King Arthur?

[Alice]

When would King Arthur fit into SOTW2? I know that Arthur is a legend and not a historical figure so not covered in the book but I'm trying to figure out when best to read some of the Arthur legends as part of literature. I skimmed through the AG and couldn't really figure it out from her recs for reading.

[Mert]

:bigear:

[nmoira]

IIRC, there's a chapter on knights and castles, maybe two. I'd think that would be as good time as any, though it's not something I'd fret about. Which version are you thinking about using?

[Mom in High Heels]

It could possibly go with Chapter 2, which is the Early Days of Britain (Aurthur was supposedly an early English king), or Ch 15, which is about the early kings.

 

It is listed somewhere in the AG, but I'm too lazy to go look it up. :)

[nmoira]

It could possibly go with Chapter 2, which is the Early Days of Britain (Aurthur was supposedly an early English king), or Ch 15, which is about the early kings.

But those early British kings didn't have shining armor or stone castles.

 

There's no one best place for it.

[Mom in High Heels]

But those early British kings didn't have shining armor or stone castles.

 

There's no one best place for it.

 

True, BUT those are the more modern versions of Arthur. The original Arthur legends were much older than shining armor. The original legends were about a king who defended England against the Saxons in the 5th or 6th century, which is long before medieval stone castles were built and way before armor that we know today.

I agree that there is no one best place for it, but we will be reading it with Ch 15, IIRC.

[swimmermom3]

But those early British kings didn't have shining armor or stone castles.

 

There's no one best place for it.

 

:iagree:I have a 7th grader and 12th grader who will be covering King Arthur this year. We'll read Black Horses for the King (7th) and The Sword at Sunset (12th) when the 7th grader hits the 500s in history. Then, the 7th grader will being doing Once and Future King for the Duke TIP King Arthur study which looks at life in medieval times while the 12th grader will read Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur as part of her literature studies. She will read it in the chronological order it was written.

 

So do it where it works best for you.:D

[robsiew]

We did King Arthur starting around chapter 3. SWB recommends Sir Gawain that week and that's a tale of KA. My ds read a book with most of the KA stories in it though so he was reading for several weeks following that on KA...

[Alice]

Thanks, all. If anything else this thread affirms that I was confused for good reason. :) We're doing Chap 3 this week, actually just finished up. Since I didn't get any other King Arthur stuff to read I think I'll wait until Chap 15. Or I'll just do sometime between now and then and I can refer back to the early kings while reading KA and then refer back to KA when doing Chap 15 and knights.

[JMDRAD]

No suggestions as to what chapter to add King Arthur to, but I wanted to chime in and recommend Jim Wiess' King Arthur cd. It was a hit at my house. My parents borrowed it when they went on vacation and LOVED it (and there were no kids in the car.:lol:)

[2_girls_mommy]

I was going to suggest the chapter that recommends the books on Sir Gawain also. But I guess that ship has sailed :) I actually bought a large book of KA stories this past year w/SOTW 2 and we never got to it. There were so many other good readings. I shelved it for now, for whomever wants to read it or for the next rotation I guess.

[Jen+4dc]

We just finished chapter 3 yesterday and I realized we skipped King Arthur. I think we're going to pause SOTW2 for a day and read some KA stories (I got a bunch from the library this afternoon). I have a version I want ds8 to read aloud to me (this will take around a week so we'll continue this as we go back to ch. 4 of SOTW) and I have several picture versions to read aloud to him and dd5. It's just fun stuff even though we really don't know for sure when he lived. I'm going to introduce him as a "lengendary" Celtic king (since we've been talking about the celts and then Augustine and their conversion to Christianity over the last 2 chapters). I think it will be a fun diversion (so much of the KA stuff talks about logres and the "church") and then we'll pick back up with Ch. 4 and The Byzantine Empire. I don't have a good reader or RA for the Byzantine Empire so we'll go on with ch 4 while we finish reading our KA stories.

 

HTH:D

[nmoira]

True, BUT those are the more modern versions of Arthur. The original Arthur legends were much older than shining armor. The original legends were about a king who defended England against the Saxons in the 5th or 6th century, which is long before medieval stone castles were built and way before armor that we know today.

Absolutely, but these are not the tales most commonly told today, or even for the last several centuries. Can you recommend a good version of the more ancient versions (sans armor and castles) of the tales suitable for elementary readers/listeners? Sutcliff (The Sword and the Circle, etc.) starts with Vortigern, but her stories lean heavily on Malory, as does Pyle's. Green attempts to make a less episodic narrative, but it's still repackaged Malory. Lanier retells Malory in A Boy's King Arthur.

 

Our Island Story's two chapters on Arthur comprise the only age-appropriate material I can think of off the top of my head that places Arthur in post-Roman Britain without the shining armor, though Marshall still has "gentle, courteous" knights.

[swimmermom3]

Absolutely, but these are not the tales most commonly told today, or even for the last several centuries. Can you recommend a good version of the more ancient versions (sans armor and castles) of the tales suitable for elementary readers/listeners? Sutcliff (The Sword and the Circle, etc.) starts with Vortigern, but her stories lean heavily on Malory, as does Pyle's. Green attempts to make a less episodic narrative, but it's still repackaged Malory. Lanier retells Malory in A Boy's King Arthur.

 

Our Island Story's two chapters on Arthur comprise the only age-appropriate material I can think of off the top of my head that places Arthur in post-Roman Britain without the shining armor, though Marshall still has "gentle, courteous" knights.

 

Black Horses for the King by Anne McCaffery is great for middle school. It's been a couple of years since I read it, so I'll have to wait until we read it in a few weeks to tell you how it would work for the under 5th grade crowd.

[nmoira]

 

Black Horses for the King by Anne McCaffery is great for middle school. It's been a couple of years since I read it, so I'll have to wait until we read it in a few weeks to tell you how it would work for the under 5th grade crowd.

It's on my list for the next go-round. I'm curious to hear how this goes for you... The Sword at Sunset too. Have you seen Philip Reeve's Here Lies Arthur? It's definitely not for the younger crowd.

[krisandpaula]

We actually just bailed on our SOTW 1 Studies and switched to SOTW 2 because of the Dear King Arthur. :001_smile: My 6 year old is absolutely engulfed in knights, castles, armor, chivalry. It started in May when we took our dd to Medieval Times for her birthday. I got him a copy of King Arthur and his Knights by Jim Weiss. He hasn't looked back since, listening to it at least twice a day. I debated on whether we should even try SOTW 1, but though maybe we could do both. He was not the least bit interested in the ancients, so after a month I decided not to fight it and we switched. He loves SOTW 2!! We'll back track a little later and pick up with the ancients where we left off.

 

So to answer the question, looks like we are going to be incorporating KA through at least the first half of SOTW 2. :001_smile:

[swimmermom3]

It's on my list for the next go-round. I'm curious to hear how this goes for you... The Sword at Sunset too. Have you seen Philip Reeve's Here Lies Arthur? It's definitely not for the younger crowd.

 

My oldest son read the McCaffrey book in 7th grade. It was responsible for getting us to think of Arthur in a different light. Ds went on to read Sutcliff the following year and then pushed me into purchasing as many of her books as I could find. He wasn't ready for Sword at Sunset but I really liked the book. I'll be curious to see what my dd (17) thinks after she reads Malory and the Sutcliff book. She has previously read The Mists of Avalon series so she will have some very different takes on the legend. I have a nonfiction book about the search for the real King Arthur, a TC lecture on it, and then Swimmer Dude will be doing the Duke project where the student is a tour guide in England leading a group through all the sites associated with Arthur. That should be a blast.

 

The son who read Black Horses listened to the TC lecture on Arthur and decided that whoever the king was that held the Anglo-Saxons at bay for so many years was "one cool dude."

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Thanks, all. If anything else this thread affirms that I was confused for good reason. :) We're doing Chap 3 this week, actually just finished up. Since I didn't get any other King Arthur stuff to read I think I'll wait until Chap 15. Or I'll just do sometime between now and then and I can refer back to the early kings while reading KA and then refer back to KA when doing Chap 15 and knights.

 

I think it is a similar choice to where do you put the Illiad and the Odyssey (or the Aeneid). The Illiad and Odyssey proport do describe something that happened in early Greek times, but also reflect the culture and priorities of classical Greece. The Aeneid is written as a companion to the Illiad, but is tied to the Roman culture that it seeks to give a basis for.

 

So you could put it with a "historical Arthur" or put it in a later period that was greatly influenced by the concept of Arthur.

[Alice]

Thanks again, many good suggestions here. I had the book with the Sir Gawain story in it that was recommended in the AG. We just read it and ds liked it. The same book also has a nice chronology in the back of when the historical figures that may have inspired many of the legends (Beowulf, Arthur, Roland) may have lived and when the stories were actually written. That's beyond what ds needs to know at 6 but it helped me get a better picture in my own head.

[Giraffe]

Thanks again, many good suggestions here. I had the book with the Sir Gawain story in it that was recommended in the AG. We just read it and ds liked it. The same book also has a nice chronology in the back of when the historical figures that may have inspired many of the legends (Beowulf, Arthur, Roland) may have lived and when the stories were actually written. That's beyond what ds needs to know at 6 but it helped me get a better picture in my own head.

 

I may have missed it upstream, but could you tell me the name and author of the book you're referring to without anyone getting in trouble? (It's just a book recommendation, right?) I would love to get it and have the chronology in the back that you mention.

 

DD is far too young for me to get SOTW2 right now (she's only 3) but I'm doing a personal study of the time period and the chronology sounds useful.

 

Thanks!

[mcconnellboys]

Arthur is a legend AND an historical figure (maybe, perhaps, LOL)..... If you want to study the romantic Arthurian legends which began with the Morte d'Arthur, etc., then you can put him in the middle of the middle ages. If you want to study the stories about what may have been the real King Arthur, a real historical figure, then you need to go back into the classical period, between 400-800....

[mcconnellboys]

Some links to Arthur the historical person:

 

http://www.grahamphillips.net/Trail/2_Historical_Arthur.htm

 

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Historical_basis_for_King_Arthur

 

http://britannia.com/history/arthur/karef.html

 

http://britannia.com/history/arthur/kaking.html

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/halloffame/historical_figures/arthur.shtml

 

http://www.answers.com/topic/king-arthur

 

http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/King_Arthur

[Alice]

I may have missed it upstream, but could you tell me the name and author of the book you're referring to without anyone getting in trouble? (It's just a book recommendation, right?) I would love to get it and have the chronology in the back that you mention.

 

DD is far too young for me to get SOTW2 right now (she's only 3) but I'm doing a personal study of the time period and the chronology sounds useful.

 

Thanks!

 

Favorite Medieval Tales by Mary Pope Osborne

[swimmermom3]

Some links to Arthur the historical person:

 

http://www.grahamphillips.net/Trail/2_Historical_Arthur.htm

 

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Historical_basis_for_King_Arthur

 

http://britannia.com/history/arthur/karef.html

 

http://britannia.com/history/arthur/kaking.html

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/halloffame/historical_figures/arthur.shtml

 

http://www.answers.com/topic/king-arthur

 

http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/King_Arthur

 

Thanks, Regena! We'll be doing this next week and these will come in handy. Have a great year!

[Giraffe]

Favorite Medieval Tales by Mary Pope Osborne

 

Thank you!!!

[krisandpaula]

Some links to Arthur the historical person:

 

http://www.grahamphillips.net/Trail/2_Historical_Arthur.htm

 

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Historical_basis_for_King_Arthur

 

http://britannia.com/history/arthur/karef.html

 

http://britannia.com/history/arthur/kaking.html

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/halloffame/historical_figures/arthur.shtml

 

http://www.answers.com/topic/king-arthur

 

http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/King_Arthur

 

Thanks for the wonderful links! We will make use of these very soon.

:001_smile: