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King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition
King the very name summons visions of courtly chivalry and towering castles, of windswept battlefields and heroic quests, and above all of the monarch who dies but who one day shall return again. The Arthurian legend lives on as powerfully and enduringly as ever. Yet there is an aspect to this myth which has been neglected, but which is perhaps its most potent part of all. For central to the Arthurian stories are the mysterious, sexually alluring enchantresses, those spellcasters and mistresses of magic who wield extraordinary influence over Arthur's life and destiny, bestriding the Camelot mythology with a dark, brooding presence. Echoing the search for the Grail, Carolyne Larrington takes her readers on a quest of her own - to discover why these dangerous women continue to bewitch us. Her journey takes in the enchantresses as they appear in poetry and painting, on the Internet and TV, in high culture and popular culture. She shows that whether they be chaste or depraved, necrophiliacs or virgins, the Arthurian enchantresses are manifestations of the feared, uncontainable Other, frightening and fascinating in equal measure.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published October 17, 2006
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About the author
Carolyne Larrington
47 books105 followersCarolyne Larrington is a Tutorial Fellow in English at St. John's College, Oxford.
Dr. Carolyne Larrington teaches medieval English literature in the college, ranging from the earliest Old English to the beginning of the Renaissance period.
Dr Larrington's research interests are in Old Icelandic literature, medieval women's writing, European Arthurian literature, and, most recently, medieval emotion. She has published on Old English and Old Icelandic wisdom poetry, compiled Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook and edited two collections of essays on the Old Norse Poetic Edda. Her revised and expanded translation of the Poetic Edda, just published, is the standard. Her most recent monograph is King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition which appeared from IB Tauris in June 2006. Her book on sibling relations in European medieval literature, and a new popular book on British folklore, The Land of the Green Man will be published in 2015; a BBC Radio 4 series based on the folklore book has also been commissioned. She is currently editing a collection of essays on emotion in Arthurian literature, and a Handbook to Eddic Poetry. She has been until recently editor-in-chief of the journal Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, and the President of the Viking Society for Northern Research, the British scholarly society for Old Norse study.
(from https://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/945-714/Dr-C...)
Dr. Carolyne Larrington teaches medieval English literature in the college, ranging from the earliest Old English to the beginning of the Renaissance period.
Dr Larrington's research interests are in Old Icelandic literature, medieval women's writing, European Arthurian literature, and, most recently, medieval emotion. She has published on Old English and Old Icelandic wisdom poetry, compiled Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook and edited two collections of essays on the Old Norse Poetic Edda. Her revised and expanded translation of the Poetic Edda, just published, is the standard. Her most recent monograph is King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition which appeared from IB Tauris in June 2006. Her book on sibling relations in European medieval literature, and a new popular book on British folklore, The Land of the Green Man will be published in 2015; a BBC Radio 4 series based on the folklore book has also been commissioned. She is currently editing a collection of essays on emotion in Arthurian literature, and a Handbook to Eddic Poetry. She has been until recently editor-in-chief of the journal Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, and the President of the Viking Society for Northern Research, the British scholarly society for Old Norse study.
(from https://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/945-714/Dr-C...)
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 5, 2016
I want to enter a preliminary review and later I'll update it when I actually finish the book. I'm reading it now and am thrilled by it but can't say yet whether I think it's good or not. It's not a fantasy, it's not historical fiction, it's not even a novel. It's not non-fiction either. It's a documentation of all the many romantic fantasies written that feature the women with magic in Arthur's life. It fascinates me because these characters, predominantly Morgana le Fay, Viviane, Nyyneve, and Igraine were also characters in my latest novel, the Elves of Avalon. This author, Larrington, consistently points out how these women were known in the middle ages as Feys, Fairies, or Elves, so people should not be surprised that in my books there are Elves in Britannia during the Dark Ages.
Larrington's book is well written and is based on tons of good research. I have to argue with her though when she says if authors don't base Arthurian novels on Malory's Morte de Arthur, readers will dismiss their work as rubbish. I think the romances written in the 13th and 14th century are rubbish, featuring characters that never existed, such as Lancelot. Sorry folks but he's just a piece of pure fiction. Larrington cites the historical sources but ignores the evidence they show of the true history of Arthur's battle for Britain and the women who surrounded him who had magic. Arthur had a bit of magic himself, being descended from an Elf (grandmother on his mother's side).
But the part of Larrington's book I love his her reveals, based on little known medieval romances, of the personalities and abilities of these magical women, the Enchantresses. I'll post my final verdict on the book after I finish reading it.
Larrington's book is well written and is based on tons of good research. I have to argue with her though when she says if authors don't base Arthurian novels on Malory's Morte de Arthur, readers will dismiss their work as rubbish. I think the romances written in the 13th and 14th century are rubbish, featuring characters that never existed, such as Lancelot. Sorry folks but he's just a piece of pure fiction. Larrington cites the historical sources but ignores the evidence they show of the true history of Arthur's battle for Britain and the women who surrounded him who had magic. Arthur had a bit of magic himself, being descended from an Elf (grandmother on his mother's side).
But the part of Larrington's book I love his her reveals, based on little known medieval romances, of the personalities and abilities of these magical women, the Enchantresses. I'll post my final verdict on the book after I finish reading it.
April 25, 2016
The Actual Best
October 16, 2018
Dry and academic in tone, but it packs a huge amount of information into a thin volume.
August 4, 2020
wonderful
August 7, 2021
An interesting book.
April 12, 2016
An interesting book, but I found it very hard going in some places.
Read
March 17, 2018Gotta love when the last 60-ish pages of the book are just endnotes and references and so you finish it much faster than expected... though 'fast' is relative here, since it still took me, like, six week to get around to finishing it. Whoops.
This had some interesting points. One glaring error, which was a reference to "Northern English" wildman traditions, when it should've been Northern British -- quite different in the context, which a previous reader had indignantly pointed out in the margins. I imagine it was just a slip, though, as there was a correct reference to the same traditions later on in the book.
I can think of a few modern Arthurian adaptations that would've been interesting to discuss in the chapter on recent works (BBC Merlin, for a start, which has a very interesting portrayal of Morgana, and Philip Reeve's Here Lies Arthur which has an intriguing take on gender and the Lady of the Lake in the form of Gwyna), but I guess if you tried to include every Arthurian adaptation you'd be there for eternity.
This had some interesting points. One glaring error, which was a reference to "Northern English" wildman traditions, when it should've been Northern British -- quite different in the context, which a previous reader had indignantly pointed out in the margins. I imagine it was just a slip, though, as there was a correct reference to the same traditions later on in the book.
I can think of a few modern Arthurian adaptations that would've been interesting to discuss in the chapter on recent works (BBC Merlin, for a start, which has a very interesting portrayal of Morgana, and Philip Reeve's Here Lies Arthur which has an intriguing take on gender and the Lady of the Lake in the form of Gwyna), but I guess if you tried to include every Arthurian adaptation you'd be there for eternity.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews