On Cley Hill

The rest is history, or Arthur Lee legend A lost summer country hollow, an Inn, The Green Man, cheering on a great British win, An Avalon that isn't there in the morning. A dream awoken to this light's cold day Where in spite of my shin-struck wounded need For thundering hooves in defence of these islands, Thundering hooves in defence of these islands, He doesn't come back. 'And he was never Called Arturus Rex, whoever he was And in some accounts not even Arthur And he was never mediaeval and never a king.' And who cares? Not Me. I stand on tis tumulus Of boyhood, layers of chalk written on clay, Craters and knolls, his monk-buried legend Scarred in my flesh, his doubt-defying Desperate defence of wonder (which Is what he was) an earth ditch like mine; His weapons, TOYS of tin and strapped wood and skin Like mine, on a May hill that may have been Badon And may have not, blades of peaceful grass troubled only And not just now - by rain and ghosts And a White Horse, God-large in memory, God-large still.

A Trip To Badon Hill

Filmed on location on the A362 (from Frome, Somerset, to Corsley Heath) and Cley Hill in Wiltshire. The consummate British victory at Badon Hill is one of the only two Arthurian facts recorded in the Anglo Saxon chronicle as occurring around AD 515-8. (The other is his death at Camlaun around 537-9: both these historical facts are key moments in the legend but the rest is the stuff of Arthur Mee children's encyclopaedias, Celtic myth and glorious mediaeval romance.) It's very unlikely that Cley Hill was the historical Badon Hill but that's not the point about this or any other aspect of the legend: for me as a boy it was and that is Arthur's most potent (and super-real) realm. The town you see some 3 miles from the hill is Frome, where I grew up, learned about and enacted King Arthur, from which I used to hike to this summit and from which we bussed on this baking hot July day. The soundtrack is our own "Woke King Arthur" and William "Billy" Blake/Gustav Holst's "Jerusalem" from our album "King Arthur and Me: The Opera". https://peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/al... Wake me, wake me He come out on top, he beat Hordes of heathen, he pluck Swords of lightning from the Stone and rippling BC AD 6 and 6/9teenth Century Justice might and mercy king of all chivalry. Wake me, wake me He Arth and Ursus, he yoke Rome and Logres, he ride Wings and horses, he steal Grails from Annwn as a Norman knight a bird of prey an earthed angel tree, Celtic god a Dark Age white horse galloping free. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. Wake me, wake me He ever present, he a Church-hilled dragon, he the King of Europe, never Heard of England, he a Druid henge a hollow hill a forest a sea British May King ever changing eternity. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. (spoken) You who think you defend This lost land of Logres From drowning migrants For your offshore profits You're not Arthur's Britons Follow your money GO! He fights invaders who claim Lost Land acres from the Drowning migrants, for their Offshore profits, he’s the Lose yourself to save yourself they don’t want to see Release the Pax Britannia brand of Arthur-ity. Woke King Arthur In the Twenty first Century. Wake King Arthur Yeah Wake King King Arthur Yeah Wake King Arthur YEAH! The rest is history, or Arthur Lee legend A lost summer country hollow, an Inn, The Green Man, cheering on a great British win, An Avalon that isn't there in the morning. A dream awoken to this light's cold day Where in spite of my shin-struck wounded need For thundering hooves in defence of these islands, Thundering hooves in defence of these islands, He doesn't come back. 'And he was never Called Arturus Rex, whoever he was And in some accounts not even Arthur And he was never mediaeval and never a king.' And who cares? Not Me. I stand on tis tumulus Of boyhood, layers of chalk written on clay, Craters and knolls, his monk-buried legend Scarred in my flesh, his doubt-defying Desperate defence of wonder (which Is what he was) an earth ditch like mine; His weapons, TOYS of tin and strapped wood and skin Like mine, on a May hill that may have been Badon And may have not, blades of peaceful grass troubled only And not just now - by rain and ghosts And a White Horse, God-large in memory, God-large still. And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold Bring me my arrows of desire Bring me my spear, O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire. I will not cease from mental fight Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land.

The Light Within The Lamp of Britain

 @PeacocksTaleMusic  "Logres is the light within the lamp of Britain" says King Arthur in Rosemary Sutcliff's thrilling version of the stories. And whenever I go on the train through Westbury, I feel again what I felt as a boy growing up in nearby Frome - that the white horse God-huge atop the valley side is Arthur's, eternally about to ride again to save us from mundanity. The musical soundtrack is "Gwenhwyfar" which we wrote together in different centuries. I wrote the words in the 1980s; Maz the music in 2022 and we recorded it in 2024. Lord Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved: Cross on invincible shield, blood-red, Dragon on young-summer green, red, The terrible clatter of returning hooves. I never quite believed. Always feared him Dead. But he always came. Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved: Swift white charger swooping like a spear On the bonfire builders, the wolvers of women, Scourging the rat run barbarian inroads, Animal tracks of attacking Saxon, His spur-tensed Britons beat back the Beast. And little the faith I had yet in Arthur, The Angel campaigner, strong as light, His sun-bright stars above the wicked forest Seeming to fade. Rusty the scabbard, Still magic the sword. And, once more, he came. I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession. At last I understood. The flincher from spears, Medraut, was part of Arthur, his shadow, Chancel and gargoyle had to be cancelled Where all deeds are drowned, all swords returned: Avalon. And I’ll run no more. I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession. Night and this nunnery will fall. Ravens Will flock on the gore. Let others keep A glimmer, a glorious page, of Logres alight Until the dawn. My confession’s done. Still my heart waits for hoofbeats. (Still, my heart waits for hoofbeats…) © Gareth Calway 1991 (first published by Aude Gotto in my King of Hearts publication "Coming Home")

Lady Guinevere

A new recording of this for the new album https://peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/peacocks-tales-the-sapphire-wedding-album

Belle ami, si est de nous, ne vous sans moi, ni moi sans vous.

Let them play at boyish games round
A table. Though walled up, bound,
In an unpublished garden, stone
Tower with window, all alone,
This court still revolves around me.
I twist them all round my pretty
Little finger, a studded ring:
The champion knight, the poor king,
Modred, Gawain, my Lancelot.
It’s the only power I know.

Who waits… and do not wait to see
The object of his worship pass,
Wasted, into this looking glass,
Wheat-hair, rose-lips, unsown, should he
Choose to deny himself – and me.

He comes through enchanted forests,
Rough-horses, haunted castles, mists;
From slaying giants, big bad knights:
Barons with feudal appetites;
Impossible quests for Our Lady,
Sowing wild seeds Love meant for me;
Obsessed so with courtly sin and
Confession – Indulgence’s twin;
Greets Artos, old friend – clash of mail
(So grieved his crown still lacks a graal,
So tedious!) He comes to me

Who waits… and do not wait to see
The object of his worship pass,
Wasted, into this looking glass,
Wheat-hair, rose-lips, unsown, should he
Choose to deny himself – and me.

© Gareth Calway 1991

credits

This Guinevere lyric is written in imitation of the French romance verse form (octosyllabic couplets giving a lighter, faster feel than the English iambic pentameter) and evokes the medieval Guinevere of the troubadours of Provence rather than the Gwenhwyfar of Celtic myths and of Dark Age history. We wanted this Guinevere to sound contemporary and confident, chipping against the beat of the courtly love tradition in which she was a love object rather than a love subject.

Gwenhwyfar

All our own work, though in different centuries. I wrote the words in the 1980s; Maz put them to music in the 2020s. This is the grand finale of the British folk front side of the new Sapphire Wedding album ("Peacocks Tales, launch and listening party on Bandcamp Sunday Dec 1 5 pm) and, particularly after the instrumental section recapitulates the various strands we've pursued in unison and harmony: folk song, poetry, British storytelling and the combination of all three. It's a worthy subject for this, the long glories of the Arthurian legend narrated in the style of ancient Welsh alliterative verse as they come to their tragic end, imbued with ancient mysticism and Celtic myths of the cycle of the seasons, and from the point of view of Gwenhwyfar, joined by Bedwyr, the dwindling Round Table and the centuries of elegising bards after the bridge.) A very different Gwenhwyfar from the cocky Norman minx of track 6. Lord Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved: Cross on invincible shield, blood-red, Dragon on young-summer green, red, The terrible clatter of returning hooves. I never quite believed. Always feared him Dead. But he always came. Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved: Swift white charger swooping like a spear On the bonfire builders, the wolvers of women, Scourging the rat run barbarian inroads, Animal tracks of attacking Saxon, His spur-tensed Britons beat back the Beast. (Then Llugh fought battles within himself, Cei fought his own rule, Bedwyr fought Llugh, And some sought long for the holy caldron, Sought it like a spoil of war, And, gentle as light, my Beloved loved me.) And Medraut gnawed through the golden years Myrddin called a threshold to the dark, And its beacon. Medraut, eyes on me Like a dog’s on the moon, snapping his moment. To Camlann the coastland, carried me off. Gone my Beloved, my Beloved I mourn. Bridge And little the faith I had yet in Arthur, The Angel campaigner, strong as light, His sun-bright stars above the wicked forest Seeming to fade. Rusty the scabbard, Still magic the sword. And, once more, he came. I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession. At last I understood. The flincher from spears, Medraut, was part of Arthur, his shadow, Chancel and gargoyle had to be cancelled Where all deeds are drowned, all swords returned: Avalon. And I’ll run no more. I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession. Night and this nunnery will fall. Ravens Will flock on the gore. Let others keep A glimmer, a glorious page, of Logres alight Until the dawn. My confession’s done. Still my heart waits for hoofbeats. (Still, my heart waits for hoofbeats…) © Gareth Calway 1991 credits from PEACOCK'S TALES (The Sapphire Wedding Album) Maz: lead vocal, acoustic guitar Gaz: bass, percussion, harmonium, howls, vocals and voice in Part 2, common flute The film combines a seasonal cycle - Medraut the winter king to Arthur's May king and with Gwenhwyfar's autumnal mood as Logres falls into the dark - with a lake supplying the hints of Celtic water divinity and our splendidly spacious heathland-situated alma mater (UEA) standing in for Logres, Camelot and civilisation.

The Prophesy of Merlin from "King Arthur and Me - The Opera"

"Druids have the roots and springs of Britain at their fingertips.  They can soar like eagles through all the light and dark places of the heavens. They can know the stars, read the future, even change shape. And this is The Myrddin, the Oak Druid, the greatest of them all. He and Britain are one. Let him help you."  from "Jennifer's Gwenhwyfar" a playscript about some school students and their drama teacher putting on a play abut King Arthur which comes alive in their lives which will be published to accompany the Opera on May 1st on  https://www.blogger.com/blog/pages/1688276452031645275

The old Welsh tune is a treat to sing and you can feel why the armed forces still use it to inspire themselves in tight places. It dates from the Wars of the Roses and the 1461-1468 siege of Harlech Castle which the usual lyrics describe but I know it from a later 60s in my Somerset primary school - where the folk boom found its way onto the curriculum - and from the film 'Zulu.'

The background collage of football crowds represent the warring tribes of Britain (then as now) over which High King Vortigern presided. We don't know his name - Vortigern is just his title - so I've called him King Breck (= breached, broken). The Romans had left and taken with them the political idea of 'Britain' (Britannia) which before Rome only the Druids (and briefly Boudicca as an anti-Roman alliance) had ever conceived. 

The Oak Druid Merlin's vision of a strong and united Britain requires a stronger, wiser, larger and less self-centred ruler than Breck.  Uther gets closer but his son Arthur achieves it. 

That's all in the future. Behind this dialogue between Merlin and Breck, the noisily divided crowd is not really won over and will only be quieted on the next track "Arthur Britain's Making".

Breck’s small eye revolving his treasure -
Little Britain and all it contains -
From Merlin he steals a vision
His tiny mind hardly sustains:

"Your castle, King Breck, keeps collapsing 
Because built on the underground lair
Of two warring dragons, the red split
In the white's jaws of victory there.

"The red dragon stands for Britannia, 
The white for the English-to-be 
And your red worm is turning - and driving
The white dragon into the sea."

"But the red dragon's head is young Uther!"
Says King Breck, "And it ought to be mine!"
"My Breck's Isle exists on division,
I’m the crack in Great Britain's behind."

Merlin magically helmets young Uther,
Who cleaves to his dead captain's wife.
She believes he's her lost war-dead husband 
In the hottest night of her life

And bears him a son, an Arth/Ursus,
A high noon in our deepest night sky,
The May-Winter King of a Lost Land
That Was Never, but Is, and Can't Die.

Let a nation divided/
In battle be joined,
Raven and Eagle 
Conceiving the dove ||
As the Little is lost in the Greater Britain
Let Arth/Ursus cleave with heart unfailing
Till dividers learn with quailing

Hate is conquered by Love.credits

Blood on the Corn : from King Arthur and Me - The Opera

In AD 60, at the time of Boudicca's revolt, the Romans slaughtered the druids, unique to Britain, on their holy island of Mon (modern Anglesey). Mon (Roman Mona) was the druids' stronghold and the druids gave the British Celts their only shared sense of 'Britishness' . They were otherwise a collection of warring tribes, easy to divide and rule, initially as client kingdoms. Destroying the druids and their unifying spirit - which Boudicca mobilised into an actual British army of united Eastern British tribes - was key to Roman Imperial annexation of Britain. The legend of King Arthur is an enduring and ever-developing expression of that Celtic Britishness through many centuries, two different faiths, two different genres (mythology and romance) several invasions, different ethnicities and languages not to mention transmutations through Brittany and Normandy into the whole of Northern Europe and back to Britain form Europe after 1066 and from Tudor Wales after 1485. It has a reality beyond reason and historical intellectualising. In a way it is a phantom but as CS Lewis said no less real for that. Besides, legends have to start somewhere. Real people got killed. As with the druids, behind the mists of history, there was blood on the corn.

Gwenhwyfar (from "King Arthur and Me - The Opera")

Part 1 The recorded version omits verse 3. Lord Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved: Cross on invincible shield, blood-red, Dragon on young-summer green, red, The terrible clatter of returning hooves. I never quite believed. Always feared him Dead. But he always came. Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved: Swift white charger swooping like a spear On the bonfire builders, the wolvers of women, Scourging the rat run inroads of Europe, Animal tracks of attacking Saxon, His spur-tensed Britons beat back the Beast. (Gone my Beloved, my Beloved I mourn: Then Llugh fought battles within himself, Cei fought his own rule, Bedwyr fought Llugh, And some sought long for the holy caldron, Sought it like a spoil of war, And, gentle as light, my Beloved loved me.) And Medraut gnawed through the golden years Myrddin called a threshold to the dark, And its beacon. Medraut, eyes on me Like a dog’s on the moon, snapping his moment. To Camlann the coastland, carried me off. Gone my Beloved, my Beloved I mourn. Part 2 And little the faith I had yet in Arthur, The Angel campaigner, strong as light, His sun-bright stars above the wicked forest Seeming to fade. Rusty the scabbard, Still magic the sword. And, once more, he came. I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession. At last I understood. The flincher from spears, Medraut, was part of Arthur, his shadow, Chancel and gargoyle had to be cancelled Where all deeds are drowned, all swords returned: Avalon. And I’ll run no more. I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession. Night and this nunnery will fall. Ravens Will flock on the gore. Let others keep A glimmer, a glorious page, of Logres alight Until the dawn. My confession’s done. Still my heart waits for hoofbeats. (Still, my heart waits for hoofbeats…) credits Maz: lead vocal, acoustic guitar Gaz: bass, bodhran, howls, cymbal, support vocals in Part 2

The closing aria of "King Arthur and Me- the Opera" (releases May 1st). The lyric, first published in 'Coming Home"(King of Hearts Publishing) in 1991, is based in form and spirit on the elegies, eulogies and 'death bed confessionals' of ancient Welsh poetry. From memory, while Celtic poetry shares the unrhymed alliterative qualities of Anglo-Saxon poetry, the line is unbroken and more lyrical, the rhythms and cadences more lilting and the assonance more marked. In other words, I tried to make the English sound as Welsh as possible.

Maz wrote the minor key tune and sings it beautifully here. Gwenhwyfar ( "white phantom") is very much the dark age Celtic wife of her beloved chieftain Arthur here, not the Norman courtly lover she later became in French romance tradition. ("Guinevere", track -.) Over these earlier versions, the atmosphere of Celtic mythology in which Arthur (Artos) is a god and Gwenhwyfar the land itself, still hangs like a mist, just as Robin Hood was the eternal spirit of the greenwood as well as an outlaw in a specific period of Norman-Saxon England. 

So here, partly in the tradition of a warrior's praise of a fallen lord, we have Gwenhwyfar elegising and eulogising Arthur as a god-like Dark Age Celtic warlord resisting Saxons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain and Gwenhwfar as both his lady and the Britain he was protecting.

(Medraut is the earlier Welsh name for Mordred.)

Where all deeds are drowned, all swords returned. Avalon.

 

And little the faith I had yet in Arthur,

The Angel campaigner, strong as light,

His sun-bright stars above the wicked forest

Seeming to fade. Rusty the scabbard,

Still magic the sword. And, once more, he came.

I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession.

 

At last I understood. The flincher from spears,

Medraut, was part of Arthur, his shadow,

Chancel and gargoyle had to be cancelled 

Where all deeds are drowned, all swords returned:

Avalon. And I’ll run no more.

I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession.

 

Night and this nunnery will fall. Ravens

Will flock on the gore. Let others keep

A glimmer, a glorious page, of Logres alight

Until the dawn. My confession’s done.

Still my heart waits for hoofbeats.

(Still, my heart waits for hoofbeats…)

On our forthcoming Arthur album "King Arthur and Me- The Opera" , this is a song with tune written and sung by Maz in the role of Gwenhwyfar. Here it is as spoken word in the style of the old Welsh elegies/ eulogies on the death of a beloved lord.

Lancelot and the Grail Maiden (the remake)

A most enjoyable collaboration with Bhas Allan who created the visuals for our atmospheric ballad. Lancelot and th Grail Maiden is about how the desperately grail-seeking but never quite finding Lancelot was seduced by the Grail Maiden (aided by the magic of Morgan le Fay who made her look like Guinevere) and thereby bore his son Galahad, who would replace his father as Arthur's Best Knight, find the Grail and thereby fructify the Wasteland. And that, Ron, is the paradox of our entire post-lapsarian exisence.

‘Come hither, Captain,’ the Grail Maiden sighs,
‘Thither away with me
To the rich wooded valley and holy well
My Waste Land dies to be.

‘Look! into the burning wilderness sun
Above the shadeless tree,
The high hawk of summer, hovering still,
The shadow of what will be:

‘The Shadowless One who waits above
To be born to you and me,
A Knight of Truth out of traitor arms
And infidelity.

‘Galahad the Pure, God-armed and winged
To bless our impurity
Unbearably born to steal your quest
And all of your shining glory.

‘Come hither, Captain,’ the Grail Maiden sighs,
And turns him a face so free:
His forbidden love, the queen of his dreams,
The end of all Chivalry.’

A faithless false knight in a failing light 
Fallen under a spell to see/ be
A Knight of Truth out of traitor arms
And infidelity.

Says he, ‘My heart is set on the grail
And wholly raised above!’
Says she, ‘It’s broken, and half is set
On your true adulterous love.’

‘I am her champion, she is my king’s,
I am their faithful knight!’
‘The Grail can’t be had for half a heart,
You can have that queen tonight.

‘Whisper my name, any name you like,
Any lover you want me to be,
A night of Truth in my traitor arms
And in fidelity.’

‘Come hither, Captain,’ the Grail Maiden sighs,
‘Thither away with me
To the rich wooded valley and holy well
My Waste Land dies to be.

 

 

She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd 
           The rein with dainty finger-tips, 
A man had given all other bliss, 
And all his worldly worth for this, 
To waste his whole heart in one kiss 
           Upon her perfect lips

Woke King Arthur

The title track from our forthcoming Arthur project "Wake King Arthur" and one that contrives to wake him up from his long sleep and come and save us from the appalling mess we are in at the moment. When a British government proudly adopts a motto like "Stop The Boats" as its shining motto and ideal you know we have fallen a long way from the Lost Land of chivalry and mercy, of might defending justice, which thrilled and inspired me as a boy. Wake me, wake me He come out on top, he beat Hordes of heathen, he pluck Swords of lightning from the BC AD 6 and 6/9teenth Century Justice might and mercy king of all chivalry. Wake me, wake me He Arth and Ursus, he yoke Rome and Logres, he ride Wings and horses, he steal Grails from Annwn as a Norman knight a bird of prey an earthed angel tree, Celtic god a Dark Age white horse galloping free. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. Wake me, wake me He ever present, he a Church-hilled dragon, he the King of Europe, never Heard of England, he a Druid henge a hollow hill a forest a sea British May King ever changing eternity. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. (spoken) You who think you defend This lost land of Logres From drowning migrants For your offshore profits You're not Arthur's Britons Follow your money GO! He fights invaders who claim Lost Land acres from the Drowning migrants, for their Offshore profits, he’s the Lose yourself to save yourself they don’t want to see Release the Pax Britannia brand of Arthur-ity. Woke King Arthur In the Twenty first Century.

Excalibur (A Dream Too Real To Live) from The Lost Land

"Throw back, throw back, Excalibur!"
I begged Bedwyr - and twice more -
"Throw back, grown black, Excalibur
That I might live forever
That Light might strike forever!
In wicked shifting thickets, the thorn
Of my heart's bursting must be:
Rose-clad, at home, and sleeping,
Or gone is the dazzling dream
That Artos, once man Arthur,
(Mis-mothered where life faltered
On long-fought malice Mordered)
Is God, is lord immortal:
A dream too real to live, thrown
Out of your world and hurled, look!

A Christ sword to Word your sky!"

From our forthcoming Arthur set "The Lost Land". The tune is the Lonely Ash Grove.

From our forthcoming Matter of Britain set "The Lost Land," this interpretation of the famous moment in the Arthur legends when the Mordred-conquering but broken king of Logres commands Bedivere (originally Bedwyr, first friend) to throw his enchanted sword Excalibur ('lightning blade') back into the Lake form whence it came, takes a number of things for granted which alas one cannot. First, that the Arthur legend is not the property of the English (as often believed) but of an older Celtic Britain which fought them for what became known as "Logres" the Lost Land - (modern Welsh Lloegr, England) - hence our use of a haunting Welsh tune. Second, the (to me) attractive Celtic 'otherworldliness' of the lyric is due - as in the verses of our "Morgan le Fay" - to my alternating use of two of the most common medieval Welsh meters (Morgan uses the other two) known collectively as cynghanedd (literally 'harmony')

The required intense focus on word-sounds and patterns here and in its sibling piece Morgan cast a spell over my composition which allowed magical thoughts to form. This in turn affected the choice of tune and the overall performance.

A Dream Too Real To Live (First Take)

"Throw back, throw back, Excalibur!"
I begged Bedwyr - and twice more -
"Throw back, grown black, Excalibur
That I might live forever
That Light might strike forever!
In wicked shifting thickets, the thorn
Of my heart's bursting must be:
Rose-clad, at home, and sleeping,
Or gone is the dazzling dream
That Artos, once man Arthur,
(Mis-mothered where life faltered
On long-fought malice Mordered)
Is God, is lord immortal:
A dream too real to live, thrown
Out of your world and hurled, look!

A Christ sword to Word your sky!"

From our forthcoming Matter of Britain set "The Lost Land," this interpretation of the famous moment in the Arthur legends when the Mordred-conquering but broken king of Logres commands Bedivere (originally Bedwyr, first friend) to throw his enchanted sword Excalibur ('lightning blade') back into the Lake form whence it came, takes a number of things for granted which alas one cannot. First, that the Arthur legend is not the property of the English (as often believed) but of an older Celtic Britain which fought them for what became known as "Logres" the Lost Land - (modern Welsh Lloegr, England) - hence our use of a haunting Welsh tune. Second, the (to me) attractive Celtic 'otherworldliness' of the lyric is due - as in the verses of our "Morgan le Fay" - to my alternating use of two of the most common medieval Welsh meters (Morgan uses the other two) known collectively as cynghanedd (literally 'harmony')

The required intense focus on word-sounds and patterns here and in its sibling piece Morgan cast a spell over my composition which allowed magical thoughts to form. This in turn affected the choice of tune and the overall performance.

Lady Guinevere - the music video

This Guinevere lyric is written in imitation of the French romance verse form (octosyllabic couplets giving a lighter, faster feel than the English iambic pentameter) and tries to evoke the medieval Guinevere of the troubadours of Provence rather than the Gwenhwyfar of Celtic myths and of Dark Age history (who will have her own very different song in the set). We wanted Guinevere to sound contemporary and confident, chipping against the beat of the courtly love tradition in which she was a love object rather than a love subject.

The original poem continues and concludes as follows:
I have a heart, self-determined
Core of I Am, God-underpinned,
Won on the Cross, for me. It can
Choose a beloved, a ‘husband’
The church would make him. But marriage
On earth’s not as it is (a rich
Royal land transaction) as one
With my Lancelot – in heaven.)  

lyrics

Lyric

Belle ami, si est de nous, ne vous sans moi, ni moi sans vous.

Let them play at boyish games round
A table. Though walled up, bound,
In an unpublished garden, stone
Tower with window, all alone,
This court still revolves around me.
I twist them all round my pretty
Little finger, a studded ring:
The champion knight, the poor king,
Modred, Gawain, my Lancelot.
It’s the only power I know.

Who waits… and do not wait to see  
The object of his worship pass,
Wasted, into this looking glass,
Wheat-hair, rose-lips, unsown, should he
Choose to deny himself – and me.

He comes through enchanted forests,
Rough-horses, haunted castles, mists;
From slaying giants, big bad knights:
Barons with feudal appetites;
Impossible quests for Our Lady,
Sowing wild seeds Love meant for me;
Obsessed so with courtly sin and
Confession – Indulgence’s twin;
Greets Artos, old friend – clash of mail 
(So grieved his crown still lacks a graal,
So tedious!) He comes to me  

Who waits… and do not wait to see  
The object of his worship pass,
Wasted, into this looking glass,
Wheat-hair, rose-lips, unsown, should he
Choose to deny himself – and me.