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bloodygranuaileBecause it is dark and cold and my brain is very tired and everything is on fire, I decided it was time for some comfort reading, so I scanned my shelves looking for some tropey Anglophile ten-year-old girl fiction, of which I never seem to run out. I went with a used copy of Jane Yolen’s Sword of the Rightful King that has been sitting on my TBR shelf for a while although I cannot remember where I got it. I have at least two other pieces of unread Arthuriana sitting on that exact shelf but this one was the shortest and seemed the easiest feel-good read.
Sword of the Rightful King is a retelling of the part of the Arthur legend where he pulls the sword Excalibur out of the stone, therefore making a big show to the rest of the country about how much he really is the legitimate High King of all Britain (no strange women lying in ponds in this telling). In this version the sword is named Caliburnus, and a couple other characters have names out of older alternate versions of the legend than the ones most people think of--Merlin is Merlinnus, Guenevere is Gwenhwyfar (the proper Welsh spelling), Camelot is Cadbury (like the creme egg).
The main plotline here is that Merlinnus has contrived the whole sword in the stone thing specifically in order to shut up the various clans and tribes and lords and chieftains that doubt Arthur’s claim to the whole island, by putting the sword in the stone himself and casting a spell on it that no man can remove it unless Merlin says the spell letting him. Our villain, Morgause, the North Witch, tries to interfere with this, because she is hellbent on assassinating Arthur and using her three of her four terrible sons--plus her one non-terrible son, if possible--to spy on him. The one non-terrible son, Gawaine, is despised for mysterious reasons by Merlinnus’ new apprentice, a young boy named Gawen who has a number of secrets, of which his real identity is the most easily and soon guessed if you are familiar with the type of children’s fiction this book is (hint: this book was written after the ‘80s).
There are some weaknesses to this book, like that Gawaine is our main viewpoint character for most of the first half of it and then is basically relegated to a secondary character for the second half. The breaks it makes with the original legend are modern and not too overdone with this particular story, but not exactly what I’d call pioneering within the children’s fantasy genre overall for a book published in 2003. But it is fun and familiar and satisfying the way going to Medieval Times and eating chicken with your hands off a pewter plate is fun and familiar and satisfying, and has similar vibes to works like T. H. White’s The Once and Future King or the BBC’s Merlin. Overall I am glad that I went with this one instead of jumping right into The Mists of Avalon, which might also be appearing soon in this winter’s hibernation reading.
Sword of the Rightful King is a retelling of the part of the Arthur legend where he pulls the sword Excalibur out of the stone, therefore making a big show to the rest of the country about how much he really is the legitimate High King of all Britain (no strange women lying in ponds in this telling). In this version the sword is named Caliburnus, and a couple other characters have names out of older alternate versions of the legend than the ones most people think of--Merlin is Merlinnus, Guenevere is Gwenhwyfar (the proper Welsh spelling), Camelot is Cadbury (like the creme egg).
The main plotline here is that Merlinnus has contrived the whole sword in the stone thing specifically in order to shut up the various clans and tribes and lords and chieftains that doubt Arthur’s claim to the whole island, by putting the sword in the stone himself and casting a spell on it that no man can remove it unless Merlin says the spell letting him. Our villain, Morgause, the North Witch, tries to interfere with this, because she is hellbent on assassinating Arthur and using her three of her four terrible sons--plus her one non-terrible son, if possible--to spy on him. The one non-terrible son, Gawaine, is despised for mysterious reasons by Merlinnus’ new apprentice, a young boy named Gawen who has a number of secrets, of which his real identity is the most easily and soon guessed if you are familiar with the type of children’s fiction this book is (hint: this book was written after the ‘80s).
There are some weaknesses to this book, like that Gawaine is our main viewpoint character for most of the first half of it and then is basically relegated to a secondary character for the second half. The breaks it makes with the original legend are modern and not too overdone with this particular story, but not exactly what I’d call pioneering within the children’s fantasy genre overall for a book published in 2003. But it is fun and familiar and satisfying the way going to Medieval Times and eating chicken with your hands off a pewter plate is fun and familiar and satisfying, and has similar vibes to works like T. H. White’s The Once and Future King or the BBC’s Merlin. Overall I am glad that I went with this one instead of jumping right into The Mists of Avalon, which might also be appearing soon in this winter’s hibernation reading.