British Myths and Legends
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘British Myths and Legends’
The terrible monster Grendel, secure in the knowledge that no blade can bite him, bursts into Hrothgar’s hall expecting another meal of man-flesh.
The lordly Hall of Hrothgar, King of the Danes, has been plagued night after night by a grotesque creature named Grendel. Offspring of Cain through many wretched fathers, he dwelt in swamps, feeding off the flesh of men, and feared neither sword nor spear. But tonight, Beowulf and his Swedish warrior-band have answered Hrothgar’s call for aid; and lying on soft pelts and rugs, they wait in uneasy slumber.
In the days of Henry VIII, eminent Scottish historian John Major looked back to the reign of Richard the Lionheart and sketched the character of legendary outlaw Robin Hood.
In his Historia Majoris Britanniæ (1521), the eminent Scottish historian John Major (1467-1550) reflected at length on the life of King Richard I. Then all of a sudden he began to speak of Robin Hood (or Robert, as he called him), thus becoming the earliest authority we have for the tradition that Robin was a contemporary of Richard and John.
Sir Kay has left his sword at home, and his young brother Arthur is determined to find him a worthy blade for the New Year’s Day joust.
Sir Kay has no sword for the New Year’s Day joust, but his younger brother Arthur knows that on Christmas Day, within the Great Church of London, a marvellous sword was found struck deep through an anvil into the stone beneath. He decides Kay must have it, unaware of the prophecy written in gold about the sword: Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.
Geoffrey of Monmouth tells the tale of how Merlin first came to the attention of Britain’s kings.
Fifth-century tribal leader Vortigern has taken refuge from Saxon invaders in Snowdonia, but his new fortress keeps collapsing. His druid priests say it must be sprinkled with the blood of a virgin’s child — and rumour has it that young Merlin had no father.
A persistent dream prompts a Norfolk tradesman to walk all the way to London in the hope of bettering his lot.
The following English folktale is an adaptation of an ancient legend found in ‘The Thousand and One Nights’, and told and retold of places from Cairo to Dundonald Castle in Scotland. This version places it in Swaffham in Norfolk, and is told by antiquarian Abraham de la Pryme.
An enterprising knight rids the Bishop of Durham of a troublesome boar, but the price comes as a shock to his lordship.
The Pollards were gentry with land near Auckland Castle, seat of the Bishops of Durham. By tradition, each new Bishop of Durham was presented by the Pollards with a handsome falchion (a kind of sword), accompanied by a speech recalling how an ancestor ‘slew of old a mighty boar, and by performing this service we hold our lands.’