jordan Peterson. It delves into the British psyche and the politics of how Britain sees itself and what the nation can or should stand for. By the end, it establishes a compelling conflict and concept that had me eager to read the rest of the Devices trilogy, which delivers strongly.

9. The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser’s unfinished epic poem The Faerie Queene is the “missing link” between medieval romance and modern fantasy. It is the first major work of literature coming after the Middle Ages that self-consciously harks back to medieval times as a setting for the fantastic.

Like much of the best fantasy, it works on several levels – magical adventure story, political commentary on the Elizabethan court, and spiritual allegory.

The archaic language is a barrier for many modern readers. While I’d encourage you to try the original if you can, you might also want to check out Rebecca Reynold’s modern prose retelling of the story at www.faeriequeene.com.

8. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

Don’t be put off if you saw the Hollywood movie from a few years ago, riding in the wake of Harry Potter and the Narnia films. Susan Cooper’s series – Over Sea Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King and Silver on the Tree – is a classic of children’s fantasy.

In The Dark is Rising, Will Stanton discovers that he is an Old One destined to join the struggle between Light and Dark, and is aided by Merriman Lyon, better known as Merlin. In the sequel, he travels to Wales to find Bran Davies, the Pendragon.

I grew up in North Wales close to where the action of The Grey King takes place, and I can vouch for its authentic use of local Welsh geography and folklore!

The BBC also recently did a new audio dramatisation which can be found on BBC Sounds.

7. Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favourite authors, and this was the first DWJ book that I remember reading, back when I was about 8 years old. I absolutely loved the mind-bending twists and turns. In a village near London, Ann Staveley sees people going into Hexwood Farm Estate but never coming out. Inside the wood is an Arthurian-like world, but is anything what it really seems?

Its mix of Young Adult drama, Arthurian fantasy and reality-bending sci-fi mysteries seem to me like it would be ideal fodder for a limited series on the BBC or Netflix.

6. That Hideous Strength by C S Lewis

This is the third volume in C S Lewis’s science fiction trilogy, following Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. I think it’s the weakest of the trilogy overall, but is remarkably prescient in terms of its themes of the dangers of transhumanism and technological utilitarianism. For me though some of this story’s best moment involve the return of Merlin. He is awoken in the present day where Orwellian technocrats combine sinister experiments with magic.

I gave a L’Abri lecture on C S Lewis’s Comic Trilogy a while back which you can listen to online for more of my analysis of this weird and wonderful book:

The Great Dance: C.S. Lewis and the Discarded Image of Medieval Hierarchy

5. The Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Arthur is endlessly adaptable to every age, so it’s not surprising that in Tennyson’s hands he becomes the archetypal Victorian gentleman – heroic, stiff-upper lip yet conflicted, pious and also doubting. Many of Tennyson’s phrases have passed into the general cultural consciousness, such as ‘My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure’. It might at times seem quaint to 21st-century eyes, but still carries a unique power.

4. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Although Sir Gawain is the hero, not Arthur, and most of the action takes place away from Arthur’s court, few stories better encapsulate the qualities of Arthurian myth: adventure, courtliness and the peril of Faerie. And the Green Knight himself is a wonderful antagonist. There are a number of translations from the Middle English, including one by a certain J. R. R. Tolkien. (I’m also a big fan of Sir Orfeo, the medieval retelling of the myth of Orpheus that Tolkien also included, with – spoilers! – a happy ending, which is arguably fitting for a Christian interpretation of the story).

David Lowry’s recent film The Green Knight is a fascinating interpretation of the book, rich and weird in a way that evokes the strangeness of the medieval original, while bringing a contemporary (post/meta?)-modern perspective to the story.

3. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

A time-travelling twist on the Arthurian myth, as Hank, a brash American industrialist, finds himself back in Camelot and sets about modernising the place. As much a satire on the inequalities of 19th century America as a comment on the Arthurian tradition, its bleak ending is deeply ambivalent about notions of “progress”.

Since my Arthurian novel involved a big time-travel element, I owe a big debt to Twain, though my story takes things in a very different direction to him!

2. The Once and Future King by T H White

By some strange omission of my school and local library, I didn’t read this as a child, only eventually reading it while at university. I loved it all the same, beginning with the whimsy of The Sword in the Stone, and moving through adventure into tragedy as it tells the whole story of Arthur. The later sections were written in the dark days of World War Two, and see Arthur struggling to find a solution to the problem of war. The hope he finds on the eve of his last battle is both touching and profound.

I wrote my MA dissertation exploring the medievalism of The Once and Future King and The Lord of the Rings, so there is much, much more I could write (and have written!) about this book. More on the newsletter another time, I hope…

1. Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Mallory

What else could be number 1? Yes, there were lots of earlier medieval versions of the legend, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Chretien de Trois and more, but Mallory remains the definitive telling of the story of King Arthur.

Drawing on the tangled mythos about Arthur and his court, Mallory assembles it into a sprawling yet coherent whole. Attune your ear and eye to its original late Middle English, or read a good modern translation, and you’ll find yourself transported back to a world of chivalry, magic and human passions like no other.

And more…

Well, that’s my list! There are many more versions, of course, with recent retellings finding new angles. Perhaps in another article I’ll explore some of the more revisionist takes on Arthur, including those of film and TV.

But what about you? Have you delved into the Arthurian mythos? If so, what are your favourite versions of the Arthur legend? Let me know in the comments, or on social media!