#sir yvain of the lion

[queer-ragnelle]

no one has ever written an arthurian retelling with owain of the lion that i like. everyone else there is at least a single retelling they were really solid in but not him. what a world.

[cowabummers]

I like to think that Gawain's nonsense didn't stop after the events of The Knight of the Lion. He hits up Yvain every weekend to see if he's up for another year-long bro's weekend.

[each-uisge-enthusiast]

have you ever been possessed by a demon that is a single wildly goofy kinda thought and then spent over four hours committing to drawing said thought into a half baked reality.

[sir-borre]

Yvain, the Knight of the Lion

Max Baldry - Prince Yvain of Gore

Emilia Clarke - Lady Laudine

Olivia Cooke - Lady Lunete

Charlie Vickers - Sir Calogrenant

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau - Sir Gawain of Orkney

Katie McGrath - Queen Morgana of Gore

Chris Pine - King Arthur of Britain

Gene Tierney - Queen Guinevere of Britain

Peter Sellers - Sir Kay

[rjalker]

[ID: A color illustration from a medieval manuscript, showing a knight on a brown horse using his sword to slice in half a dragon that is biting the tail of a lion. The knight has chainmail and a red shield with a rampart lion, the dragon has two visible legs and a skinny tail, with brown-red skin. The lion is drawn relatively realistically, except that its fur is blue rather than tan. There are stylized green-grey trees behind them and gold for the background. The illustration is bordered by blue lines meeting gold square corners, with the horse's back legs outside the square, the hooves standing on a small drawn ledge, to show how quickly the knight entered the scene. End ID.]

(I assume the lion is blue because of colors fading or something)

[halloweencatsart]

what if specter was in sonic and the black knight?

[tiodolma]

LADY: my husband just died today. oh i am besides myself with grief. i wanna die with him too

DAMSEL: oh pls you'll get over it

LADY: no there is no one like my lord husband

DAMSEL: oh come on think of your people and your estate. you are a noble! remember your birth! who's gonna protect your lands when king arthur comes to wage war on you huh?!

LADY: then tell me where to find such man then?!

DAMSEL: ohohoho i have just the man for you. but promise me u wont get mad if i tell u who he is.

LADY: ...fine

DAMSEL: he's the dude who defeated your husband :D

LADY: gtfo. begone you thot.

meanwhile

YVAIN: i have fallen for the lord's wife and i cant get up. i need her loving hands to come and pick me up and every night i miss her i can just look up and know the stars are holding her holding her holding her tonight

........

liveblob notes: ngl i didnt expect the damsel to be wingmanning for yvain. i thought for sure that she was in love with him.

[gellavonhamster]

I wanna start reading Arthurian…..where should I begin

*rubs hands* oh excellent

I'd say one way would be to pick characters or events you'd like to read about the most and start with the texts focusing on them. @fuckyeaharthuriana has a lot of lists of different works, including those sorted by character (links in the blog description). Then, if you decide you enjoy Arthuriana in general, you can move to other texts. Another way would be to start with something well-known and short. I believe Sir Gawain and the Green Knight fits the bill well. The translation linked is more like an example, because there's a lot of them, and I frankly don't know which to suggest best; the one I read is by Bernard O’Donoghue, but I can't find it online. I've also heard very good things about Tolkien's translation - understandable, because duh, Tolkien - but haven't read it (yet). The works of Chrétien de Troyes are also very good and readable and imo very well represent what a medieval romance is. My favourite is Yvain: Knight of the Lion, and I haven't read his Perceval yet, but I liked all the other of his romances too. (Ok, maybe not Erec and Enide, but that's because I found the main character very annoying)

I've compiled a small list of Arthurian texts I recommend before when answering a similar ask, and I still stand by it, except, taking into account what I've read since then, I'd also add La Tavola Ritonda - an Italian Arthurian romance mostly focused on Tristan and Isolde, weird and violent but also very enjoyable, in my opinion, Parzival (vol. 1, vol. 2) by Wolfram Von Eschenbach - a German romance and my favourite version of the Grail story so far, and Lancelot-Grail aka the Vulgate Cycle + the Post-Vulgate. I'm not sure starting with the latter is a good idea, though, because it's five huge volumes, very readable (except for The History of the Holy Grail. You can skip that, if you ask me) and with a great impact on the later Arthurian texts, including Le Morte d'Arthur, but HUGE, it took me half a year, lol. (Le Morte is also long and often drier in style, but still not THAT long). But I simply had to mention it because it's such a foundational work. A part of the Vulgate Cycle has been adapted by Patricia Terry and Samuel N. Rosenberg as Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles or, The Book of Galehaut Retold. It's short and beautiful, and you don't need to be familiar with the rest of the Vulgate to read it.

Oh, and if you're interested in more modern retellings, Idylls of the Queen by Phyllis Ann Karr is an episode from Le Morte d'Arthur retold as a murder mystery solved by Kay and Mordred, and it's amazing. Also The Squire's Tales series by Gerald Morris is a lot of fun, kind of for a younger reader but very well-written and funny, even though some of his choices regarding certain characters drive me up the wall a little bit.

Also, here's a great site by @tillman with a lot of links to various Arthurian texts!

[gringolet]

hi not to be a menace but. what texts do you recommend starting on for delving into the arthurian lore bc i’ve read sgatgk and the mabinogion and listened to the heather dale songs and have no idea where to go from here

Okay I have a bunch in my pinned post but in summary: It depends on what you are interested in! If you are interested in characters like Lancelot, Guinevere, Yvain, Gawain, Percival etc, I would recommend reading Chretien de Troyes romances, specifically Knight of the Lion, Knight of the Cart, and Story of the Grail, which are his best and more relevant to later texts. If you are more interested in the overall story, the rise of arthur and fall of camelot, the classic choice is Thomas Malory's le morte d'arthur. there are a lot of translations and shortened versions that are quite readable if ur not into middle english.

there are lots of fun and fairly findable epigonal romances (french romances written after chretien de troyes) and middle english verse works (sgatgk is the most famous of these, but sir gawain and the turk, the alliterative morte d'arthur, the stanzaic morte d'arthur, and the wedding of sir gawain and dame ragnelle are all fun). great epigonal romances include the perilous cemetery, the mule without a bridle, and the knight with two swords.

the dutch corpus of arthuriana is also great, you cant go wrong with morien, and i also recommend lancelot and the hart with the white foot and the roman van walewein. i have links to scans of most of everything i've mentioned here so if you can't find something let me know and i'll see if i can find it scanned by me or one of my friends.

i hope this brain dump was helpful! but yeah basically there are lots and lots of fun text options for you so just check out what sounds interesting! theres a ton of works i didnt name here so if none of these sound interesting then let me know and i can offer other suggestions. if u want some stuff more like the heather dale stuff, you might like victorian arthuriana! i have links to my favourite arthurian revival works in my pinned post. good luck!!

[mask131]

A fantasy read-list: A-3

Fantasy read-list

Part A: Ancient fantasy

3) Medieval fantasy - the Arthuriana

While one root of the fantasy genre lies within the mythologies of the world, the other is coming from numerous medieval tales and supernatural stories, most of them being centered around what we call today the “Arthurian myth” or the “Arthuriana”. Though, in truth, the genre of these texts is a bit bigger - it is the “Matter of Britain”, which is larger than the Arthurian texts themselves.

And we will begin our list with... French texts! It might surprise you - you might say “But aren’t Arthurian texts all English?”. No. The Matter of Britain designates all the medieval texts that are not the “Matter of Rome” or the “Matter of Thebes” (aka coming from the texts and topics of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece). Britain is, of course, England, as in “Great-Britain”. But if there is a GREAT Britain, it means there is a “Little Britain”... And this Little Britain is none other than the Bretagne region of France, aka the north-west of France. The Arthurian myth is half-rooted in England, yes, but another half of the origins and founding texts of the Arthurian legend come from France. The famous Broceliande forest is in France, not in England. 

# The founding texts of the French Arthurian literature are without a doubt the novels of Chrétien de Troyes. Considered the very first French novel of history, they created many of the well-known “Arthurian legends” of today. There is a total of five of these novels. Two are indirectly tied to the Arthurian world - Eric and Enide, Cligès. Two are right at the heart of the Arthuriana: Yvain or the Knight of the Lion, as well as Lancelot or the Knight of the Cart. And his final novel is incomplete, but it is the one that created the most famous part of the Arthurian literature: Perceval or the Story of the Grail, the first literary apparition of the famous “Holy Grail” (fun fact: the Grail wasn’t originally a cup, but a fish-plate. Go read the book, you’ll understand Xp). 

# Equating and rivaling Chrétien’s novels, we find the lais of Marie de France. A “lai” is actually a short fiction typical of the Middle-Ages, something halfway between a narrative poem and a fairytale, telling short, concise, but very efficient stories. We have a LOT of lais that came to us anonymously, carrying numerous literary stories or folktales of medieval times - but in France the most famous lais are those attributed to a certain “Mary of France”. She wrote twenty or so VERY famous lais that are seen as one of the defining feature of old medieval French literature. We are talking Bisclaveret, one of the oldest werewolf stories, we are talking of the supernatural romance of Guigemar, we are talking about the twin-shenanigans of Le Fresne, about the tragic love of Chevrefoil, and about the Arthurian lai of Lanval, about a man in love with a fairy but wooed by Guinevere herself. 

Mind you, there are other lais not composed by Marie de France, such as the one of Guingamor or the one of Sir Orfeo, but they are mostly anonymous.

# The works of Robert de Boron. Robert de Boron continued the work started by Chrétien de Troyes (and also took inspiration from the poet’s Wave semi-historical semi-fictional work, such as the Roman de Brut, a historical chronicle where Merlin and dragons appear), and built the next “step” in the Arthurian myth in France. Unfortunately we do not have his full work anymore, merely a fragment of his poem “Merlin” (where he presents the famous story of the “born of a demon” episode), a short “Perceval” story, and his full “Estoire du Graal ou Joseph d’Arimathie”, which is where the background of the Grail as the cup that collected Christ’s blood appears. Together they are considered as “le Petit Cycle du Graal”, “The Small Cycle of the Grail”, preceeding the following item...

# More interestingly, after the enormous success of Chrétien de Troyes’ work, there was an entire series of books that were created, remembered today as the Lancelot-Graal, or the Prose Lancelot, the Vulgate Cycle. These are five texts in prose (in opposition to Chrétien and Boron’s verse works), who continue or rewrite the previous author’s texts - these are L’Estoire del Saint Graal (L’Histoire du Saint Graal/The History of the Holy Grail), L’Estoire de Merlin (L’Histoire de Merlin/Merlin in prose),  Le Lancelot (also called Lancelot in prose or Lancelot proper), La Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest of the Holy Grail), and La Mort d’Artu (The death of Artu). This cycle was followed by three prose texts known as “The Post-Vulgate Cycle” (Histoire du Saint Graal, Merlin, Queste-Mort Artu) which are merely the transcription in prose of some of Boron works, mixed with a rewrite of the “Tristan en prose”, an old novel of the Tristan and Iseult cycle (and the first that links the legendary duo with the Arthurian world).

# The Roman de Perceforest is a quite unique work designed to unite the “romans d’Alexandre” (Alexandrian novels, a big branch of medieval French literature centered around the adventure of Alexander the Great) and the Arthurian novels - more importantly, Perceforest is the oldest known literary version of the fairytale Sleeping Beauty.

# A section should be left here for the various novels involving the fairy Mélusine, one of the main characters of the French medieval legends. In fact, she is recognized (by Georges Dumézil’s work and those that continued it) as one of the two archetypal fairies of the middle-ages (the Melusinian fairy being the fairy entering the human world to live with humans, opposing the Morganian fairy who snatches humans into the otherworld). The legend of Mélusine was most notably recorded in Jean d’Arras “Roman de Mélusine”, and in Coudrette’s own “Roman de Mélusine”.

# There are many, MANY more literary works of medieval France, but to stay in the angle of “ancient fantasy” I will merely quote two more. On one side, la Chanson des quatre fils d’Aymon, a famous medieval epic which notably depicts the figure of Maugis the Enchanter, the other main sorcerer of medieval texts alongside Merlin (he has his own poem, La Chanson de Maugis d’Aigremont). On the other, the one one, the classic, the best-seller, the unavoidable Roman de Renart, the Novel of Reynart, the tentacular set of texts depicting the numerous adventures of the most famous European trickster in an animalistic parody of the Arthurian world.

If we jump outside of France to England, we have a different set of texts:

# The works of Geoffrey of Monmouth. This man wrote some of the earliest works part of the “Arthurian myth”, and from which a lot of elements were taken to create the “Arthuriana”. While his most famous work is “Historia Regum Britanniae”, a semi-historical chronicle of the kings of Britain which contains one of the earliest appearance of King Arthur as we know him today, he also wrote two texts fundamental to the figure of Merlin: Prophetiae Merlini, and Vita Merlini. 

# Otia Imperialia, by Gervase of Tilbury. It was a work created as a gift to emperor Otto V, and it was supposed to be an encyclopedia of geographical, historical and scientific matters - but it is actually containing a LOT of mythical and legendary elements, including entire part of the “Arthurian myth” presented as historical facts - hence its latter name “The Book of Marvels”. 

# Of course, we can’t list the major Arthuriana English works without talking about the most famous one: “Le Morte d’Arthur”, the final result of the “evolution” of the Arthurian myth. Thomas Malory’s attempt at creating a complete legend uniting all of the English and French Arthurian texts (though heavily inspired by the Lancelot-Graal cycle I described above). This text became the “definitive Arthurian text” in England for a very long time - and in more recent days, it was the main inspiration for the famous Arthurian novel “The Once and Future King” by T. H. White.

And while the Arthurian corpus is mostly made of English and French texts, you also have Arthuriana sources in other European countries - such as in Germany, where you can find Lanzelet, by Ulrich von Zazhikhoven, which marks the first apparition of Lancelot in German literature. 

[sonicstorybook]

SatBK Origintober 1

In Yvain (or The Knight with the Lion), Gawain causes marital strife between his cousin Yvain and his cousin's wife, Lunete, because he has too much fun hanging out with his cousin. C:

Then my lord Yvain at once asks [his wife Lunete] for permission to escort the King and to attend at tournaments, that no one may reproach his indolence. And she replies: "I grant you leave until a certain date; but be sure that my love will change to hate if you stay beyond the term that I shall fix. Remember that I shall keep my word; if you break your word I will keep mine..."

...Yet I think [Sir Yvain] will overstay the term, for my lord Gawain will not allow [Sir Yvain] to part from him, as together they go to joust wherever tournaments are held. And as the year passes by my lord Yvain had such success that my lord Gawain strove to honour him, and caused him to delay so long that all the first year slipped by... [Gawain and Yvain] had their tents set up outside the city, and held court there... and the King came rather to join in theirs, for they had the best knights, and the greatest number, in their company. Now King Arthur was seated in their midst, when Yvain suddenly had a thought which surprised him more than any that had occurred to him since he had taken leave of his lady, for he realised that he had broken his word, and that the limit of his leave was already exceeded. He could hardly keep back his tears, but he succeeded in doing so from shame. [A lady approaches Arthur and the Knits] she let her mantle fall, and thus displayed she entered the tent and came before the King, announcing that her mistress sent greetings to the King, and to my lord Gawain and all the other knights, except Yvain, that disloyal traitor, liar, hypocrite, who had deserted her deceitfully. "...But Yvain has caused my lady's death, for she supposed that he would guard her heart for her, and would bring it back again before the year elapsed. Yvain, thou wast of short memory when thou couldst not remember to return to thy mistress within a year. She gave thee thy liberty until St. John's day, and thou settest so little store by her that never since has a thought of her crossed thy mind. My lady had marked every day in her chamber, as the seasons passed: for when one is in love, one is ill at ease and cannot get any restful sleep, but all night long must needs count and reckon up the days as they come and go. Dost thou know how lovers spend their time? They keep count of the time and the season. Her complaint is not presented prematurely or without cause, and I am not accusing him in any way, but I simply say that we have been betrayed by him who married my lady. Yvain, my mistress has no further care for thee, but sends thee word by me never to come back to her, and no longer to keep her ring. She bids thee send it back to her by me, whom thou seest present here. Surrender it now, as thou art bound to do."

[queer-ragnelle]

Sir Yvain before and after his victory in The Follies of Sir Harold by Phyllis Ann Karr

[cowabummers]

Sir Yvain's Letter

An idea posessed me whilst doodling the previous comic. Content warning for a revealing pinup and cat ears.

Wasn't even aware there was an Arthurian Pinup challenge being held by @gwalch-mei until this piece was half done. If you squint hard enough there's technically a duo in the picture (Yvain + his lion) so I'm scheduling it to post on Duo Day.

[versegm]

Random question vaguely inspired by a recent reblog: If there was one knight of the round table you wish either appeared, or had more relevance, in Fate/, who would you choose? (Personally, I want Yvain/Owain, the knight of the lion, to show up in more than just the skill description for Ruler Artoria)

Sir Lucan the Butler, aka Bedivere's brother. My reasoning is that it would be funny as hell to have a guy mostly known for handling paperwork in a round table filled with frontline warriors.

[stesichoreanpalinode]

I've been interested in the Arthurian legend recently, so I'd love to know your opinion on this topic. I'm sorry if this bothers you 🥺

Comparing the Queen boys with the Knights of the Round Table, who would they be? (Includes Merlin and Arthur if you like.)

Being all lovers of fantasy I think they could all probably give a much better answer to this question than I could, because I bet they all read the legends and thought about this very question.

It’s not my favourite mythic cycle so I don’t know too much about Arthurian legend but I do know it varies in different versions. Brian of course was born to be a pre-Raphaelite illustration of a scene from Tennyson but is he Merlin, wise weaver of magic, or Lancelot, torn between his sense of chivalry and his passion for a forbidden love? Roger is Sir Bedivere, both the lover of scientific fact in the Monty Python version and the loyal-to-the-end friend of the Morte d’Arthur. Or perhaps the Gawain of the early versions of the story, also loyal but a known lover of women - I could totally see him as the Gawain who matches wits with lady Ragnell. Freddie is another Tennyson/Burne-Jones Arthurian but can certainly do wise magician Merlin but also do-anything-for-love Sir Pelleas and Percival, quester for the Grail. Which leaves John, definitely from the metrical romances or Geoffrey of Monmouth, maybe Gareth, younger knight, or perhaps Yvain, just because of his lion…

What are your own thoughts?

ETA: and *of course*not a bother!

[cantillat-moved]

The more I read about Arthuriana the more I want to yell.

I'm so annoyed how Kay, Gawain and Percival were downgraded after megachad Lance was added -- nothing against Lancelot, I just think it is sad and a smidge of bad writing when you need to make others characters worse to make another look better.

Robert Graves commented that the early description of Cei "is close to the account given of the Sun-hero Cuchulain in his battle rage. But in the later Arthurian legends Cei has degenerated into a buffoon "—an aspect of the folklore process whereby old heroes must be downgraded (but not forgotten) in order to make room for new.

Meanwhile John Matthews comments how Gawain was still a hot-headed guy, but was still an accomplished adventurer before joining Arthur's court and a servant of the Goddess (an aspect that early Christians didn't like too much) but in at least one account he eventually even became the Pope ! And soon that he heard his buddy Arthur was in trouble he dropped everything and left Rome to help the guy.

And then there's Avenable, a girl who was from a family that got into hard times and disguised herself as a man and become a knight, going to many adventures and becoming a general. Merlin entrusted her with investigating a premonition that the Emperor had in his dreams and her stories are pretty much like any other hero: capable and full of excitement.

There's also Sir Morien, coming from the Dutch tradition, who was a mixed race with dark skin. His brothers-in-arms never once showing the prejudice that we see the dudebros bitching about "there ain't no women or blacks in my medieval fantasy ! " He was another cool knight with fun stories.

Originally Percival, Percival's sister and Bors were the ones who saw the Grail but after Lancelot and, subsequently, perfect boy Galahad made their way into Arthurian canon all the other ones were pretty much forgotten. Big sad.

So many cool knights were ignored by Malory, who is the biggest source nowadays. Like the knight who was just chilling as a dog, no lesson or anything there. Just dogo being dogo. Speaking of knights-as-animals there was also a she-wolf that was causing trouble and it was never said if she was a female werewolf or just wolf, but her children joined Arthur -- if they were wolves or werewolves is also up in the air. Some legends says that Kay could hold his breath for 9 days, others says it was for 4 days. Another dude could hear a ant scratching itself 5 miles away. Yvain was also a very cool knight with his lion partner slaying all the beasts.