''Forsooth, she has a beard!'' -- Geoffrey Chaucer

You are fabulous! I love your positive energy and insights into my fav television show since I was 3 years old. Please react to the entire original series.

Frodo basically gave up everything to save middle earth. He carried the ring to the point his soul was basically ripped from him. In the end he didnt want to keep the ring because he wanted power or he wanted to control it, the ring became an addiction for him like gollum. Its like asking a drug addict to flush down their substance of choice and go cold turkey. Frodo made it to mount doom, he was inside the cave, he was able to make it that far before he wasnt able to let go of the ring. After the ring was destroyed, it didnt erase the darkness the ring had over frodo, he still felt the effects and he would forever carry the pain of the nazgul blade. while he failed to cast the ring into the lava , he didnt fail his mission. In the end the ring was destroyed because he was able to hold on for so long.

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Lovely work. Great summaries of a long line of works. Any chance you could recommend good pre vulgate works pertaining to Arthurian legend? Much appreciated

Are you still available?

Chrétien de Troyes

The definitive history would be by those famed scholars, the Pythons and their documentary "The Holy Grail!"

Thanks for the video! I also really like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight!

I've started Le Morte D'Arthur off the get go. I think mine is abridged but I figured I'd finish it off and go to other literature (the Green Knight next for me) and then circle back with an unabridged version :)

I use a wheat based sourdough with up to 20 percent rye for all my pies. It is extremely elastic and can wrap up anything. I sometimes use Swedish rye crackers to make the inside less soggy

I absolutely love your dress, you look stunning and thank you so much for this video 🙏💜✨ you are so great at this

That proves it is fiction.

This video was very helpful, I am studying King Arthur right now as one of courses at OSU. My professor is introducing Morgan Le Fay currently, starting off with more modern medieval literature. I'm excited to bring some light to her story today in class :)

Just in case this is helpful: Medieval Annie refers to a Robert Burns, but I know this author as Robert de Boron (he was French, so I assume 'Robert Burns' is the anglicised version of his name). So, if you're trying to search about the author, you'd be better off using the original French name (Robert de Boron), as this avoids confusion with the much more famous Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796).

do you play/recommend any ttrpg's in the genre?

Your comment that Frodo understand that his quest will not be “here and back again” is a great insight that I didn’t see before. Thank you for that.

Hi! I don’t know if you still look at these notifications because you haven’t posted in a few years, but I absolutely love your channel. As an Arthurian lit enthusiast your channel is a gem. I hope you come back to posting some time! ❤️❤️

Martin Mary Brown Linda Moore William

Beowulf instantly became one of my favorites after reading The Silmarillion in my second year of highschool. I got Beowulf in senior year and was probably the only one who enjoyed it 😅.

I am very eager to meet her ( Katie ) . But how can I meet her? 😢🥺😞

frodo i my fav chracter. but idk, even in the book, especially in the book. the yrs of being around the ring makes him want to leave. the movie leaves it up much more.

I love it❤

This is very well said. My story is very similar!

Are you gonna make another video

Typemoon's Fate series had a golden opportunity to work with this character and they love ambiguities to the point that they will invent some if they don't exist. And they also love King Arthur's lore. But when they got the chance, and to do it for their most successful title to date, they botched it up so badly, the character should not have been even mentioned by them at all in the end product. They blew her character out of control, just could not handle the multitude of attributes they tried to assign to her (which they never explored but assigned anyway), and ended up creating an OC that had nothing in common with the original, with a vaguely thematic similarity. In fact, the character they try to advertise as Morgan (and out of acknowledgment of the unfaithfulness to the source material, they don't add Le Fay), is a complete OC twisted into their own favorite tragic hero tropes, with the Round Table Knights' names and the witch labelling stuffed into her bio by force. In fact, this all started because they failed to even come up with a design to encapsulate her debauchery and ambiguity properly. It's overlooked because the OC and the story was engaging, but the original intention and marketing had been towards an adaptation, so that's a 2/10. All this is to say, Morgan Le Fay is a very heavy character, and even a franchise that likes to convolute whatever it can get its hands on, couldn't handle her. Truly sensational but at least DC and Marvel's versions take one aspect of her, roll with it and do well.

Philologist Andrew Breeze has a very interesting lecture on KZbin called 'The Real King Arthur: A 6th Century North British Hero'. It's very convincing compared to anything else I've come across over the years.

I don't know if you've picked up a copy yet but Tom Shippey has recently released a translation and commentary on Beowulf with Leonard Neidorf. Needless to say, it's excellent, and the hardback version is quite beautiful too. (It's released by Uppsala Books 2024.)

A lot of this historical/literary context informed the approach I'm taking with my own planned King Arthur novels. Morgan is the deuteragonist, the other hero of the story besides Arthur. They lead different lives, worship different gods, but are allies. They're family, after all.

I got: In the Pale Moonlight, For The Uniform,Once More Unto The Breach, Waltz, Sacrifice of Angels, and Way of the Warrior. What a show....

What about the once and future king ?

This Channel is my new reading list! I loved Chretien de Troyes and Mary de France when I read them a couple of years ago! Now I have the drive to read further medieval literature.

Would you mind if I used your version in a fanfic?

While I like various translations of both Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, including Tolkien's translations of both, I absolutely LOVE Heaney's Beowulf and Armitage's Gawain! 😊 Tolkien was far more scholar than poet, which is perfectly fine, and he did wonderful scholarship for both Beowulf and Gawain - and of course I love his works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - nevertheless Tolkien often wrote with a heavy hand and the result is leaden prose or verse in his translations (as well as his own LOTR, though his style fits his own saga). That heaviness may suit some passages of Beowulf and Gawain, but it ill-befits many other passages of both works. This is particularly true for Gawain, because the Gawain poet (aka the Pearl poet) often wrote with a light touch and employed amusement and humor as well. None of this really comes through in Tolkien. But it does shine through and brilliantly so in Armitage. And of course both Heaney and Armitage were offered the British poet laureate. Armitage accepted and serves as the current British poet laureate, whereas Heaney declined the honorific due to his cultural sympathies with and loyalties to his own Irish people. Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and perhaps Armitage may win it someday. Given Heaney and Armitage's tremendous poetic powers in translating an ancient fellow poet's ancient poem, i.e., Beowulf and Gawain, it's no shame to say Tolkien is an inferior poet to Heaney and Armitage, even though Tolkien is the greater scholar who still produced good translations of both works.

Good list and I am glad u are referring to older books and the sources rather then modern ones.

1. I think starting with Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and reading all of it isn't necessarily a bad way to start. However, it takes some time to get used to Malory's style. I think it took me a good 50-100 pages if not more. Nevertheless Le Morte d'Arthur is a very enjoyable read and it has high literary value. 2. Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chretien de Troyes have some good bits, but there is a ton of mundane if not leaden prose to slog through. I know they're indispensable for contributing to the Arthurian tales (e.g. de Troyes's contributions include the Arthur-Lancelot-Guinevere love triangle and the quest for the holy grail), but I wouldn't say they're indispensable in terms of great literature. Geoffrey of Monmouth and de Troyes aren't on par with greats like Homer, Virgil, Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer, or even Malory. Honestly I think they can be skipped entirely if one simply wants to read good Arthurian tales. I think they're mostly useful for scholars and the like-minded who wish to engage the primary source material. 3. I'd strongly recommend Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I really loved the Simon Armitage translation, but Bernard O'Donoghue in the Penguin Classics series is second. Tolkien, Merwin, Raffel, and others were good, but I preferred Armitage and O'Donoghue. Armitage (and to a lesser extent O'Donoghue) does a hauntingly beautiful translation; he spins an engrossing sense of magic and mystery with his words. Like other translators, Armitage attempts to capture the original's use of unrhymed alliterative verses followed by five brief rhymed verses ("bob and wheel") for poetic effect, but his work sounds better overall than most others to my ears. And Gawain is quite a short read. If you have an average reading speed (around 250 wpm), then you can easily read the whole tale in an afternoon or less. 4. Tennyson's Idylls of the King is beautiful poetry, though it reflects Victorian sensibilities, for better and for worse. But it's classic and certainly worth reading if one wants to read the best Arthurian literature for pleasure rather than for study. 5. For a modern take, and one of my favorite books of all time, I love The Once and Future King by T.H. White (+/- The Book of Meryln). In fact, I know this is likely sacrilege to most scholars, especially Medievalists, but I think if you can only read one Arthurian tale, ancient or new, then I'd opt for The Once and Future King, followed closely by Malory.

I really like the Simon Armitage 'Sir Gaiwain' and the Heaney 'Beowulf'. I am lucky enough to have the Folio Society's edition of Heaney's 'Beowulf'. it really is to die for.

Really enjoy your Booktube niche, & your engaging/informative take. Thanks for the bookish inspiration!

Perfect! Ive been amassing a lot these books and wasnt sure where to (or not to) start.

Irish Actress Katie McGrath really did a awesome Morgana Pendragon.

That Merlin origin sounds WILD, I had no clue. Will definitely be checking that out

Are you planning on making any more videos?

With how many episodes I love in this series, it'll probably be easier for me to select my seven 'least favorite' episodes. As a little family tie in, Andrew Robinson's (Garak) real-life daughter Rachel Robinson, appears in the episode 'The Visitor'. And wouldn't it be neat if Garak joined Section 31, after rebuilding Cardassia post-Dominion War?! Since Cardasia probably joined the Federation, and the Obsidian Order became part of Section 31. Just a thought...

Thanks for this great video!

Hey Annie great stuff, very interesting. I have always been a huge fan of King Arthur and his noble knights. Right now I am making my way through Jack Whyte's semi historical epic, but I have never read any of the foundational literature about the legend. Thanks for the recommendations. Also I was wondering if you will do anything on what a consider the best most accurate retelling of the Arthurian myth. That being Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Just want to say I am not dead yet, cheers.

I'm writing a novel based on the legend, your videos are very useful! thank you!

Read Saint Tysilio's History of the Early Britons, born in 590AD, translated by Bill Cooper, easily found online. Also worth checking out: Wilson and Blackett's work, The King Arthur Conspiracy, Moses in the Hieroglyphics, etc.