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.

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.

The Winter King (We're Only Making Plans For Nigel)

pic by Kevin Fackrell

Far away and long ago, the land was divided and leaderless. Barbarians invaded from north, east and south. A May king – a dragon head - was needed to unite the people and drive out the invaders. Such a king could prove himself by drawing out a wondrous sword from a weathered rock. Many years passed and many strong men failed. At last, a boy succeeded. His name was Nigel.

Nigel built a great fastness called Camelottery and trained a band of mounted warriors, called the 52 Brexiteers, employing the White Knight Sir Bors as his faithless deputy. And all we know who wears the jodhpurs in that marriage. Together, they drove out the invaders and the land grew in peace and plenty. Nigel married Gwenhwyfar, white phantom, first lady of these islands, the most beautiful woman in the world. And the people loved him.

But the traitor 48 and the witch Sturgeon tore the land apart again. It was no ordinary armed rebellion. There was a fell Celtic magic at its root. Aided as always by the wizard Murdoch, and bouyed up the far white Trump of Freedom, Nigel overcame even this but was mortally wounded and escorted from the field in the 120th minute by three blind maidens just before the penalty shoot out. 

Nigel's last request was that the brand of Britain, which gave him great power, be cast back into the faery lake from which it came. He was last seen being shipped out by the maidens beyond the red dragon sunset of Breck's Isle to the lunatic isle of Elba, where he will live on as a Maimed King and return to slave us in our darkest hour.  This one.