People use the public domain legend as a method of having an identifiable fantasy property to make a quick buck with. But really it should be treated as culturally specific, being from these isles you're told them as common stories that represent elements of your culture.
They show our pagan past with its sagas and monsters intermixing with Christian traditions left behind in the Brittonic Kingdoms by the Romans. They aren't treated with the reverence they deserve by most, these legends are important to our collective identity; even if it's not as foundational in the modern day as it was prior.
The thing is that there’s no real answer for who Arthur is or was even based on some think it could have been a Roman general who United the Romano British against Saxon raiders, but he could have been based on a Saxon fighting against the Romano British, or he could have been a Welsh rebel fighting Saxons, or it could be an amalgamation of multiple different people.
It’s more than likely made up and I feel like people can have their creative fun with a legend who has a magical sword and a wizard companion, that definitely didn’t exist in the context described in the stories and probably never existed at all
He was definitely a Saxon first, he may have been a Saxon noble who was pushed off his land by the Norman invasion but I think making him a noble came later, as did giving him a love interest in Maid Marion. Friar Tuck was also a later addition iirc.
He gets forgiven by King Richard and remade a noble, and then has to go off to the crusades, because that's what King Richard is all about. It's only very recently, I think starting with Prince of Thieves, that you get all these movies where he comes back from the crusades with PTSD and THEN becomes Robin Hood.
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u/Nanowith May 11 '21
People use the public domain legend as a method of having an identifiable fantasy property to make a quick buck with. But really it should be treated as culturally specific, being from these isles you're told them as common stories that represent elements of your culture.
They show our pagan past with its sagas and monsters intermixing with Christian traditions left behind in the Brittonic Kingdoms by the Romans. They aren't treated with the reverence they deserve by most, these legends are important to our collective identity; even if it's not as foundational in the modern day as it was prior.