#march to camelot

[count-pudding]

Prompt 6: trial

A big thanks to @mortiscausa for this wonderful challenge, I had a lot of fun drawing with palette and seeing art from other artists! :D

[mortiscausa]

Whether fate be foul or fair, Why falter I or fear? What should man do but dare?

march to camelot #1: quest

[agarthanguide]

This year, along with my friend, writer @corvidfeathers, I’m doing a challenge called March to Camelot, by @mortiscausa.

First prompt is HUNT.

[vooruitmariek]

March To Camelot #3: family

Lancelot & Galehaut, kings ruling together in another world...

[tboymordred]

For @mortiscausa's March to Camelot - Envy

[noughticalcrossings]

Hunt

A white hart galloped into the hall, pursued by a white brachet and thirty pairs of black hounds

A scene from Le Mort d’Arthur for @mortiscausa ‘s palette challenge

[cesiousblue]

The first of a series of Arthurian themed illustrations for Fran Morton's (@mortiscausa) excellent MarchToCamelot prompts! March 1-5 prompt: Hunt 🏹

[theonceandfuture]

you've won, sister. but at what cost?

March to Camelot - Prompt #2 - Ruin

[chiropteracupola]

This is not a thing to learn inside a day / Stand closely by me and I'll try to show the way / You've got to hold it right / Feel the distance to the ground / Move with a touch so light / Until it's rhythm you have found / Then you'll know what I know...

[a percival and a palamedes for @mortiscausa’s ’march to camelot,’ for the prompt ‘envy’]

[count-pudding]

Prompt 1: hunt

[mortiscausa]

march to camelot 2025 #2: ruin

[agarthanguide]

It's March to Camelot prompt #3- Family.

My partner/tame writer is @corvidfeathers

The March to Camelot challenge is hosted by @mortiscausa

[dial-achos-gwenllian]

‘The Burial at the Giants’ Ring’ - Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae.

Like his brother Ambrosius, Uthr (anglicised as Uther) met his death after being poisoned, and both were buried within the Giants’ Ring near Salisbury. Geoffrey of Monmouth describes the removal of a ring of stones from Mount Killaraus in Ireland that had been placed there by giants to Salisbury to memorialise a massacre of Britons. Constantine, the king who follows Arthur after he is taken to Avalon after Camlann, was also buried here upon his death. I’ve only chosen to represent Ambrosius and Uthr here as I wanted to focus more on it as a location during what would have been Arthur’s lifetime. The editor of Geoffrey’s text, Lewis Thorpe, also notes that it is likely that Geoffrey could have been confusing Stonehenge and another stone circle at Avebury nearby, but I’ve chosen to use Stonehenge here.

I’ve always found him to be a complicated individual in the Welsh tradition as a modern person reading it. In Geoffrey’s depiction, he is both an incredibly successful warrior, it is prophesied that his son will have a great empire and his daughter’s descendants will retain the kingship of Britain, and he is the father of the greatest Welsh hero. But it is this last point which becomes a difficult part - his love for Arthur’s mother, Eigr (Ygerna or Igraine), and his decision and methodology when acting on it are, to a modern audience, quite obscene. He, with the help of Myrddin (Merlin), disguises himself as her husband, Gorlois, and they sleep together, conceiving Arthur that same night.

I think modern interpretations often follow this track of him being a complex (but generally quite a bad) person. In almost all the literature, he is heavily overshadowed by his son - my rather destroyed and heavily referenced copy of Geoffrey’s text sums his kingship up in around 9 pages. Although it wasn’t necessarily a long reign, it pales in comparison to the time given to Arthur, who takes up around 50 pages, around 20% of the text. Mentions of his beyond the Welsh tradition also leave out perhaps one of the coolest things about Uthr which is his ability to potentially shape-shift. The shapeshifting he does in Geoffrey’s text is magically induced by Merlin, but recent scholarship (including my own current research!) suggests that this is a run off from Uthr’s supernatural powers in other texts. The Trioedd Ynys Prydein records that Uthr taught a ‘great enchantment’ to Menw ap Teirgwaedd, likely the shapeshifting he performs in Culhwch ac Olwen when travelling to Esgair Oerfel. I would love to see this sort of stuff included in depictions of him, especially as they’re so absent in the English and Continental traditions!

Anyway, continuing with my inability to complete any artwork within the time limit given, this is again based on @mortiscausa ‘s #marchtocamelot, instead on the theme of ‘family’. Yet another information dump to go with it, but Lord knows doing two degrees in the subject means you have a lot to say in the long run!

[noughticalcrossings]

Family

Sir Brunor le Noir is a young knight nicknamed La Cote Mal Taile by Sir Kay after his arrival in his murdered father's mangled armour and surcoat at King Arthur's court. He should not be confused with his father, also named Brunor the Black but better known as The Good Knight Without Fear. His elder brother is always Sir Dinadan, a cynical knight, and sometimes Sir Daniel, a scurrilous knight.

[kichiquax-draws]

March to Camelot 2 “Ruin” for @mortiscausa’s Arthurian challenge: Mordred, the ruin of Camelot

[toadlett]

march to Camelot 4: Envy

For @mortiscausa 's excellent drawing challenge, march to Camelot!