Following
our policy of trusting one another and not planning the details, we
undertook an evening of Arthur, start to finish. Ian began with
Vortigern and Merlin aka Emrys and the prophetic Fight of the
Dragons. Mike filled in a gap with Uther Pendragon’s impregnation
of Igraine [thanks to Merlin’s wiles] and his slaughter of her
husband. In next to no time, Arthur was born, spirited away to
anonymity by Merlin, and re-appeared after Uther’s death to pull
The Sword from the Stone and be acclaimed rightwise King of All
England.
It
fell to Raph to tell the story that no one knew, Balin and Balan,
with the two brothers from Geordieland, a link to the Lady of the
Lake, a link on to the Fisher King, and a tragic end because of the
Cursed Sword, and a segue into the interval, after which Nicole
guided us through the tale of Parsifal, as Wolfram von Eschenbach
tells it, until eventually the Foolish Lad Asks the Right Question,
healing the King and the Waste Land.
But
before the serious stuff, Janet had entranced us with Sir Salvio’s
incomprehension of women – a fault fortunately remedied when he
discovered at last What Women Really Want, and applied the lesson!
[Men will have to find this out for themselves – women already
know.]
Dan
presented Lancelot as a spear-happy selfish jerk, breaking hearts and
lances wherever he went, in the tale of the Lily-Maid of Astolat, and
Mike brought us the Last Battle, Mordred, the return of Excalibur to
Deep Water, and the departure of Arthur to Avalon, for the healing of
his grievous wound… and on the mere the wailing died away…
And
Maddie, who had proposed the whole thing, never got to tell Gawain
and the Green Knight, because we’d run out of time!!!
So,
we tellers insist that she headlines with it, and anything else she
wants to do, later in the year, with the rest of us a support act,
limited to 5 minutes each, just to teach us!
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