#camlann pod

[what-about-second-tmblr]

Okay so I just started a Camlann relisten and, the fact that Morgan asks Dai “Is this it? is this the moment you want to find out wether you have any real power” NOT EVEN FIVE MINUTES IN!!! I see what you did you sneaky fucks!! And i love you for it!!

[socks-crocs-and-flipflops]

Highly highly reccomend what has swiftly become one of my favourite podcasts - @camlannpod AND some of the best merch ever

If you love fun, drama, and post-apocalyptic folklore please check it out!

[camlannpod]

Binged your show in one night and went insane over it a little bit. Symptoms of insanity include switching my 1900 day Duolingo streak of German to Welsh. Any really good resources for Arthuriana you would recommend for someone looking to hyperfixate unhealthily? Pre-Arthuriana texts and subjects also welcome (e.g. Anglo-Saxon England/Brittany, all the good pre-proselytization stuff, regional folklore/myth).

I was already pretty taken by the subject (although regionally most fascinated with the Germanic because of other brain worms) and have tried to do some research, but it’s hard to find sources that aren’t colonized, for lack of a better term, “white”-washed retellings.

((Unrelated but if you ever want to read some queer fiction that is a historical retelling of some of the folklore (specifically the Twa Sisters and the Wild Hunt) I 10/10 recommend checking out Lucy Holland, she’s part of what put me in a chokehold on this subject.))

Hello hello! Thank you so much I'm so happy you've enjoyed our show!! This is delightful and exactly the way I engage with media.

Caveat to this being that the British Isles got converted to Christianity super early, so we've got no written material that survives from a pre-Christian period, and it's always worth treating any claims of a coherent pre-Christian tradition with a lot of suspicion (we speculate about it, of course, but we just don't have the evidence we need to build a detailed picture). This said, there are all sorts of hidden gems scattered across medieval and early medieval texts.

SO! A handful of key Arthurian texts:

Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Mallory

The Mabinogion (best translation is by Sioned Davies)

Y Gododdin

Historia Brittonum by Geoffrey of Monmouth (*though this is a little dry imo)

Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes

Gawain and the Green Knight (*I really like Simon Armitage's translation!)

More readable Arthurian adaptations:

The Arthurian Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliffe

Tristan and Iseult by Rosemary Sutcliffe

The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights by John Steinbeck

Sources on British Folklore more widely:

The Lore of the Land by Westwood & Simpson

Welsh Monsters and Mythical Beasts by CCJ Ellis

Celtic Weird from the British Library

Folktales of Britain by Katharine M. Briggs

I hope you enjoy and find these useful! It's not an exhaustive list, but hopefully it'll be a good leaping off point.

(Also thanks for the Lucy Holland rec!)

[kouvei]

Finally got around to drawing Dai from Camlann! Sitting around a fire, keeping the flame alive.

Also Camlann is currently raising money for season 2! If you haven't heard of it before, give season 1 a listen! Especially if you like Arthuriana or magic apocalypses.

[ghostjellyfishheart]

finally got caught up on camlann but at what cost

[bookofmac]

okay okay okay, thinking thoughts

So I find the concept of Names really interesting in Camlann, reading into the extracanonical stuff put on the tumblr is giving me food for theory crafting. The Catacylsm seems to be some kind of return of magic to the world (possibly heralded by the return of The King of the Britons in their hour of need?) and thus people with significant Names have access to something because of it. they fall into the stories of their namesakes; Perry, Gwaine, and Kay are Knights, Morgan is Morgana Le Fay, and we now have a Gwen in Shújūn.

Based on Kay's dicussion with Perry if more people can fill in the roles of their stories to more 'to plan' the stories will go, Of course this is not good news if you know the general end point of Arthurian legend (Betrayal, muderer, war, most everyone dead, the 'Glory' of camelot gone). It's inherently kind of a doomsday cult if you stay in those stories, you know where parts of this are going (i'll get back to this)

it also seems like there may be some, for lack of a better term, kin drama going on. There are 900 members of the court and Kay mentions that Peredur is a really uncommon name outside of Wales, meaning there are certain knights who are more common, i assume Lancelot's, Kay's, maybe a few Talisin's, a bunch of Gareth's, and like 50 Elaines like in the legends lol

We also dont have the context for how Names work full yet and neither do our characters. I think theres a lot of answers to be had with Shújūn/Gwen with how it works, how you know other than the buzzing in you're head and desire go through the motions and Follow the Story

Now, where does Dai fit in all this?

Dai doesn't have a Name, and I think theres going to be a point where he changes his name in a major way, but not to a Name, but a Bardic name. In welsh poetic and story telling tradtions Welsh poets, THE OG Bards, will take on pseudonyms tell their stories. This practice stems from the medievil era, but goes forth to today, and many modern Welsh and welsh heritage poets have connections to this tradition (Dylan Thomas' middle name was his great uncles bardic name, Sarah Williams published her work under the name Sadie), I believe it's also a requirement to have one if you intend to perform in the major Eisteddfod, (I am Australian so my experiance of Eisteddfods here is very different so if i'm wrong on that let me know)

Why would he do this? I think Dai is going to, at least try, to write him and his friends a way out.

Much ink is spilt over how Arthurian legend doesnt have an 'orginal text', and as such there are lots of stories that are inherently contradictory; Bedwyr is the best knight, but so are Gwaine, Lancelot, and Galahad. Mordred is some random king until his Arthur's son. Arthur has a sister, no he has two, actually he has three and one of them is an Elaine. This could be used to explain any doubles (are you my Gwaine), as well as why we see a few different spelling varients which are, the very welsh Peredur as opposed to Percival or Parzifal, the anglisised and more boarish Kay as opposed to Cei or Caius (this last one might just to keep Dai and Kay distinct tho). These variations are no more or less 'canon' than any other telling of the story, and so often the writer of a given telling of Arthurian legend is going to have their own bias. But things dont HAVE to end the way they always do, and sometime you need to have someone outside the story you're caught in to tell you a new one.

You are not locked into that ever looming cloud of Thomas Mallory and Le Morte d'Arthur.

Other evidence I have for this is that Dai sings at the begining of each episode, and sings in welsh at that. He also is, to a point our narrator, existing both in and out of the current narative. Also his name is an a lyric of Sosban Fach (a song i would be surprised if it wasn't in the show at some point) 'Dai bach y sowldiwr' which is also not from the text the song was based on. Tangential yes, but i think it's worth thinking about.

I think there is also something to be said about choice in what your name is and how it feeds into the overall theme of identiy, and how that plays into other themes at play in the story, like Transness, Imperialism, and Predestination

TL:DR; While he doesnt have a Name, Dai's gonna give himself an epic bard name and save them all by writing a killer hook to get them out of the story

[lucifer-kane]

Camlann episode 8 is going to be stuck in my brain for a million years. It was so good

[backagainpodcast]

@camlannpod is making me go WILD waaaahhhh. Spent the entire back half of my walk rambling about it to my partner. Have been thinking about Gwaine even though I'm done with a draft of my paper and this is my Sir Gawain Break. I love Dai. I love Perry. I want to eat the way that Gwaine and Dai talk. I want to know everything that has happened to them ever. I'm so obsessed.

[grifff17]

Audiodrama Sunday 4/7/2024

Lots of stuff to listen to this week. I really need to stop starting these writeups at 11:30pm on Sunday evening.

Loved the new Dear Liisphyra this week. I thought that the sponsor for this episode was really funny. I laughed out loud and looked like to an insane person to some guy I was walking past when they said that every weapon box comes with 50 feet of hempen rope.

Season 2 finale of @backagainpodcast! Man I love the themes of this show. It's such a well written tragedy, the dramatic irony is so good. Also I desperately want to know more about the other Soldier. We know several very relevant details about him but very little else.

New @spoutlore-blog was fun. Billie is such a good character, Jessica plays the "immortal child" trope so well. This show really puts the coolest worldbuilding you've ever heard with the dumbest dick jokes in existence. I still haven't gotten over the spider and the hummingbird.

Speaking of Spout Lore, the new Rude Tales of Magic episode has Abdul Aziz as a guest. He was a great guest, his style of humor fits perfectly with the setting of Piss Harbor. Are all the characters he plays street rats with a heart of gold. Excited to see who they bring on as guests in the future. They had Zac Oyama a few episodes ago, I would be excited to see more Dimension 20 people.

The new @midstpodcast was super interesting! Every episode in this season they've introduced another way that the Trust is incredibly fucked up. Why can't we go back to the Mother's Merciful, they were so nice.

Somehow I fell behind on @storiesfromylelmore. I'm not sure how that happened, I think my podcatcher didn't update or something, because I've been listening to new episodes of this show immediately. The second most recent episode was great, with Rion going through werewolf puberty. The most recent episode had some really good character work, with character development for all 3 main characters. I love this show so much.

New episode of SCP: Find Us Alive. A new Dash Two being created is really interesting, we've only had Dumptruck and Hiway Robbery for so long it's weird for there to be a third one. Where did they even get a bird?

I reached the crossover with Forgive Me in @kingmakerpod. Forgive Me is such a grounded show, especially by audiodrama standards, which tend to be way out there, so it's so funny when they cross over with shows that have such a wildly different tone and premise. The character interactions were on point though.

@camlannpod the fairy world! This show continues to have really cool takes on myths. The idea that you can shed a Name simply by going by something else is interesting. Could some random person start going by Lancelot and gain magical powers? The reveal at the end was great too, both from a worldbuilding standpoint and a character perspective.

Man that really was a lot. Lots of stuff to look forward to next week as well!

[helianthus04]

shoutout to camlann making me cry Again

[peppermintlark]

[Video Description: Twitch streamer peppermintlark, using their PNGtuber (an illustration of a character with light skin, big yellow eyes, curly green hair, pastel green antlers, and pointed ears), records themself playing a little bit of Bite Night. In the video, he fills up someone's car with gas, picks up a rat, and walks into the convenience store. Later in the video, they record a little bit of the podcast Camlann, showing that the howling sound effects used in both are likely the same.]

Transcript:

peppermintlark: I should probably go restock the shelves now. [clicks tongue] Rat.

peppermintlark: [gasps] You can't. Nope. Fuck.

[a wolf howls in the background]

peppermintlark: There it was. Okay. So let's play this back again.

Shújūn: Right. Sorry. Thank you, again.

Morgan: Don't mention it.

[a wolf howls in the background]

peppermintlark: Yessss!

[the wolf continues to howl]

[Camlann theme begins to play]

peppermintlark: Alright, thank you for coming on this journey with me, uh, yeah! Bye!

[what-about-second-tmblr]

dai’s voice breaking when he goes to see if anyone is in hiding and says “we’re the good guys…come out …please” 🥺🥺🥺

[socks-crocs-and-flipflops]

Highly highly reccomend what has swiftly become one of my favourite podcasts - @camlannpod AND some of the best merch ever

If you love fun, drama, and post-apocalyptic folklore please check it out!

[camlannpod]

So, you know how y'all thought you were going to find out what happened to Gwaine...?

[a-christmas-fruitcake]

@camlannpod know that I am swatting Dai with a broom for this bullshit he has put everyone through ESPECIALLY MORGAN

[thatdamhobbit]

@camlannpod Morgan?

Pathetic podcast protagonist is such a male dominated industry

Petition for more women to be pathetic podcast protagonists. Like yes queen, experience the horrors