The Fury Of Gawain

THE FURY OF GAWAIN & OTHER FRENCH MEDIEVAL ROMANCES

adapted by Pablo Garcia-Matthews

cover by Michel Borderie

 

While the other warriors of Camaalot and Logres blind themselves climbing toward the Holy Gradal, Gawain's quest is into the bilious depths of his own fury... 
 
The stories of this volume are taken from French Medievalia, mostly of the 13th century, exploring the vivid and strange Arthurian universe of the French romance-writers; at once easily understood and internally-consistent, yet rife with duality and depth.
 
In 'The Pure Fool and the Gradal', the familiar narrative of the grail-quest is retold with wry folk-wit and genuine charm; yet in 'The Women of the Mounds' the quest is revealed to have a grim, dark origin... 'The Cruelty of Kei' undoes everything you thought you knew about King Arthur's foster-brother; while 'The Fury of Gawain' shows an unfamiliar side to the man who once challenged the Green Knight, and depicts a King Pellinore quite unlike the charming, clumsy character which T. H. White depicted in The Once and Future King. Meanwhile 'The Child from Avalon' allows a glimpse into the interconnected world of the Medieval adventure heroes, as King Arthur watches the birth of the son of his sister Morgan le Fée and her husband Ogier the Dane, a paladin of Emperor Charlemagne.
 
Eight magical and bloody sagas of Medieval France are presented together for the first time in this volume, some of which have never before appeared in English. Capable at once of the thunderously triumphant and the cruelly subversive, these selected stories represent landmark developments in the tradition of French fantasy, and illustrate the tradition's raw power and seductive draw even from its very beginning.

CONTENTS:

The Women of the Mounds - from the Elucidation (c. 1200)
The Pure Fool and the Gradal - from an ancient Breton folktale, printed by Emile Souvestre in Le Foyer Breton, 1844
Tristan and Iseult - from Tristan by Béroul (c. 1150)
The Fury of Gawain - from the Palamedes (c. 1200)
The Cruelty of Kei - from the Perlesvaus (c. 1200)
The Death of Tristan - from the Suite du Tristan (c.1300-1450)
The Child from Avalon - from Histoire du preux et vaillant chevalier Meurvin, fils d'Oger le Dannois lequel par sa prouesse conquist Hierusalem, Babilone et plusieurs autres royaumes sur les infidelles (1580)