The Coming of the King

The medieval French interpreters of the Matter of Britain drew heavily upon the Celtic myths and folktales of Brittany and Great Britain when they wrote their own chivalric stories. The heroes of those earlier tales were seen by the French as uncouth and unchristian and they generally cast the native heroes as boorish and unmannered when compared with the "new" cultured French heroes.

Tolstoy has taken back the original traditions and shows these characters, warts and all, as people set within their own culture. Based on Welsh and Germanic mythology, the manners and mores might not be what we have come to expect from Arthurian heroes, but the combination of earthy humour and high mysticism strikes a chord of realism, despite the fantasy show more setting. The kings and warriors aren't paragons of chivalric virtue, but then they pre-date the chivalric ideal and demand to be treated on their own terms.

It's such a shame that Tolstoy's legal difficulties at the time of the publication of this first volume in an intended trilogy prevented him from continuing the series. show less

This is an entertaining, and well researched book. We have what might be an historical framing tale, and then a very subjective and supernaturally posed account of the origins of a mythic figure. We know there was a fight between the Saxons of Wessex and the Native Britons at Beran Burgh in 556 CE. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle says the Wessex men won. The Welsh don't really mention the fight, so they probably lost. But in this novel they win, with an heroic last minute intervention by their dispersed army. The bulk of the story is a number of supernatural experiences by the fictitious Merlin. But Tolstoy has placed in contrast to this the roughly contemporary Teutonic event of the death of Beowulf in a fight with a fire breathing dragon. show more So, we get swirling spiritual Welsh theology and the literary Teutonic action. Read and enjoy. show less

Not Malory's Arthurian legendary, but rather the Welsh underpinnings of the same. An acquired taste, but one that rewards the patient reader who can appreciate it on its own terms. Alas for the trilogy that might have been, but Tolstoy's devastating loss in a British libel suit ended what promised to be a unique take on the Arthurian mythos.

This was a terrible, rambling book.

Merlin's spirit is raised and tells long tale of battles and Irish myth

Fiction, Fantasy, Celtic legend, Merlin and King Maelgun, First published by Bantam Dell Pub Group, 1988, First Italian edition titled: "Merlino e il regno incantato", Rusconi, 1992, 756 pp., translated by Maria Grazia Griffini, Narrativa pesante e poco scorrevole, molto difficile arrivare alla fine