Arthur the King

In Allan Massie's novel of King Arthur he cleverly uses the key points of the legend - Arthur, Merlin, his lover Morgan le Fay, his wife Guinevere, the various knights, the sword excalibur, the round table. He opens with the sword excalibur in the stone. Knight after knight, even the King of the Orkneys fails. Then comes Arthur, young and callow. He succeeds. He is the new king. You need to be well versed in the Arthurian legends to know where Massie has pillaged existing stories rather than invented his own twists to the tale. The Camelot of the novel is, incidentally, on the River Tweed. We learn a little of the origins of the magician Merlin (he was the son of a Roman centurion), how he nurtures the child Arthur, but Massie's Merlin becomes a dirty old man. Arthur's great friend and servant is Cal. Together they are involved in many a scrap. The novel is about the complete life of Arthur, how he welds the nation together, but gets involved in European wars. How the nation fragments when he isn't around to keep it in order. Massie also includes the Holy Grail in this enthralling historical novel. We may think we know the Arthurian story, but in Massie's hands it comes across freshly minted.