Tracing the development of the King Arthur story in the late Middle Ages, this book explores Arthur's depiction as a wilderness figure, the descendant of the northern Romano-British hunter/warrior god. The earliest Arthur was a warrior but in the 11th century Welsh tale
Culhwch and Olwen
, he is less a warrior and more a leader of a band of rogue heroes.
The story of Arthur was popularized by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his Latin
History of the Kings of Britain
, and was translated into Middle English in Layamon's
Brut
and the later alliterative
Alliterative Morte Arthure
. Both owed much to the epic poem "Beowulf," which draws on the Anglo-Saxon fascination with the wilderness. The most famous Arthurian tale is
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
, in which the wilderness and themes from Beowulf play a leading role. Three Arthurian tales set in Inglewood Forest place Arthur and Gawain in a wilderness setting, and link Arthur to medieval Robin Hood tales.