Enemies stalk the fringes of Britain. And Uther Pendragon is dying. Into this fractured and uncertain world the boy is cast, a refugee from fire, murder and betrayal. An outsider whose only companions are a hateful hawk and memories of the lost. Yet he is gifted, and under the watchful eyes of Merlin and the Lady Nimue he will hone his talents and begin his journey to manhood. He will meet Guinevere, a wild, proud and beautiful girl, herself outcast because of her gift. And he will be dazzled by Arthur, a warrior who carries the hopes of a people like fire in the dark. But these are times of struggle and blood, when even friendship and love seem doomed to fail. The gods are vanishing beyond the reach of dreams. Treachery and jealousy rule men’s hearts and the fate of Britain itself rests on a sword’s edge.But the young renegade who left his home in Benoic with just a hunting bird and dreams of revenge is now a lord of war. He is a man loved and hated, admired and feared. A man forsaken but not forgotten. He is Lancelot.Set in a 5th century Britain besieged by invading bands of Saxons and Franks, Irish and Picts, Giles Kristian's epic new novel tells - through the warrior's own words - the story of Lancelot, that most celebrated of all King Arthur's knights. It is a story ready to be re-imagined for our times.

    It represents the ideal of an unattainable yet infinitely desirable goal, the possibility of perfection. Initially conceived in literature, it became a Christian icon which has been re-created in a multitude of forms over time even though the Grail has no specific material attributes or true religious significance.Richard Barber traces the history of the legends surrounding the Holy Grail, beginning with Chretien de Troyes's great romances of the twelfth century and the medieval Church's religious version of the secular ideal. He pursues the myths through Victorian obsessions and enthusiasms to the popular bestsellers of the late twentieth century that have embraced its mysteries. Crisscrossing the borders of fiction and spirituality, the quest for the Holy Grail has long attracted writers, artists, and admirers of the esoteric. It has been a recurrent theme in tales of imagination and belief which have laid claim to the highest religious and secular ideals and experiences. From Lancelot to Parsifal, chivalric romances to Wagner's Ring, T. S. Eliot to Monty Python, the Grail has fascinated and lured the Western imagination from beyond the reach of the ordinary world.

    In this poem, Chrétien creates his most artful plot and paints the most starkly medieval portraits of any of his romances. The world he describes has few of the safeguards and protections of civilization: battles are brutal and merciless, love is anguished and desperate. Cligès tells the story of the unhappy Fenice, trapped in a marriage of constraint to the emperor of Constantinople. Fenice feigns death, then awakens to a new, happy life with her lover.Enormously popular in their own time, each of Chrétien's great verse romances is a fast-paced psychologically oriented narrative. In a rational and realistic manner, Chrétien probes the inner workings of his characters and the world they live in, evoking the people, their customs, and their values in clear, emotionally charged verse. Cligès is filled with Chrétien's barbs and bawdiness, his humor and his pleasure, his affection and his contempt. It is the unmistakable work of a brilliantly individualistic poet, brought to modern English readers by Raffel's poetic translation in a metric form invented specifically to reflect Chrétien's narrative speed and tone.

    Hume's King Arthur trilogy.King Artor lies slain and Ector, a mere boy, is acknowledged as the legitimate heir to the kingdom. But the land of the Celts has been weakened, and Ector grows up torn by conflicting senses of doom and duty. It is only his marriage to Gwyllan that gives him a sense of fulfilment.Meanwhile, Arthur, the Bastard Prince, grows up aware that he is the son of Artor and Lady Elayne but knowing he can never challenge the position of his ruler and childhood friend.Living in the shadow of King Artor, neither man can escape the his legacy...

    The story is told through the eyes of Bedivere, Arthur's milk brother and first companion, and covers the period from Arthur's childhood to his King-making and inevitable death.

    • Revised edition of Arthur and the Sovereignty of Britain (UK) that includes the author's latest research and insights. • A comprehensive reader's companion with synopsis of stories and full commentary. • Written by renowned scholar Caitlín Matthews, author of The Celtic Wisdom Tarot (15,000 sold). The ancient Celtic stories of the Mabinogion have received universal recognition from scholars as both sources of the Arthurian legend and keys to insights into the ancient magic of the Celtic Otherworld. Now renowned Celtic scholar Caitlín Matthews, drawing on a full range of medieval texts and ancient Welsh writings, provides a fully revised and updated reader's guide to these rich and far-reaching tales. In King Arthur and the Goddess of the Land, Matthews sheds particular light on Sovereignty, the Goddess of the sacred land of Britain, and the spiritual principle of the Divine Feminine. Clearly revealed are the many alternate forms taken by the Goddess of the Land--including her incarnation as Morgan of Avalon, who plays a dominant role in the Arthurian cycle. Also established are links between the legendary characters of the Mabinogion and their counterparts in other living myths of the Western world. Through the marriage of the Celtic kings to the Goddess of the Land, the sacred contract between political rulership and responsibility for the land's well-being is dramatically revealed. In King Arthur and the Goddess of the Land, Matthews once again articulates definitively the continuing relevance of ancient Celtic thought and belief as illustrated in the powerful myths and legends of ancient Britain.

    

    In the new happy ending, Goldilocks makes up for her presumptuous infractions on the Three Bears' household by helping them make muffins with the berries she's picked from the woods near their home. Charming artwork--topped off with a tried-and-true recipe for homemade blueberry muffins--make this new edition of Goldilocks a story time treasure that is just right.

    Instead, his younger half-brother, Lleu, is chosen to be prince of Britain. Lleu is fragile, often ill, unskilled in weaponry and statesmanship, and childishly afraid of the dark. Even Lleu's twin sister, Goewin, seems more suited to rule the kingdom.Medraut cannot bear to be commanded and contradicted by this weakling brother who he feels has usurped his birthright and his father's favor. Torn and bitter, haunted by jealousy, self-doubt, and thwarted ambition, he joins Morgause, the high king's treacherous sister, in a plot to force Artos to forfeit his power and kingdom in exchange for Lleu's life. But this plot soon proves to be much more - a battlefield on which Medraut is forced to decide, for good or evil, where his own allegiance truly lies...

    Through the use of diverse and rare literary sources, he shows Merlin to have been a historical figure--one of the last heirs to druidic tradition. 16 pages of black-and-white photos.

    When Gawain, King Arthur's handsome and promiscuous nephew, saves a beautiful maiden from a sorcerer, will his love be able to overcome the forces of evil?Risa of the Morelands was cursed even before she was born. While returning from King Arthur's coronation, her father made a deal with an evil necromancer named Euberacon to save his beloved dying wife. In return for his wife's health, the sorcerer asks for the life of the child growing inside her womb. Her father accepts the deal and thus dooms the unborn Risa to a life of unthinkable depravity.Now a beautiful 19-year-old with red-gold hair, Risa confronts her father after another suitor is turned away. When he eventually tells her about his deal with the sorcerer, she runs away -- only to be caught by Euberacon. Gawain fatefully witnesses the assault, saves Risa, and falls in love with her. But when Euberacon turns Risa into a monstrosity, will Gawain's love be enough to defeat a sorcerer, a pagan god, and all the naysayers at Camelot?Like many Arthurian stories, In Camelot's Shadow is a tale about honor -- its moral obligations and all its unintended consequences -- but ultimately it is a story about the power of love. Lyrical, heartwarming, and engaging until the very last page, this novel is highly recommended for fans of romantic fantasy as well as Arthurian legend and lore. Paul Goat Allen

    Already weakened in spirit by Guinevere’s infidelity with the now-exiled Lancelot, Arthur must rouse his knights to battle one last time against Mordred’s rebels and foreign mercenaries. Powerful, passionate, and filled with vivid imagery, this unfinished poem reveals Tolkien’s gift for storytelling at its brilliant best. Christopher Tolkien, editor, contributes three illuminating essays that explore the literary world of King Arthur, reveal the deeper meaning of the verses and the painstaking work his father applied to bring the poem to a finished form, and investigate the intriguing links between The Fall of Arthur and Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

    Mighty Isis struggles to save her beloved brother in Ancient Egypt, and White Buffalo Woman instructs the Sioux tribe on how to worship Mother Earth.

    The great city of Constantinople, last remnant of the once-mighty Roman Empire, falls to the Ottoman armies of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. An English knight named Sir John Page is taken prisoner by the Ottomans, and forced to entertain the Sultan with tales of the West. Page chooses to tell the story of his own long career as a soldier of fortune in France, Bohemia and the Italian city-states. Page’s tale begins in the year of Agincourt, Henry V’s famous victory over the French. As the bastard son of Thomas Page, a famous mercenary captain known as The Half-Hanged Man or The Wolf of Burgundy, Page soon acquires the nickname of The Wolf Cub. After slaying his cousin in a duel, Page flees his home and joins a band of outlaws in the forests of Sussex. At last - tired of the brutality of his companions - he decides to leave England and join the English army in Normandy. There he endures brutal sieges, vicious combats, torture, betrayal and imprisonment, all to win glory and redeem his father's name. Trapped in the Sultan’s prison, Page must hope his story is enough to save him from the executioner’s blade....at least for another three days...

    The world's most important Arthurian expert presents a riveting portrait of the darkly complex woman known only through legend.