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29 May 03 - 03:09 PM (#961411) Subject: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: LadyJean My good friend Sarah Zettel is writing a novel set in Arthurian Brittain. She wants very early ballads. Send to szettel at umich.edu. Thanks so much! MUDCAT RULES!!! |
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29 May 03 - 03:35 PM (#961421) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: GUEST Nothing as early as the VI or VII century. Perhaps the Mabinogion or any other epic cycle (Irish or Welsh). |
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30 May 03 - 08:16 AM (#961785) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: A Wandering Minstrel Finding genuine stuff from that early may be difficult. Even the Mabinogion is a later collection of tales (assembled around 14th C) You could approach Trinity College and see if they have anything in and around the Kells or Durrow era but I believe they are mostly religious works preserved from pre 10th C. Otherwise as suggested Early welsh and Irish story collections Mabinogion, ChuCullain, Romaunt de la Rose, and Chaucer are about as early as you can go. Good luck to Ms Zettels project. I thought her book "The Fools War" was excellent. |
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30 May 03 - 08:21 AM (#961791) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: GUEST,MC Fat Try 'My Beautiful Muff' as sung by Maggie at Holmfirth. |
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30 May 03 - 03:48 PM (#962120) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Nerd The ballad form did not develop until about the 13th century. Thus there is no such thing as a "pre-Child" ballad. He included all items he thought were ballads, of any era. There may be some that escaped his attention, but not because they were too old. There are several arthurian ballads in the Child collection, though I believe that they were never really ballads but metrical romances. The Boy and the Mantle, King Arthur and King Cornwall, The Marriage of Sir Gawain, etc. Most of the early arthurian material is Welsh. Look for a good edition of the Mabinogion, as was suggested above. Look also for "The Spoils of Annwfn," which is sometimes but not always included in the Mabinogion. |
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30 May 03 - 04:51 PM (#962163) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: GUEST,Sarah Z Hi. Neat place. You are all, of course right about ballads, but they did sing and tell some sort of stories in Vth cent. Britain. I'm probably going to have to punt, especially as I'm short of time. But I thought I'd take a stab at looking for the earliest stuff I can find, and as nobody seems to know for sure, educated guesses are more than welcome. Sources of translations of old Celtic stuff would be really, really welcome. |
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30 May 03 - 04:58 PM (#962167) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Nerd Sarah, The problem is that they didn't write much in 5th century Britain, and indeed the British language had mostly died out among the literate classes of society before anyone wrote very much of it. So your best sources will still be the early Welsh ones. Irish sources, as in Lady Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men or Cuchulainn of Muirthemne, might also supply ideas. Although the textual sources are late, many scholars believe the oral tradition they represent goes back to soon after Arthur's time. best of luck! |
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30 May 03 - 05:18 PM (#962186) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: McGrath of Harlow They'd likely enough have used chunks of Virgil's Aeneid, in Latin. Lots of good fighting and love stuff. |
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30 May 03 - 06:04 PM (#962214) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Don Firth Literacy was not exactly rampant in this era, and keeping a history was generally the job of the skalds and scops (look 'em up). Most of this history was probably not committed to paper (Office Depots being scarce back then), but set in the form of poetry (see Homer's Iliad for example—or more to the point, Beowulf). Rhyme and meter, and for that matter, tunes, are good mnemonic devices. The skalds and scops (later, bards and minstrels) would compose these stories, then recite or chant them. And like many things in the oral tradition (such as fish-stories) sometimes they would "dramatize" things a bit, or they would grow in the repetition, so the heroes (often the king or chief who employed the scop) often took on very heroic proportions. It may very well be that some of the ballads that appear in Child are later versions of these "histories" and heroic stories. If I were trying to come up with something that sounded like it was contemporary with King Arthur, I think I would take some of the earliest of the Child ballads or similar works and try to rewrite them into something that sounded even earlier. Or write something original in that style. Now, I'm not exactly sure how I would do that. . . . Just a thought or two. Don Firth (King of the parenthetical phrase) |
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30 May 03 - 06:17 PM (#962227) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: McGrath of Harlow Remember these are post-Romans, quite probably still fairly well up in Roman ways. |
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30 May 03 - 09:15 PM (#962309) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Mary in Kentucky Here's another Mudcat thread, King Arthur Needs Your Help. |
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31 May 03 - 08:36 AM (#962458) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: EBarnacle1 The Welsh material would probably be appropriate as Arthur was reputedly Welsh. I believe that most of the current attributions place Camelot in Northern Wales, along the river Cam. |
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31 May 03 - 01:33 PM (#962577) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: GUEST,Sarah Z Yes, I will be borrowing from Virgil and Ovid for this, and tossing in a few original bits, and some stuff from stories that seem to crop up in every culture. As for the rest, you are pretty much confirming what I've been finding, for which I thank you. Sarah |
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31 May 03 - 02:56 PM (#962599) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Don Firth Sarah Z, by all means, keep us posted on how the novel is coming along. Don Firth |
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31 May 03 - 04:53 PM (#962629) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Art Thieme MAYBE "The Bitter Withy". At least the topic is earlier, right? Possibly "The Cherry Tree Carol" !? What do folks think? Art Thieme |
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31 May 03 - 05:21 PM (#962635) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Malcolm Douglas That would only be slightly less anachronistic than extracts from "Camelot". We simply don't know what people sang about at that time, or what it might have sounded like, and we will never know. Specialists (which we are not) can make more-or-less educated guesses, but that's all. Of course, the average novel about the period will be full of anachronism (I've read some truly ludicrous ones in my time) but there's no need to make things worse than they need be. Sarah needs to be talking to musicologists, not folk music enthusiasts like us. |
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05 Jun 03 - 12:08 PM (#962802) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Nerd Actually, Malcolm, musicologists wouldn't be much use either. What music sounded like and what songs were about are different issues, and musicologists don't care that much about the words! It's medievalists, Latinists and folklorists who have some bead on what narratives were about in this era. Written sources are thin, as several of us have indicated, but songs like The Bitter Withy and The Cherry Tree carol are not such a bad guess after all. Both are derived from tales found in apocryphal gospels, many of which predate King Arthur by centuries. So, although there's no evidence that songs on these themes WERE sung back then, they certainly could have been. The stories were available to people, at any rate. (A good guess from an Arthurian Thieme)! I would reiterate that one's best sources are the early Irish and Welsh ones. Much scholarship has gone into analysing the links between these early Celtic narratives and Arthurian stories. So, for example, Taliesin is said to be one of the seven men who escapes alive after accompanying Bran the Blessed to Ireland to rescue Branwen; along the way they find and destroy a magical cauldron. This is a Welsh myth, with no Arthurian content. But Taliesin is also attributed authorship of Preiddau Annwfn, the Spoils of Annwn, in which the narrator is one of seven men who escapes alive after accompanying Arthur to a place called Caer Sidi to rescue Gwair; along the way they find and steal a magical cauldron. The narrative similarities are obvious, and both contain the same character of Taliesin. It appears that the Arthurian tale borrowed from the earlier mythological story. (Arthur also frees hostages and raids ireland for a magic cauldron in Culhwch and Olwen, so it was one of the more common stories about Arthur in the eary Welsh tradition. This would be a good guess for a song theme in Arthur's day) It's quite true that the manuscripts in which these stories survive are much younger than King Arthur, so in that sense it's anachronistic to apply this material to Arthurian times. But most scholars agree that the tales and poems are much older than the manuscripts themselves. On the basis of linguistic data, for example, Preiddau Annwfn is generally thought to be 9th Century, only about 300 yrs post Arthur. That's about as close as anyone can get for sure. And many scholars believe Irish stories like the Tain Bo Cuailgne to be older still--though the manuscripts, once again, are much younger. One thing I would suggest is to look at the structure of Preiddau Annwfn and other early Welsh poems, particularly those attributed to Myrddin and Taliesin. You'll find that they're not ballad-like at all. Rather, they are mystical and oblique; they make references to stories the audience is expected to know rather than telling stories the audience is expected not to know. It might be interesting to have characters sing songs like that, leading into one of the audience members' recollections of the story being referenced. So...SOME of us are specialists on SOME of this material, anyway, but as Malcolm says, it's all educated guesswork. |
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05 Jun 03 - 07:30 PM (#962941) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Don Firth Yeah, I have to agree with Nerd about musicologists. I spent a fair amount of time in music schools (University of Washington School of Music and Cornish School of the Arts) and I've heard an amazing amount of drivel coming from musicologists about folk music and its early sources. Unless you find a musicologist who has made a specific, in-depth study of it, there are a lot of folk singers and folk music enthusiasts who are more knowledgeable (i.e., who can make guesses that are literally better educated, even if they did it themselves). With this material, it was the narrative that was important, and the tune was just the frame you held it in. This was why I learned about music theory, modes, and such from the music profs, but spent most of my time learning about ballads from Prof. David Fowler in the English Department. You'd probably be better off with a professor of Early English Literature. Don Firth |
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05 Jun 03 - 08:41 PM (#962976) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Amergin do what i would do...make some up...but based on history or mythology of that time.... |
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05 Jun 03 - 11:26 PM (#963010) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Malcolm Douglas Well, yes; my point about musicologists really related to structure rather than content, but I wasn't very clear about it. Eng. Lit. (however early) won't necessarily get you too far, either, as it hadn't been invented when the (putative) Arthur was around, though the approach may not have been all that different. If you're not too fussy about authenticity -you can't afford to be, if you're going to write a novel longer than about 3 words- you might like to play around with Anglo Saxon narrative verse forms; not so very different, so far as can be told, from some of the early Welsh, and quite easy to write once you've got the hang of it. For subject matter, yes, perhaps parts of the Mabinogion; but again, that was written down much later. On the whole, I'd avoid Irish texts for Arthurian subjects; and don't believe a word you read in Robert Graves unless you're desperate! |
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06 Jun 03 - 12:03 AM (#963022) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Sorcha Beowulf??? |
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06 Jun 03 - 12:19 AM (#963026) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Malcolm Douglas Hwæt we Gar-Dena in gear-dagum þeod-cyninga þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. ... and so on. Eighth century AD, earliest, from linguistic evidence; though the substance of the story is probably older. Arthur, if he existed, was probably too busy fighting the Danes to take a great deal of interest in their (admittedly impressive) heroic myths. |
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06 Jun 03 - 07:32 AM (#963129) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: GUEST,Paul Burke Malcom Douglas said: "Hwæt we Gar-Dena" etc... Which is Old English (Anglo Saxon). All the available evidence points to Arthur being a leader of the BRITONS, who were subject to a hostile takeover bid by the Saxons just then. His language as others have said would be a forerunner of Welsh when he wasn't speaking bad Latin. " Arthur, if he existed, was probably too busy fighting the Danes" Never the Danes. Just the saxons, Angles, Jutes and of course other Britons (oh, and dragons, green knights, and rogue elements of Al Qaida) |
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06 Jun 03 - 08:39 AM (#963156) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: GUEST,IanC (still no cookie) Apart fom Nennius' extremely suspect account, no narrative of Arthur whatsoever exists until Geoffrey of Monmouth (1135) wrote the Arthurian Stories. Apart fom the fact that much of the material in Geoffrey's tales were apparently compiled from a variety of sources (from fairly widely spaced traditions) the stories appear to have been basically invented by Geoffrey of Monmouth himself. Previous "sources" are as follows. The battle of Badon (c500ad) was mentioned by the Welsh writer Gildas relatively soon after it happened (mid 6th Century) but Gildas did not mention anyone called Arthur. Some 300 years later, Nennius' Historia Brittonum (completed circa 800ad) mentions a "hero-warlord" called Arthur, associated with the battle at Badon. In translation ... Arthur fought against them in those days with the kings of the Britons, but he himself was leader of battles. The Arthur of Nennius' account, however, shows clear signs of being "lifted" from some unknown poems and it's clear that he placed his "Arthur" into a historical context which does not fit him. The Annales Cambriae (Annals of Wales), circa 970 ad, has a single mention of Arthur, based on Nennius' account. William of Malmesbury, 1125, embroiders on Nennius' account of Arthur as does Henry of Huntingdon (approximately the same date). In conclusion, no Arthurian story is pre 12th Century and all of them are based on the chivalric ideas and beliefs of this period. No sense in going looking for anything so early as Beowulf. Neither is there any sense in looking for an Ancient Briton as that's not who the hero of our story was. Best to look at the Norman aristocracy on which the Arthurian stories are lagely modelled. :-) |
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06 Jun 03 - 11:37 AM (#963264) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Malcolm Douglas I mentioned Danes because they were in the opening lines of Beowulf that came to hand, (see also Sorcha's post preceding it) then thought to myself, "somebody will pull me up on that" (I do know they weren't there at the time). I never did get the hang of smilies. My earlier post would probably make it fairly clear that I'm aware that the historical Arthur, if he existed, was not an Anglo-Saxon, but clarification can do no harm. Beowulf is of course quite irrelevant in terms of subject matter, but the metrical form might provide some ideas. Ian C's points are very sensible. We don't actually know whether this novel is intended to be based on the "historical" or legendary Arthurs, and answers to the question would differ depending on which is the case. It's a long time since I read Geoffrey of Monmouth (or Chrétien de Troyes, for that matter) but the Chivalric literature has formed so much of the Arthurian myth that I don't know how far you can separate out the various strands and have much left. As I say, it depends on the intent of the novel. |
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06 Jun 03 - 02:21 PM (#963325) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Nerd I think it's wrong to say that no Arthurian story is pre 12th century. First of all, Nennius. Although his account is "suspect" and he "placed his 'Arthur' in a historical context which did not fit him," this is irrelevant, as so did every later writer about Arthur. Granted, it's not much of a story, but it is likely that stories about Arthur existed when Nennius wrote, or he would not have written about Arthur at all. Next, we come to poems like Preiddeu Annwfn, which presuppose stories about Arthur, and have been dated by most scholars to before the 12th century, and by very few to later than the twelfth century (some place Preiddeu Annwfn IN the twelfth century, however). There are also two, not one, famous references to Arthur in the Annales Cambriae, ca. 970, which presuppose stories about Arthur at both Badon and Camlann. These are year 72 (519?) and year 93 (540?) It is interesting to note that every other figure mentioned in the Annales, besides Arthur and Medraut, is a historical figure who actually lived; the Annales is not a whimsical compilation of legends. Finally, Geoffrey. Geoffrey wrote of a very ancient book in the British language which he used as a source, and although the book has not been found some candidates that are known to have existed at one time have. Geoffrey specified that the book had been given to him by Walter of Oxford, a respected priest and scholar at the time, and specified his sponsors, etc. So to lie about this would put him at extreme risk of discovery, and of discrediting important people. Finally, another historian contemporary with Geoffrey, Geffrei Gaimar (who wrote in Anglo-Norman) cites a book given to him by Walter of Oxford, which is almost certainly the same book in the Latin translation Geoffrey made of it and gave back to Walter (Walter, by the way, read and wrote Welsh, so Geoffrey cannot have falsified his translation and gotten away with it). It is virtually certain given all of the above that the Book in the British language really existed, and it is likely that stories about Arthur were in it (though embellished profusely by Geoffrey). So the upshot is, while it's true that no story in a complete form survives from before the twelfth century, clearly Arthur was a character in Welsh stories before that time. I know it's a fine distinction between "there are no stories" and "there are no stories which have come down to us," but it's an important one. Geoffrey did not in any sense invent Arthur, though he did embellish greatly many of the stories that were there. |
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06 Jun 03 - 04:15 PM (#963375) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Nerd I realize that I forgot poor old William, the Breton author of "St. Goeznovius," (1019) who wrote: "In the course of time, the usurping king Vortigern, to buttress the defence of the kingdom of Great Britain which he unrighteously held, summoned warlike men from the land of Saxony and made them his allies in the kingdom. Since they were pagans and of devilish character, lusting by their nature to shed human blood, they drew many evils upon the Britons. Presently their pride was checked for a while through the great Arthur, king of the Britons. They were largely cleared from the island and reduced to subjection. But when this same Arthur, after many victories which he won gloriously in Britain and in Gaul, was summoned at last from human activity, the way was open for the Saxons to go again into the island, and there was great oppression of the Britons, destruction of churches and persecution of saints. This persecution went on through the times of many kings, Saxons and Britons striving back and forth... In those days, many holy men gave themselves up to martyrdom; others, in conformity to the Gsopel, left the greater Britain which is now the Saxon's homeland, and sailed across to the lesser Britain (Brittany)." William claimed a source called "Ystoria Britanica," which could well have been the same book used by Geoffrey (William was Breton, and Geoffrey seems to have been half Breton, and "The British language" could mean either Welsh or Breton in Geoffrey's claims about the source). Since William was just providing background to his story of Goeznovius, he would not go into any detail about Arthur, even if that detail were there...but again, a pretty clear source in the early eleventh century, implying a tenth century origin for HIS source at least. |
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06 Jun 03 - 05:33 PM (#963425) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: pavane I am not sure when Brittany was populated, reputedly by Britons fleeing the invading Saxons, but I think it unlikely that Arthur, in about 520-540AD, would have come from there. (Long before the English language evolved, of course) |
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06 Jun 03 - 08:05 PM (#963492) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pre Child ballads for arthurian novel From: Nerd Pavane. Sorry if I was unclear. I did not mean to suggest that Arthur came from Brittany. Documents pertaining to Arthur, however, manifestly have come there. This is because most of the migration to Gaul that created Brittany occurred in the generation or two after Arthur's time (if you believe in Arthur), so stories of Arthur would have been carried there by the migrating Britons/Bretons. If you don't believe in Arthur, then Arthur was already a legendary figure by the time the Breton migrations occurred, so once again stories were carried there. |