Tea at Trianon: Igerna: Mother of King Arthur

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, June 22, 2024

Igerna: Mother of King Arthur

From Pendragonwy:

There is no evidence that Uther existed as an identifiable individual much before Geoffrey wrote his History (though he is named in the poem Pa gur, dated to around 1100 by Sims-Williams, 1991: 41). However, medieval Welsh traditions could suggest that Geoffrey’s Uther may have evolved into a wizard figure independent of Merlin’s influence. In the medieval Welsh Triads we read that one of the Three Great Enchantments of the Island of Britain was caused by Uthyr Pendragon. He then taught this enchantment to Menw, Teirgwaedd’s son (“little son of Three Cries”).

This Menw is also known from Culhwch and Olwen where he too is a great enchanter: “should he come to a heathen land he might cast a spell over [Arthur’s men], so that none might see them and they see everyone.” Menw also casts a calming spell over a giant mastiff and transforms himself into the likeness of a bird. In the 15th century, a triad lists Menw as one of the Three Enchanter Knights of Arthur’s Court (Bromwich 1991: 215-16). These views of Uthyr and Menw as shape-shifting magicians are a far cry from Geoffrey’s portrait of Uther as a military man, but are reminiscent of the enchanter Nectanebos. (Read more.)