Creators: TH White

Creators

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T.H. White

When is comes to the legends of the western world, there are few that can top King Arthur.  There are many who have written on the subject, and there have been writings about the writings.  Without a doubt, the story is a good one, a wonderful adventure and tragedy.  Out of all of the renditions, however, my favorite comes in the form of TH White's The Once and Future King.  And now, to twll you why I think so.

White's rendition of the Arthurian story is broken up into five sections: the Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-made Knight, Candle in the Wind, and The Book of Merlyn.  It has all of the familiar trappings of the story (excalibur, merlyn, the knights, yada-yada) but what makes it something special is the personality with which it is infused.  In this story, Arthur starts his life as Wart, future squire who is trained by Merlyn, a half-witted wizard full of anachronistic statements and frustration.  We have Lancelot, a grotesquely ugly man who has a masochistic urge to punish hims self through service to the round table, and yet is still the perfect knight and steals the heart of the queen.  

If "Wart" sounded familiar, then you guessed right.  The Disney classic, The Sword in the Stone is based on the first book of his epic.  He actually got to see it made, and ultimately thought the songs were just too silly and they missed all of his serious points.

And for all you musical fans, Camelot is based on The Once and Future King.  As far as I'm concerned, the best on-screen Arthur, goes to Sir Richard Harris.

The reason i love this version of the story centers around its main character.  Arthur, in White's story, is an ordinary man.  He starts out as a typical boy, desiring adventure but expecting none.  Merlyn, decides to teach him through the animal kingdom, turning him into various animals to show him how their societies work so that he might know how to run one better.  It's important that Merlyn cannot tell him what to do: Wart must figure it out on his own.

Once adventure strikes, he comes up with a plan to try and make the wild world better: Might for Right.  He gathers the greatest knights in the world and uses them as a task force to bring peace an enforce justice.  This works for a time.  But when trouble is stirred up in the king's own home, havoc begins to destroy his world.  And there, at the end of his life, waiting for the final battle, he realizes his mistake: Might cannot be used for right.  He realizes that the world he fights over, the lands and the names, and the territories, don't matter:  People matter.

Give Terrence White a read.