#lady morfydd

[wandrenowlereacts]

When in doubt, tell your twin children that their younger half sibling’s father is Julius Caesar. Naturally, neither Morfydd nor Owain believe their mother.

Based on this little tidbit below that I found in the Arthurian Name Dictionary, where apparently Oberon is allegedly the son of Morgan le Fay and Julius Caesar. 🤣

[queer-ragnelle]

Welsh Triads | More quotes at Arthuriana Daily

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

Need to vent some writer's overload off before starting on The Boy King again, so here's a list of random funny/interesting bits from the King Arthur thing, which I have elected to call The Matter of Britain:

The main characters of The Boy King are literally an Englishman (Arthur), a Welshman (Kay), an Irishman (Bedivere) and a Scotsman (Gawain).

At one point in Le Fay Morgause tells Morgan about the whole 'sleeping with Arthur to sire Mordred' thing, and Morgan genuinely has to figure out if the reason she's grossed out by it is because she's gay or because of the incest. Needless to say when Nimue is just as grossed out Morgan's relieved it's not just her.

Speaking of Morgan, not only does she act a lot like Guinevere's jilted ex, but when she got sent to the nunnery by Uther (in an attempt to curb her alleged affairs, which backfired dramatically) Guinevere ingratiated herself to Uriens and basically took over raising Ywain and Morfydd, so at various points pre-Morgan trying to kill Arthur they genuinely do act like divorced wives fighting over custody of their kids.

One fun thing I did re:Kay is adapting his Culhwch-era superpowers. Most of them make it through intact and are the result of Merlin doing unethical magical science on him, but one I kinda had to change is the 'grow a hundred times his own height' one, because... why isn't this guy in every battle? Regardless, what I came up with instead is this: Kay, in touching any man-made structure, is able to extend his consciousness to the entire structure, essentially being able to 'see' anything that happens in it. Rather naturally, this makes him invaluable as both a seneschal and a spymaster, but not as useful on the battlefield as growing to the size of a small tree.

One of the subtler jokes is that the Ladies of the Lake, whilst strange and unknowable to the POV characters, are remarkably... modern, to us. Gawain describes their 'strange, ethereal way of dress', and assuming I do it right it takes you a while to realise he's talking about a t-shirt and hotpants. Arthur mentions their 'perculiar manner of speech' because they're talking about things like insurance deposits and compound interest. Morgan is completely stunned that they practice democracy for three of their four heads of state.

Guinevere has a coterie of knights serving her directly, like in a lot of the myths. The key difference here is that a great many of them are women, and Guinevere herself is no particular slouch at defending herself - she's not going to singlehandedly defeat an army any time soon, but she's a pretty skilled archer and has been in her fair share of tussles. In fact, her and Arthur meet on the battlefield outside her father's castle, where she's serving as her father's squire. Hilariously, however, Arthur doesn't recognise her until years later, when she brings up an argument they had on the battlefield and he realises he'd called his bride-to-be ugly and instantly regrets all his decisions.

Nimue's probably the character I've changed the most from the ""originals"" - she's Arthur's half-sister and the younger sister of Morgause and Morgan, for one, and only barely affiliated with Avalon for another. Her relationship with Merlin is... complicated, and how she traps him is equally so, but she's also way more effective a Gandalf figure than him, in that she actually helps Arthur figure out how to use Excalibur instead of just throwing him an ungodly powerful weapon and telling him to deal.

Although one really funny bit with her is that, after she traps Merlin in a tree/cave, she shows up at Camelot and asks Arthur for the Court Sorcerer job, citing as her qualifications 'I locked your last Court Sorcerer in a tree'. Several of Arthur’s more dickish knights, not believing that a mere woman could possibly defeat Merlin, go out in search of him and are all promptly killed by Morgan. Arthur, on the other hand, is not as bummed about Merlin being gone as he might have been, largely because he knows Merlin is... well, Merlin.

For a long while I was iffy on what to do with Gaheris and Agravaine, but then Chronicles of Darkness casually mentioned the idea of Agravaine: Vampire Slayer, so now I’m only iffy on what to do with Gaheris.

I need to do way more research on this before it becomes more than a passing fancy, but one idea I keep coming towards is that, when Arthur visits Ireland, he’s kinda blown away by how... not a shithole it is. Because, like, unlike in The Warlord Chronicles, 6th Century Ireland was at the beginning of what a lot of historians call Ireland’s Golden Age, largely because Ireland was mostly unaffected by the fall of the Roman Empire and the ensuing collapse. Most of the sources we have from those time periods were made in Irish monasteries, and the island was essentially the one bright spot in Europe's Dark Age. Take that, combine it with the general sense that some form of magic is causing technology to advance at a rate faster than can be expected - hence why people go from the occasional full suit of chainmail to full plate armour in about 30 years - and Ireland’s practically a utopia, a utopia that's peeking over the proverbial wall of the Irish Sea at Britain and going "...You cool? Because you don't seem cool, what with all the screaming and stabbing each other." In fact, I may go so far as to say that a lot of Arthur's ideas for Camelot are made in childhood visits to Ireland, but all of this requires a more in-depth look at 6th Century Ireland than I'm currently able to do, although I will get round to it eventually.

And that's my list of ten. If you have any questions about the things on it, or if there's a specific part of the Arthurian mythos you want to know about, please send me an ask - seriously, I'm at that point in the writing process where I kinda need someone to vent off to, and my brother's sustained enough of my ramblings.

[wandrenowlereacts]

According to the Triads, King Urien is a twin brother, who then becomes the father of twins, Owain and Morfudd. Urien's sister Efrddyl also becomes the mother of triplets, Gwrgi, Peredur and Ceindrech (Bromwich, 2014).

On the other hand, in accordance with the "Historia Meriadoci Regis Cambrie", Urien kidnapped a young woman called Orwen, who was also herself the twin sister of Meriadoc son of King Caradoc of Cambria (Day, 2019).

In conclusion, there is a lot of twins in King Urien's life (including what plausibly seems to be his second wife).

References

Bromwich, R. (2014). Trioedd ynys prydein: The triads of the Island of Britain. University of Wales Press.

Day, M. L. (2019). The story of Meriadoc, King of Cambria. Routledge.

[wandrenowlereacts]

Morfydd scolds her twin brother, Owain, for getting into a fight; while Owain doesn't regret getting into said fight.

[queer-ragnelle]

The Saga of the Mantle | More quotes at Arthuriana Daily

[queer-ragnelle]

i would love to see more dream fancasts for arthurian stuff

Okay! I made fancast collages back in 2021 when I was stuck sick in bed and couldn’t make any real art. Some of my concepts have changed since then like a younger Urien or darker haired Owain the Bastard, but I’m still fond of my earlier ideas. What do you think? :^)