Synopsis of the Arthurian Legend

Twenty-Five novels is a lot of reading! It occurred to me that readers may not know what is in the full Medieval Arthurian saga to even know if it is something they want to commit their time to. What follows is a synopsis of the entire saga that I will be covering on my book series, The Swithen. This synopsis covers what will happen in my book series, and doesn’t necessarily follow the story of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, because I will be weaving back in some of the stories found in the earlier sources that were omitted by Malory when he wrote Le Morte d’Arthur.

There will be spoilers as we are giving a synopsis of the entire series, but I will try to keep them to a minimum and preserve the best surprises.

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Before Arthur comes

The story begins in Hell. The devil is upset that it is more difficult to lead people into temptation since Christ redeemed humankind, just 450 years prior. He decides that he will impregnate a human woman and give him powers he can use to deceive people. The devil chooses a woman and kills off her entire family until he gets to her. She is put into a tower until she has the baby. When he is born, she has him baptized, removing the devil’s influence, but allowing him to keep his powers This is Merlin. At the time, an illegitimate child meant automatic death by burning, and the baby Merlin is able to use his powers to save his mother at the trial for her life.

Meanwhile, evil Vortigern has the king killed and seizes the throne. The true heirs to the throne, Pendragon and Uther, go into hiding. Vortigern welcomes in the pagan Saxons, letting them settle and gradually take over the country. He crosses a line when he marries the daughter of the Saxons, shocking the largely Christian population. His own son goes to war against him and wins, becoming king for a short while before he is poisoned and Vortigern returns to the throne. 

Vortigern is afraid that Pendragon and Uther will come back, so he wants to build a tower, but it keeps collapsing. He summons Merlin to help. Merlin tells him there is a red and white dragon under his tower. The red dragon is the one still on the flag of Wales. He digs them up and they have a spectacular fight. Merlin tells Vortigern that the red dragon’s victory foretells his fall at the hands of Pendragon and Uther.

The brothers do return and overthrow him. Pendragon becomes king. In here is a spooky story in which an advisor attempts to outwit Merlin—never a good idea. Pendragon goes out fighting the Saxons. Uther becomes king. Merlin makes the Round Table and Stonehenge for Uther. 

Where Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur begins

Uther becomes obsessed with Igraine, the wife of his ally. He sends his friend Ulfius to woo her. She refuses the king and they flee his feast, causing Uther to go to war on them, but Uther is so besotted with Igraine he is uselessly crying in his tent. Ulfius suggests the help of Merlin. Uther can have one night with her, Merlin promises, if he will give Merlin what he asks for the morning after.

Merlin changes Uther to look like Igraine’s husband. He gets in and has a night with her. The next morning, Merlin tell Uther that he has fathered a child and this is the price of his night of pleasure. Advisors induce Igraine to marry Uther. Uther convinces her to give the baby away. Merlin has Uther contact a modest knight and have him raise the child as his own. The child is Arthur.

Uther dies, and the Round Table goes into the possession of King Leodegrance, Guinevere’s father.

Arthur’s early reign

The land is left without a king. Merlin says that God will send a sign of who should be king, and a sword in a stone appears, unable to be drawn by any but the future king. Flash forward until Arthur is fifteen (in my series I have a novel imagining his childhood, and another filling in his adolescence and training). Arthur and his foster brother Kay come to London to compete in a tournament. Having forgotten Kay’s sword, Arthur grabs the one from the churchyard, identifying him as the rightful king.

The kings of the time dispute the rule of a young king and declare war. Arthur has some major battles, most assisted by Merlin’s magic. Arthur receives challenges from Rome and other kings. Arthur unknowingly sleeps with his sister (also the mother of Sir Gawain, Arthur’s future best friend), and with her, fathers Mordred. Told by Merlin that this child will one day destroy his kingdom, Arthur has all the children born that day put on a ship and set adrift. Mordred survives. Arthur receives the sword Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. 

The adventures begin

The setup over and Arthur installed as king, Arthur himself moves into the background, while his knights have different adventures in the world he created. 

First we have the spooky, mysterious story of brother knights Balin and Balan. The tale focuses on Balin, who kills a key person and makes Arthur furious. Balin sets out to win Arthur’s wars in order to make up for it, but he keeps running into bad luck, and worse luck, with seemingly no end to his losing streak. Then he triggers an event that causes God to take vengeance on the country. This creates The Waste Land, which can only be repaired by achieving the Holy Grail, and gives King Pelles a wound that will not heal, making him the Fisher King. The Balin and Balan story reaches a tragic and haunting end.

Arthur and Guinevere get married. At the wedding, a huge stag, thirty hounds, two dogs, and a woman charge in. Then the stag runs out, the hounds run out and a knight carries the woman away. Gawain, who will go on to become King Arthur’s best friend, has to retrieve one thing, King Pellinor, who will go on to become the father of Percival, another, and a third knight quests after the last. They have three separate but intriguing adventures—and at the end, Arthur receives the Round Table as part of Guinevere’s dowry. He swears the knights to the Pentecostal Oath and sends them out to right wrongs where they find them. This is the official beginning of the Knights of the Round Table.

Lancelot arrives

In a story left out of Le Morte d’Arthur, King Ban is betrayed and watches his city burn. His son—Lancelot—is kidnapped and raised by the Lady of the Lake. By now, King Arthur is installed at Camelot, where Morgan le Fay makes an audacious attempt to overthrow Arthur. When mature, Lancelot comes to court. He is the best knight by far, upsetting the balance of the court. At this point, the focus of the story shifts to Lancelot, and Arthur is only mentioned every so often. 

Now, two stories left out of Le Morte d’Arthur that will be reworked into The Swithen. Fearsome knight Galehaut and Lancelot fall into a love so deep it threatens to derail the kingdom’s destiny. Then the False Guinevere—the queen’s exact twin—succeeds to replacing the queen for a while, enough to drive a serious wedge into the royal marriage. 

In here, Percival joins Arthur’s court. A close and beloved friend of Gawain’s comes to court. The long-lost Mordred joins the court. Guinevere and Lancelot really like each other, which Arthur shows no public disapproval of. Meanwhile, King Pelles, the Fisher King wounded by Balan’s misdeed, sets up his daughter, Elaine, to deceive Lancelot into fathering a baby—that is Galahad. After Elaine executes another deception on Lancelot, driving Guinevere into a jealous rage, Lancelot loses his mind, requiring the major knights to go searching for him.

By now, the whole court is getting a little out of control and the knights are growing listless and arrogant. The peerless Galahad, whose superpower is his incredible virtue, comes to court. Then: The Holy Grail appears.

The Quest for the Holy Grail

The knights get a vision of the cup that held Christ’s blood and decide they must attain oneness with it. Arthur begs them not to go, because he knows it means the end of the Knights of the Round Table. The knights go anyway, but the difference is that now they are competing against each other, and for a prize; the award of virtue, not virtue itself.

The knights, in short, get their asses kicked. In an endless dream world in which spirituality mingles freely with reality, the knights meet actual angels and actual devils, and find holy men behind every tree. The knights are violent and their morals are those of knights—which God is not tolerating anymore. This doesn’t sit so well with the rowdy Knights of the Round Table, who can take on any mortal enemy, but cannot succeed in “heavenly adventures.” Most of them are killed or go back in shame, told by the angels to “go back to their waste countries and die.” 

Lancelot has been judged unfit to attain the Grail because of his impurity owing to his adulterous love of Guinevere. He renounces her and tortures himself to suffer for his sins. But Lancelot’s son Galahad, Percival and Bors are morally pure enough to be allowed into the presence of the Holy Grail. King Pelles his healed of his wound and the Waste Land once more returns to life.

Post-Grail adventures

The world is devoid of magic after the quest. New knights replace the old, but are not quite up to the same level. Mordred now knows that Arthur is his father—and that he tried to kill him. Arthur and Guinevere are getting into their fifties. When Lancelot returns, he throws aside his promise to renounce the queen and he and Guinevere’s affair burns hotter than ever.

When Guinevere is kidnapped by an arrogant young knight, Lancelot and Gawain set out to rescue her in an intrigue-packed standalone adventure. Guinevere sends Lancelot away in a jealous pique, only for another young woman to die for his love. Some of Gawain’s brothers are growing tired of the open affair, and attempt to get Arthur to act on it. When Guinevere is falsely accused of trying to poison Gawain, Lancelot comes to her rescue—accidentally killing a beloved friend of Gawain’s in the process. 

The kingdom collapses

Gawain cannot forgive the murder of his friend. Arthur owes a family loyalty to him, whom he has decades of history with. The court divides into relatives of Gawain and relatives of Lancelot. Lancelot and his armies decamp to France.

While Arthur knows that Lancelot didn’t intend the killing, and they could easy be reconciled, he is bent by his loyalty to Gawain. He goes to war with Lancelot, leaving Mordred in charge. 

Mordred kidnaps Guinevere and tries to force her to marry him. She escapes to the tower of London. While Arthur is at war with Lancelot, Mordred claims that Arthur is dead and becomes king himself. Returning from his war with Lancelot, Arthur plunges directly into a fatal conflict with his own son.