Camelot version and Norse Mythology.

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I am curious as to which telling of the King Arthur and the Roundtable stories would be worth reading. I went to the library recently and there were too many versions to choose from. Some are too childish. Which would you recommend?

Also can our friends from Scandinavia give any ideas about which stories and or books related to Norse Mythology would be a good read. English only please, I have not learnt any Swedish, Norwegian or Danish yet... (Should I include Finnish in here?)

 

My favorites are "The Once and Future King" and "The Mists of Avalon."

I read TOaFK asan assigned book back in junior high, I think, and that event gets credit for spurring my interest in fantasy/legends! The teacher had a collection of different books that we could choose for this assignment but had only a few copies of each. When she described the books, I remember hoping fervently that TOaFK wouldn't get all picked before my turn came. However, I don't recall it being a kid-oriented book in the slightest.

 

I would recommend TH White's "The sword in the stone" as I think it is the most widespread of the fictious Arthur stories. Bradley's Avalon series is also a good read. When reading Arthur stories you must accept that all are more or less made up even the first one "Morte de Arthur" or something by some french dude so you might as well choose the fictious writers you like.

The only book about norse mythology I can think of out of the top of my head is Snorri Sturlasson's "Eddan", this is the source of much of our knowledge of our knowledge of norse mythology and it should be translated into english.

 

The only Arthur stories I've read are "Ghost King" and "Last Sword Of Power", both by David Gemmel, they have some nice twists that add something new to the Arthur stories.

 

Rallymama. Do you remember the author name(s)?

joacqin. Any ideas of books that may be in English? unless of course you could translate for me... Still I'll check the net...

 

If you want a book on King Arthur and the Round Table then the book would have to be Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Mallory. I'm not 100% sure but I think most if not all other books on the subject originally came from this book. It can be quite tough in places as it is written in old English (it was originally published in around 1400 I think although it may have been written quite a bit before that) - I would recommend the Wordsworth classic version as it is cheap (from Amazon) and it has a word list at the back to help with all the words that have long since left the English language.

 

I think Eddan should exist in an english translation somewhere if you look long enough for it. Though it is a book that is more than a thousand years old so the language might be a bit strange but hopefully they fix such things in the translation.

 

I have the a book called The Norse Myths-Gods of the Vikings by Kevin Crossley-Holland. Good stuff has all the myth stories of the gods. That is how things are and how things will remain until Ragnarok.

 

TOaFK - by T. H. White.
MoA - Marian Zimmer Bradley.

Also try "Hawk of May" by Gillian Bradshaw.

[ March 10, 2003, 20:39: Message edited by: Rallymama ]

 

There is a lot of Arthur-lore predating Sir Thomas Mallory, but if you want a start this is it. T. H. White is also very, very good. He refers quite a lot to Mallory, and overall his book is quite hilarious.

If you'd like to read some norse mythology I would suggest The Poetic Edda. A good translation has been made by Larrington (forgot her first name). It is one of the best books I've ever read, so very impressive!

 

Thanks everyone that is so helpful!

 

The Crystal Caverns is another book by T.H. White. As for Norse myths? It depends on whether you want stories, or actual mythology (what their religion was, their gods, etc.). Anyway, my favorite book on Norse Mytholgy is a book by the same name published by Penguin Publishing.

They also made a movie out of The Mists of Avalon, which I thought was well done.

 

I can recommend Parke Godwins "Fireking". It's quite a realitic approach to King Arthur's life.

 

From Norse Mythology I would recommend Snorri's Poetig Edda also. There was a paperback edition at Amazon available for last christmas, i'd quess they have some left. Finnish mythology is quite a different from Norse mythology. Several translations of our most important national mythology can be found in the net, such as one in: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/. No translations of Kanteletar, our n 2 national saga, can be found in the net at the moment, which is a shame, I'm positive that some translations will be around in the near future.

 

In this site you can find many books about norse mythology like "Poetic Edda" (translated by H.A. Bellows)or "Norse stories" by H.W. Mabie. I don't know if they are good but they are online and free . Also, it contains many books on various subjects, from philosophy and mathematics to military science.