CHESMAYNE
Midi: Ceremony
Arthur
King Arthur fantasy chess set. Designer stamped
and dated Chessmen. Hand crafted and
highly detailed chess pieces made from durable Alabastrite. The most famous story of all time is that
of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round
Table. It is a time of chivalry and
good deeds, with quests for the Holy
Grail and Knights slaying dragons. It tells of Merlin,
the greatest magician that ever lived, and how the love
of Queen Guinevere and Lancelot
brought the downfall of Arthur and Camelot.
King 3 3/8”.
01 Legendary KI in ancient Britain and leader of the Knights of the Round Table.
02 Arthurian: of or pertaining
to Arthur, who, with his knights, forms the subject of a great body of medieval
romantic literature. Aided by the magic of the wizard Merlin, KI Uther Pendragon assumed the appearance of KI Gorlois of Cornwall in
order to seduce Ygraine, the wife of Gorlois.
From this union Arthur was born and hated by his step-sister, the enchantress
Morgan Le Fay. He became KI by doing
what no one else could do: pulling the sword Excalibur from the stone into which Uther had plunged it as he
died. Gaining the allegiance of many
unruly KTs, Arthur established his court at Camelot. He married Guinevere, and set about stablising the kingdom. More KTs joined him, including Lancelot, Perceval, Galahad, Gawain and Bedivere. These were
the KTs of the Round Table. The Holy Grail appeared at Camelot, leading to a great quest by all the KTs for this elusive object which led to the deaths of many
KTs. Some of the KTs including Bors and
Galahad came close to the Grail, but only Galahad (Lancelot’s son) gained the
true vision of
it. Arthur was mortally wounded but
three mystrious QUs came on a black barge and took him to Avalon to be healed. It is said that
one day he will return when the land needs him. So he is known as ‘Rex Quondam Rex Futurus’ (‘The Once and
Future KI’). The sword Excalibur
derives from the Irish sword ‘Caliburn’.
The Isle of Avalon was identified by Malory as Glastonbury (‘The Isle of
Glass’). Yet more likely Avalon derives
from Celtic tales of the Isles of the Blest (Mag Mell, Tir nan Og, etc) mythically located in the Western ocean.
03 Semi-legendary KI of the
Britons (6th century) and national hero. He may have been a war leader in the west of England called Arturus. In the Arthurian legend Locrinus (Latin) is the basis of the
name of England (Welsh: Loegres or Logres).
04 Logres: one of the earliest
names for Arthurian Britain and remains the name for the ‘inner’ Britain as the
secret heart of the land.
05 Lud (Latin): renamed
Trinovantum as Caer Lud or Caerlundein, later called London.
06 Mary, the ‘Blessed Virgin’:
England has been traditionally known as Mary’s Dowry for centuries. Joseph of Arimathea founded the first Christian church at Glastonbury, a humble edifice of
wattles which was dedicated to ‘Our Lady Mary’. He is supposed to have brought Mary with him to England after the death and resurrection of her son.
07 Round Table: institution set
up by Arthur at the behest of Merlin.
The table seated, according to various sources, 25, 50 or 150 knights,
each of whom was dedicated to the service of the Round Table code of chivalry
and met twice a year to exchange news of their adventures. Esoterically it symbolizes the coming together of peers, human and otherworldly, to watch over the fortunes of humanity (Clas Myrddyn).
From Goddess web page: Jan
Newton…….
I found several
interesting connecting threads to subjects we have recently discussed here
while doing some research on the eternal triangle. I located the following through a site I found while following
the trail of Guinevere, part of another famous triangle: Arthur, Guinevere and
Lancelot (or Mordred, per some Celtic versions of the legend). There is a ton of great material here,
http://www.oberlin.edu/~arester/arthur.html, written by Aaron Rester in May,
1996.
He links the
Celtic Lugh (Welsh Lleu) to Arthur, both of whom are incarnations of a sun god
“which probably stems from a hypothetical Indo-European root somehow linked to
agriculture”. In “The White Goddess”,
Graves discusses Lleu (Lugh) extensively.
Rester notes a connection between Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon, to
Bran, son of the Welsh sea god, Llyr; Graves traces Bran all the way back to
her original goddess form (whose name escapes me at the moment) from, I believe,
Greece - Isis, did you keep any notes on this?
In an
examination of numerous myths and legends, he traces out the recurring theme of
an annual battle between two men for the possession of a woman, who represents
the right to rulership over the land; when one loses the woman, he loses the
right to rule; quite literally in some cases, the kingdom falls apart while the
bereft KI seeks to regain his lost QU. This is very reminiscent of the origins of the
Hercules/king sacrifice, done originally twice a
year, then annually - the kingship was tied to his marriage to the priestess,
who represented the land.
There are two
separate strands tying into the seasonal notion of the abduction/battle
sequences in the various myths and legends.
One strand focuses on the beginning of May - the first of May was the
date of the festival to Beltaine (Belana in her original form - originally a
goddess she was transformed, when the goddess fell out of favor, into a
male). Rester cites the following
characters from “Cwlhwch and Olwen”:
Gwyn ap Nudd (originally linked with war and death), and the battle he
wages with Gwythyr ap Greidawl (“Victor, son of Scorcher”) over Creiddylad,
daughter of Llud (the Welsh Nuada).
Gywn and Gwythyr are destined to “fight forever each May-calends (the
first of May) till the day of doom”. He
also cites a very early version of the tale of Trystan and Isoldt - which
decided the feud over Isoldt that one would have her while the leaves were on
the trees, and the other when they were bare (the one who made this choice lost
the woman forever since there are some trees that never lose their
leaves).
A second
separate strand is connected to Arthur and to Lugh, and to August 1 (possible
tie-in to Isis’ most recent post about Sirius and the Egyptians?), the date the
Celtic festival of Lugnasad is held to mark the end of summer. Lugnasad is an assembly (nasad) or festival
to commemorate a death - the waning of summer. I speculate that perhaps originally the death that was
commemorated was an actual one - the ritual sacrifice of the king!
More later - found another fascinating chess tale in these
materials.