#the byelorussian tristan had NO right to be as good as it is

[povestotrischane]

obsessed with how the end of the byelorussian tristan just,,, implies that tristan and isolde might get a happy ending, like,, even though we know they don't, the byelorussian tristan just goes "no. it isn't known what happens to them. not in this version of the story being told in this exact moment. we don't know what happens to tristan and isolde. they could get to live this time."

[c0rpsedemon]

hiiii can u please advise me on where to start with reading arthuriana ? i am fascinated by it and love it very much , but i just read arthurian encyclopedias and such … i would like to read actual texts if that makes sense . thank u :-)

!!!!!! don't worry you make perfect sense and i'd absolutely love to give you a few starter text recommendations, i'm going to link ways to read all of them online bc physical copies are uh. incredibly hard to come by for most texts. also, brace yourself for fifty wildly different variants of each name, usually there's some sort of appendix you can read to know who's who, or you can rely on context clues.

first off i legally have to recommend the byelorussian tristan bc it's. kinda a part of my brand. and my favorite book... ever, even outside of arthurian stuff. it's believed to be one of, if not the last entry in the arthurian canon, and certainly in the tristian canon, and it's so good. it's a retelling of a lost slavic text that was a retelling of tavola ritonda, the italian retelling of the prose tristan. it's really well-written and the only version of the tristan and isolde story where they both get to live, highlights include galehalt basically asking tristan to join his marriage (i say marriage in reference to his relationship with lancelot bc theyre kinda. uh. bfs would be an understatement), palomydes having two swords (it's bc he's That skilled at fighting and also bc he's bisexual) as well as lending one of those swords to tristan, galahad briefly showing up to fight tristan and lancelot, then getting embarrassed that he fought his dad and just? dying or something?? and the worst kei name variant out there (geush.....). overall, i have to recommend this one bc if it had been my starter text i know i would have immediately read every medieval text i could find, and bc it's the text that actually made me like tristan.

also i'd like to note that tavola ritonda, the byelorussian tristan's italian predecessor is pretty good if i remember correctly, i never finished it bc i got busy with school stuff but i know i liked what i did read of it and that a lot of arthurian tumblr would recommend it. if i wasn't on green knight lockdown i'd probably pick it back up right now.

other tristan-related recs include chevrefoil by marie de france, it's incredibly short and makes me kinda sad for unknown reasons, it's also what got me invested in tristan and isolde's relationship, strassburg's tristan, yet another text i started and then dropped bc of school related reasons, i remember i liked what i read of it though, trystan and esyllt, a welsh tristan and isolde text which is. incredibly different from the normal tristan and isolde story, but it's short, lighthearted and fun in the way welsh texts are, and uhhhh the prose tristan which i mentioned earlier, i've read the whole thing and it didn't really stand out to me (albeit its been a while) but it's what most people will point you to if you want to get into tristan and isolde.

stepping away from tristan and isolde, there's culwch and olwen, which is believed to be the first arthurian text, it's kinda short and fun in the way that welsh texts always are, it's about this kid whose stepmother cursed him to only be able to marry the daughter of this giant, who will never let her marry bc there's some curse that says he'll die on her wedding day, so the giant gives this giant list of impossible tasks and arthur, culwch, kei and co. set out to do them and only like. 3. are actually mentioned more than once. it's fun and i like welsh kei.

next are the dutch texts which are. so good. they're so good. they're all right here bc i don't feel like linking each different one. my first rec is lancelot and the hart with the white foot, which, despite being named after lancelot, is really about gawaine. it's short and fun and the remarkable (lancelot x gawaine) fans adore it. next is the roman van walewein which is. absolutely off the rails. basically this magic chessboard shows up in arthur's court and walewein (gawaine) has to go after it, he ends up murdering a bunch of people, there's a talking fox who tries to steal gawaine's armor, gawaine gets thrown in his love-interest-of-the-week's torture dungeon, which has a secret tunnel connecting it to said love interest's rooms which she apparently had the arcitect of drowned (which is treated like a perfectly fine and normal thing by the text btw) where they presumably do bdsm or something, gringolet (gawaine's horse) kills a dragon with his hooves, it's wild. then there's walewein ende keye, kei tries to get rid of gawaine, gawaine goes and proves his honor, kei gets banished, gawine's a bit of an unlikable prick in this one but it's entertaining. and then there's morien, it's about this 13 year old who shows up looking for his deadbeat dad and gawaine and lancelot help him out, gawaine hijacks the plot but it gets back to morien by the end, also they have to rescue arthur. there are more dutch texts but these are just my favorites.

this has gotten longer than i originally intended so uhhh there's lanval by marie de france which is short. guinnevere's homophobic but in a funny way.

then there are the big famous ones and why they're bad starter texts, le morte de arthur and sir gawain and the green knight. le morte's giant and in middle english, if you must read it go for a translation, i've heard good things about this one but i haven't read it, overall it's not that good, especially in comparison with the vulgate and alliterative morte, don't read it unless you're already familiar with med lit and really invested in the characters, it's good for the book of gareth and a few short parts but overall kinda eh. as for sgatgk, it's just not a good first gawaine text bc he's so wildly different than he is in literally everything else, here are a ton of translations, it's best to go into it with the point of view that it was his first quest and looking for the themes and symbolism (gawaine fox motif my beloved) instead of the common approach which is looking for the gay kisses bc you'll get a lot more out of it that way.

i'd also like to anti recommend a solid 3/4s of modern arthuriana, especially anything derived from the *nce and f*ture k*ng by th wh*te or the m*sts of av*lon by m*rion z*mmer br*dley bc jfc those two have done. so much harm. to the genre. "modern" works i'd recommend usually tend more towards victorian poetry, highlights including anything by tennyson that doesn't involve tristan and isolde bc he has bad takes on them, but especially his stuff regarding elayne of astolat/the lady of shallot, bedevere, and gareth and lynnette, as well as everything by william morris but especially sir galahad a christmas mystery and palomydes's quest. you can find pretty much any victorian poem on the camelot project so i'm not going to go looking for them. also i've heard good things about ea robinson's poetry. but despite the few good modern works out there, it's best to get rid of all pop-culture based notions of what arthuriana is before you go into the actual canon.

i feel like i'm going to remember at least three texts i left out like an idiot but this has gotten long enough, if you have anymore questions just ask i absolutely love introducing people to arthuriana.

[c0rpsedemon]

right now i'm finishing up the ✨mystery piece✨ that i originally meant to finish in like, 30 minutes, but i need something to work on after that and i'm incapable of making decisions on my own without the influence of my tumblr followers and if no one points me in the right direction i'll end up drawing none of the above SO my options are

- my isotristanmydes agenda (isolde x tristan x palomydes á la medieval literature)

- my isotristanmydes agenda but pride themed

- that one part of the byelorussian tristan where isolde keeps warning palomydes that a knight is drawing closer and raising the stakes until she basically says "yeah there's not 5 knights but there's 1 tristan and he'll kill you if you stay" and it's a good scene

- that other part of the byelorussian tristan RIGHT before palomydes gets sent to super mega turbo hell via tristan's sword (he asks him to be his worst enemy again in the most homoerotic way possible then gets injured, shows up one more time, dies offscreen and is mentioned like,, twice in the next two pages then never again)

- that other part of the byelorussian tristan where galahad realizes he beat up his father and tristan and gets sad and embarrassed and then just DIES from it

- last byelorussian tristan one i prommy but that one part where galehot asks tristan to join his marriage (to lancelot)

- the hnoc piece i literally started reading med lit for and planned out in november

- voice cracks piece i've had planned since february

- y'know how narcissus enters seaside by leaning against a doorway? well-

- narcissus... but i have something specific in mind i can't quite put into words...

- two of my fucking. udad ocs (the butch and femme ones, specifically)

- gerrymike as an apology to my tma followers who are still here (i have,,, something very specific in mind)

- statement givers indulgence (jordan kennedy. i am talking abt jordan kennedy)

- mike crew specifically bc i miss him <3

- an actual fucking icon with daughter dooley on it

- the binding of horned head ft. no children by the mountain goats

- the boy (ogoa)

- sarah avery and annie messer from that one scene i think abt every day of my life

- how i think a meeting between daughter dooley and the dead queen would play out

- vera blevins right before she made a run for it

- railroad man genvy (hey, at least i'm not haint thirsty)

- self portrait to feel better abt myself (i'm embarrassed just to say it)

- that mermaid from early last month. you know the one. she's nice to draw.