This classic deck is now reprinted with enhanced cards and a booklet specially written for this new edition. The Arthurian Tarot Deck depicts characters and themes from the famous Celto-Arthurian legends, along with the four Hallows of the Quest for spiritual wholeness. * New edition of a classic deck. * Stunning artwork by Miranda Gray, a leading MBS artist. * Caitlín and John Matthews are Arthurian-legend and tarot experts.

    Based on the writings of an anonymous Italian Jew in 1279, the author presents two stories. The first relates Merlin's role in the seductions of Igerna by Pendragon and the consequent birth of Arthur. The second tells of Arthur's rise to royal glory, of Lancelot's affair with Guinevere, his meeting with the Maid of Askalot, and his skill at a jousting tournament.This romance exists in a unique copy at the Vatican Library, which Curt Leviant personally examined. He offers a highly readable version of that text in corrected Hebrew with graceful English transliteration on facing pages, and an analysis of Jewish aspects of the piece. He also traces its origins to an Old French tale.Not just a literary curiosity, this is at once fine scholarship and compelling proof of the vibrant interaction between Judaism and other cultures of medieval Europe.

    Compiled in the early fourteenth century by five scribes, its 241 extant folios contain the lion's share of Arthurian romance in Middle Dutch, no fewer than ten texts. The core of this compilation is comprised of translations into rhymed couplets of the Lancelot-Queste-Mort, into which seven additional romances have been inserted. The result is a compilation that successfully transforms a number of disparate texts into an ordered sequence of ten Arthurian romances, a project that rivals similar ones in better known European vernaculars, and bears comparison with Malory's Morte Darthur. This volume presents the five romances interpolated between the Queste and the Mort, the majority of which are not attested elsewhere in any other language: the Wrake van Ragisel (Vengeance of Raguidel), the Ridder metter mouwen (Romance of the Knight of the Sleeve), Lanceloet en het hert met de witte voet (Lancelot and the Hart with the White Foot), Walewein ende Keye, and Torec. Traditionally these romances have been separated from their context and published in separate editions, and only Lanceloet en het hert met de witte voet has ever appeared in English translation. They are presented here in their manuscript order for the first time since 1846; the edition of Walewein ende Keye is the first to be published since that date. The text and translations are accompanied by an introduction, variants and rejected readings, and critical notes. David F. Johnson is Professor of English, Florida State University; Geert H.M. Claassens is Professor of Middle Dutch Literature at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

    Life just isn't fair She was supposed to be the next Queen of the Britons when she retrieved Excalibur from the stone Merlin knows the world isn't ready for a Queen, so to complete her destiny Brieana is placed under a sleep-spell. Only a noble knight, one equal to her in strength and courage, can awaken her. The Present. Chasing dracks is hard work. But nothing prepared Kerian, ruler of Mirage, for the greatest surprise of all.a sleeping, naked woman falling at his feet during a hunt. He soon learns that she is from another time; the world that she knew is gone and the world where she now lives is fraught with hidden dangers and perils. The Future. Brieana discovers that in order to fulfill her destiny, she must do more than fall in love with the most perfect man that she has ever seen. She must go on a quest to reclaim Excalibur and with Kerian's help, end the menace of evil that threatens their happiness.

    That dignity bears a price, for Lin has drawn the wrath of Modred, the youngest prince of Orkney. His single-minded quest to break strong-willed Lin—by any means necessary—nearly succeeds. Although Lin is accustomed to the death, disease, rape and famine that runs rampant in the slave hovel she calls home, it is when her beloved brother Dafydd is placed on the auction block that her warrior spirit becomes apparent to all who challenge her, and the shocking secret of her lineage is finally revealed.

    Six of the greatest twelfth-century historians - William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Geoffrey Gaimar, Roger of Howden, and Gerald of Wales - are analysed in this collection of essays, focusing on their attitudes to three inter-related aspects of English history.The first theme is the rise of the new and condescending perception which regarded the Irish, Scots and Welsh as barbarians; set against the background of socio-economic and cultural change in England, it is argued that this imperialist perception created a fundamental divide in the history of the British Isles, one to which Geoffrey of Monmouth responded immediately and brilliantly.The second theme treats chivalry not as a mere gloss upon the brutal realities of life, but as an important development in political morality; and it reconsiders some of the old questions associated with chivalric values and knightly obligations - home-grown products or imports from France?The third theme is the emergence of a new sense of Englishness after the traumas of the Norman Conquest, looking at the English invasion of Ireland and the making of English history.John Gillingham is Professor Emeritus, Department of History, London School of Economics.