The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur

“‘Of all the animals,’ she said, ‘only man can feel a despair that is beyond his power to endure.’

‘God wouldn’t’ve sent him more than he could endure.’

‘I find your God is a great optimist when it comes to the question of how much people could endure.’”

This exchange between Morgan and Collum illustrates the novel’s theme of The Conflict Between Magic and Religion. While Collum believes that God tests humans by sending them adversities, Morgan dryly notes that the very idea of such a God is perverse. Collum misses the fact that Morgan makes the remark about despair when Collum wonders why Sir Bleoberys wanted to die at his hand. Morgan alludes to the truth that Bleoberys, Collum’s father, was overcome with pain at finding his lost son and that sacrificing himself was a way to assuage that pain.

“‘Can you read?’ […]

‘I can read.’

‘Just Latin. Or do you know your Beth-luis-nin?’

‘Just Latin.’

Beith-luis-nin meant Ogham, the old writing of the druids […] Back on Mull the elders made you feel guilty if you didn’t learnt it. Colum hadn’t. He was a good Christian, like King Arthur.”

In Ogham—the earliest-known writing form of Ireland—each letter represents a tree: “Beith” resembles a birch, for instance. Thus, the alphabet shows a continuum between nature and writing. That Collum refuses to learn it because he is a “good Christian” shows how dogma attempts to erase diverse sources of knowledge.

“‘Britain is a waste land now, and this is not a Round Table anymore,’ Palomides knocked his fingers on the tabletop. ‘It is a zero.’

‘What the fuck is a zero,’ Villiers said.”

This exchange is an example of the text’s use of anachronism as well as humor. Palomides calls the Round Table a “zero,” its shape in the absence of Arthur denoting emptiness rather than a whole. The concept of the mathematical zero is unlikely to have been known in West Asia before the seventh century CE, which makes Palomides’s observation an anachronism. The humor comes from the fact that the zero came even later to Europe, only in the 12th century.

“The age of enchantment had gone, it had slipped away mere moments before Collum arrived, as the day steals away across the land, silently and without ceremony, to distant parts unknown. Without Arthur they were all ordinary men, their names written in sand, playing with sandcastles.”

Illustrating the text’s motif of anticlimax and The Reconstruction of Identity and Purpose in the Absence of Leadership, Collum’s observation reflects Camelot as lacking in order and direction after Arthur’s ostensible death. Since Arthur is gone, the activities of the knights have become as trivial as children making sandcastles that time, like a tide, will wash away.

“What shall we call this? The adventure I mean? ‘Of the Red Knight’?

‘Of the Four-Gated Castle’?

‘Of the Stolen Hind’?”

The text has a strong metafictional strain, with characters aware that they exist in a long legend and often commenting on this reality. When Bedivere and Arthur reach King Bran’s wasteland, they humorously banter about the name that this quest shall be known by in folklore, reflecting The Role of Stories in Building and Dismantling Power.

“‘I don’t understand.’ Dinadan sounded more irritated than awed. ‘Either he went to Avalon, which doesn’t exist, and he didn’t die, or he didn’t go to Avalon and he died and he’s buried at Glastonbury. But then if he didn’t go and he did die then why does the stone say “will be”? What the “will be” if he’s already dead and buried?’”

Dinadan’s annoyance is a metafictional reference to the sometimes-confusing nature of Arthurian lore, where different stories contain conflicting versions of the same event. For instance, here, Bedivere describes Arthur as both taken on a ship to Avalon and as lying in a grave.

“Something struck his drifting feet and he instinctively grabbled onto it: an iron ring bolted to a square stone in the aqueduct floor? What if he pulled it out, like a giant plug of a giant bathtub?”

Another example of the text’s use of anachronism, the simile of an aqueduct as a giant bathtub draws its humor from the fact that the bath plug would not have been in existence in Collum’s time.

“God had better hurry. The boundaries between the realms have been weakening ever since the Grail quest, and the Otherworld is vaster than you know […] Out there are the islands of the Bramble-king, and the Duke of Sparks, and beyond them the Palatine of Never-Better, and then the Lands of Sleeping Arawn itself. When this world spills into yours, Britain will be drowning in Fairy.”

Morgan’s warning to Collum is rich with references from British folklore and serves to illustrate its diversity. Arawn, for instance, is the stern, fair god of the otherworld in Welsh mythology, an ambiguous deity since he exists at the border of life and death. Her invocation of these various Pagan elements speaks to the conflict between magic and religion.

“It was a truth to be hastened past with a certain squeamishness, a dark thread in the golden tapestry of Camelot. He’d certainly never heard it the way she told it, as an upside-down fairy tale with Morgan le Fay as the hero and King Uther the monster. And Arthur as the footnote.”

Morgan’s telling of the story of Uther inverts the narrative of the king as a romantic savior, reflecting the role of stories in building and dismantling power. Collum notes that he has always sensed the truth about Uther but rushed past it with “squeamishness.” It is only when Morgan draws his attention to it that he sees the story for what it truly depicts.

“‘Is this because you think you’re a boy?’

‘I don’t think I am a boy,’ Orwen said, ‘I know I am a man.’”

This exchange between Orwen (Dinadan) and his twin brother, Oriel, illustrates why Dinadan symbolizes integrity in the text. Despite tremendous social pressure, Dinadan continues to assert his identity.

“‘We’ll be requiring you to kill Merlin’ […]

‘Merlin? The wizard?’

‘Well, ye could kill Merlin the butler but he’d mostly likely’ve died of natural causes sooner or later. Merlin the wizard, though, I’m not so sure about him, which is why he will indeed require killin’. By you.’”

This conversation between John Punch and Dinadan is an example of Grossman’s use of quick, witty dialogue. The image of a fairy using sarcasm and referring to “Merlin the butler” evokes humor; such instances of humor and banter frequently pepper the more philosophically dense conversations in the book.

“God doesn’t come when you snap your fingers, He comes when you are ready for him […] That’s the difference between a spell and a prayer.”

Nimue’s statement to Collum illustrates the theme of the conflict between magic and religion. The irony here is that though Nimue practices sorcery, she still considers God’s divine grace superior to magic. What makes the grace superior is the very fact that it arrives when it pleases, unlike spells, which produce more immediate results.

“Dagonet and Constantine understood that by riding with Galahad they had moved from the margins of the world to its very center. They had joined the Hero, the main character of the story of Britain, taking on the role of two mismatched background players […] about to have an absolutely magnificent view of God’s will being worked on earth.”

This passage is another example of the people in the novel being aware that they are characters in a story. Dagonet and Constantine know that they are not the main players in traditional Arthurian lore, unlike Galahad, Lancelot, and Percival. At the same time, Grossman’s novel subverts that tradition by telling Galahad’s story from their point of view.

“‘I had a grail,’ she said in his ear. ‘It was a child, our child […] We have sought that grail these twenty years, you and I, and never found it…So just know this: God may abandon us, Arthur, but I will never abandon you […] If I must choose between Arthur and God, I choose King Arthur.’”

After Arthur despairs of the Grail quest, Guinevere shows him the truth. The answer does not lie in pursuing the Holy Grail—the perfect, but unattainable, dream—but in ordinary kindness and love. Guinevere’s wisdom foreshadows why she is the right ruler for Camelot.

“‘You’re right about us, Merlin,’ Bedivere called out. ‘We’re not the heroes, we’re the odd ones out. The losers. But did you ever think that might be why we’ve lived so long? Losing makes you tough.’”

Bedivere’s comment to Merlin at his grave reinforces the text’s interest in unlikely heroes and different kinds of heroism. Merlin may think that the lesser-known Round Table knights are “losers,” but Bedivere reminds him that losers survive better than so-called heroes. The observation is metafictional since it draws attention to the fact that the novel’s characters know they are the supposedly marginal players in Arthurian lore.

“Overhead a fairy in a diaphanous gown drifted by, dangling from a swarm of wasps by a fistful of gossamer leashes.”

The Wild Hunt is packed with strange, eerie creatures, illustrating the novel’s use of visual imagery in world building. Morgan herself is described as a deer from the waist down, her head antlered. Apart from fairies riding piggyback on cursed men and women, there are fairies such as the one in a translucent gown, carried by a swarm of wasps.

“Scipio charged […] chopping the ax into its hip, where it stuck as if the devil’s flesh were hardwood.

‘I felt that,’ the fiend remarked.

‘That’s what your mother said.’”

Scipio’s charge against the fiend is an example of the text’s use of contemporary, irreverent humor. Though Scipio is in a life-and-death situation, he cannot resist a good “your mother” joke.

“This land cried out for Roman roads to bind it, for baths to wash its filthy people clean. It begged to be ruled into grids and planted so that its golden wheat could feed the appetite of empire […] Spit and polish. Law and order.”

Scipio’s observation is an example of the colonial impulse. While the mission pretends that it aims to “civilize” a “savage” people, the real purpose is to use the people and their land as resources for the empire. Though Scipio wants to tame Britannia, his impulse could well apply to any colonizing enterprise of later history.

“Lancelot barely looked at him as he […] wrapped a steely arm around his neck. He squeezed and twisted. There was a muffled pop like a root snapping underground. He let the boy drop to the floor.

There, Lancelot said, Didn’t spill a drop.

The last of the Pendragons, Collum thought numbly […] God rest his soul, the poor child deserved better.”

Lancelot’s cold-blooded murder of Melehan is told graphically, but with narrative economy, the sound of the neck snapping like a root being broken. The cool narration reflects Lancelot’s lack of feeling while committing the murder. He even jokes that he didn’t spill a single drop of blood while killing the boy. This illustrates the cruelty of his character.

“I knew even then the story that would be told. Lancelot knew too; he is far from stupid. People love stories, I love them, but stories are like gods, they care little for the human beings in their care. They don’t care if they’re true or not. From that night on people would tell the story of Lancelot and Guinevere and their fateful passion […] But it’s not true. I loved Arthur […] Our love was not simple, but it was real. That’s what no one understands. Our story was not a romance, it was a marriage.”

When Guinevere tells the knights the truth about what transpired with Lancelot, she notes in anger that her truth will never make it into the pages of history and romance, reflecting the role of stories in building and dismantling power. That stories continue in favor of a juicy narrative, without a care for the people trapped in them, shows the darker aspect of storytelling. In a metafictional move, the novel itself reveals Guinevere’s truth, thus bringing a buried story to life.

“‘The world is sea-changed now, and I fear I belong to the Old World. But this world has marvels in it too. Never doubt it.’ Now he looked straight at Collum. ‘They are of a different kind now. No one will hand them to you. You can’t pull them out of a stone, the way I did, but they’re still there. It’s not too late.’”

Arthur’s words to Collum highlight the importance of accepting change, adding a new twist to the reconstruction of identity and purpose in the absence of leadership. Arthur must leave the stage because his part in the saga is over. However, this does not mean that the world becomes meaningless; there is still magic to be found, though the way to that magic will be tougher. The world being “sea-changed” is an allusion to the coming of the Saxons via sea and how it will change British history. The phrase is also a hidden literary reference to Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611), in which the spirit Ariel tells Ferdinand indirectly that his father is lost at sea, transformed, having suffered “a sea-change.”

“‘Emigrating,’ Morgan said. ‘Fleeing. They can’t stay in Saxony. The sea there is rising and flooding their lands, and the land that isn’t getting flooded is being taken away from them by the Huns […] These people aren’t invaders, they’re refugees. They have nowhere else to go.’”

While the Arthurian lore itself refers to Arthur saving Britain from barbaric Saxons (as Bedivere also notes in the novel), Morgan presents a different way forward. The Saxons are not invaders but refugees fleeing climate change and war. It is important to accept the Saxons because it is they who will provide a fresh infusion to the story of Britain, bringing to the country their language and their gods. Morgan intends the coming of the Saxons as a comment on contemporary anxiety around immigration. Immigrants and refugees like the Saxons are the ones who have made Britain; thus, closing one’s borders to them is a mistake.

“What he wanted was to live in a timeless castle, a world wrought of old gold, where everything was noble and glorious and nothing ever changed. He wanted the battle to be over, he wanted to win and have won and be done with fighting forever and ever. But of course, it wasn’t over. Why would the future be simpler than the past? Stories never really ended, they just rolled one into the next.”

Collum has come a long way from thinking the Round Table was the answer to all his problems. He now realizes that wanting to live in the glorious past is a folly and that life never ends with finishing one adventure. One has to live in the present and keep creating a new story. The evolution in his views shows that Collum has come of age and is ready to embrace the reconstruction of identity and purpose in the absence of leadership.