According to historical accounts of the period, the Anglo-Saxon conquest was turned back for a generation or two after the British defeated them at the Battle of Mount Badon in the 6th century AD. In later sources, the leader of the Britons is said to be Arthur. However, Arthur is not mentioned in the earliest source dealing with these events, De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae ("On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain") by the monk Gildas, written in the early 6th century within living memory of the Battle of Mount Badon. Instead, the sole British leader (not called a king) mentioned as resisting the Anglo-Saxons in the past is named Ambrosius, though there is some debated ambiguity about whether Gildas had a Time Skip between his era and the Mount Badon battle. Nor is Arthur mentioned in Bede's history of England written in the 8th century. This has led to many, many debates on whether Arthur was really a historical person or a legendary person added to history.

Scholars who believe Arthur was (or at least based on) a real historical figure note that the Battle of Mount Badon was associated with him early on. The first source to mention Arthur is the 9th-century Historia Brittonum ("History of the Britons"), attributed to the monk Nennius, written about 300 years after the events it describes. It records a list of Arthur's battles along with some scattered trivia about him. Oddly enough here, Arthur is just the general of the British armies and implied to be of non-noble birth, while the glorious king is Ambrosius (who in later tradition became a previous king and Arthur's uncle, while other elements of his story became Merlin's.) Arthur also appears in the 10th-century Annales Cambriae ("Annals of Wales") which mentions his triumph at Mount Badon and his final battle at Camlann. He also features in 9th and 10th-century British and Breton stories about local saints.

The Arthurian tales in the Mabinogion and references in poetry like the Welsh Triads and Preiddeu Annwn ("The Spoils of Annwn") likely reflect other early Welsh/Cornish/Breton traditions though they were written down later than the above. Arthur and his men, often with magic items and powers of their own, appear as adventurers facing not only normal human foes but also fantastic creatures like giants, witches, and monsters. Due to this more fantastic strand of the myth with ties to Celtic Mythology, other scholars believe Arthur began as a mythical Folk Hero who was then historicized into the Briton/Anglo-Saxon conflicts — though the reverse, a real person being fictionalized into legend, has happened with Alexander the Great, Charlemagne and others...

The Arthurian myth became even more popular during The High Middle Ages after Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"), written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century after the Norman (basically French Viking) conquest of England, brought it to a wider European audience and inspired a slew of other writers in England, France, Germany and elsewhere. Geoffrey presented Arthur as the ultimate warrior-king who carved out an empire with his Cool Sword Caliburn (better known as Excalibur) and almost conquered Rome, but whose reign was cut short by treachery - and after his last battle, was taken to the island of Avalon for healing. Despite the dubious historicity snarked at by even his own contemporaries, Geoffrey's work was a hit.

If you're wondering why all these historical references so far have been literary, it's because there is frankly no solid archaeological evidence for Arthur's existence. The overall picture of Britons vs Anglo-Saxons generally holds up, but while hill-forts like Cadbury Castle were speculated to be linked to Arthur, there is no hard evidence for it. While a few figures from this stage of the myth-like Ambrosius's enemy Vortigern are accepted as real through archaeological findings, Arthur's existence has yet to be confirmed this way, and any supposed evidence so far has been shoddy at best.

The most famous examples of these are the graves and burial cross of Arthur and his queen Guinevere at Glastonbury Abbey, said to have been unearthed in 1191 by its monks, though this conflicts with older legends about his mysterious disappearance and eventual return. Nowadays, most scholars dismiss the Glastonbury findings as a financially and/or politically motivated hoax, to enrich the abbey and/or to keep the uppity non-Norman native British/Welsh/Cornish/etc. down. Another relatively recent find which caused a bit of buzz occurred in 1998. A fragment of a tablet speaking of an apparently powerful man named "Artognou" in Latin, which would be "Arthnou" or "Arthneu" in Welsh/Cornish/Breton, was unearthed in Tintagel in Cornwall (where Geoffrey of Monmouth says Arthur was born) and dated from roughly the correct time period. But most scholars have dismissed any connection with Arthur beyond the similar names, reasoning that the variants of Artognou are well-attested as their own names and that there is no real reason to suppose that Arthur, if he existed, was not named "Arthur" as universally recorded in Welsh/Cornish/Breton. Despite this, some fringe theories identify Arthur with undisputed historical figures in or around Britain from roughly the correct time period and make it a nickname or title.

This ties in with the meaning of Arthur's name which is itself disputed. It's usually noted that it's related to the Welsh word for bear, "arth" (descended from an earlier Celtic form, possibly "arto") and linked to the Latin name Artorius as well (which in a roundabout way may be distantly related to the Celtic "arto") but some fringe writers go further and make a certain Lucius Artorius Castus the direct basis for Arthur, which most scholars think is stretching it much, not least because he lived centuries before Vortigern and the first written Arthurian references.

By the latter half of the 12th century and beyond, the hazy line between Arthurian history and literature had been all but overwritten. Chrétien de Troyes and others thoroughly reworked the stories into Chivalric Romance, adding themes such as chivalry and Courtly Love, and iconic items like the Round Table, the Sword in the Stone, and the Holy Grail. These writers reworked or invented entirely new characters, most famously Lancelot and Perceval and later Galahad, to introduce them. The knights of the Round Table, originally characterized as Arthur's champions and chief companions, developed into Knights-Errant in Shining Armour much like what happened to the paladins of Charlemagne. Their adventures tended to overshadow Arthur himself, whose earlier feats were lost in translation.

Thanks to these and other authors, the Arthurian myth became popular throughout much of Europe, far beyond its original British scope. French writers, despite patriotic liking for the Matter of France, agreed that the King Arthur tales were among the best ones of Courtly Love. Also, since their nobles and kings were actually related to Charlemagne and some of his knights, and more claimed to be, even to the fictional ones, tales about King Arthur were safer from people reading political implications into them. ^note That's not to say that the Arthurian tales were never exploited for political reasons, however. The belief that he did not die and would eventually return, with the implication of replacing the established Norman monarchy, proved so popular among the British people that writers started identifying Avalon with Glastonbury - where Arthur and Guinevere's remains were supposedly unearthed, "proving" that the "once and future king" was dead and gone forever. Such attempts, however, derived from the legend, as opposed to Charlemagne.

In the English-speaking world, the medieval version best known today is Le Morte D Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, based on the works of his many, many literary predecessors, including multiple layers of retcons and crossovers. This version incorporates many originally separate stories about the Knights of the Round Table, the theme of Courtly Love, and the myth of the Holy Grail. Malory wrote it in The Late Middle Ages, and thus his work is often considered the "final" pre-modern form of the myth.

But as far as the French are concerned, Chrétien de Troyes' romances are the most important version of the Arthurian myth and for German-speakers it is the verse epics of the trio of Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Straßburg, especially Wolfram's Parzival. This is not only founded on priority, but also on the superior literary quality of these four authors in comparison with their successors. In general, the way the Arthurian myth is viewed can depend very much on the nationality of the viewer; for people from the British Isles (and by extension, from the rest of the Anglosphere), it usually goes without saying that the Welsh (and English) medieval texts reflect an older and more "genuine" version of the myth than the French ones, even though they were in fact written down later. Here a lot is speculation and inference, as the (presumably mostly oral) traditions on which Geoffrey of Monmouth, Maistre Wace, Chrétien de Troyes and others based their works are lost to history.

In addition, since around the 20th century, some authors have drawn upon the earlier stages of the Arthurian legend and focused on the more "primitive" settings and themes of feuding warlords and resistance against foreign invaders.^note If/When Arthur returns to Britain, what he will do when he finds it populated by the descendants of the people he used to fight is anyone's guess. These elements, which are just as prone to romanticism, both contrast and complement the more "advanced" themes of chivalry and courtly love, depending on who's doing the telling. This all just demonstrates the universality of the legend — like any good story, there's something for everyone in it, and everyone sees what they want in it.

• De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae ("On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain") by the British monk Gildas, from the early 6th century. As said above, Arthur is not mentioned in it, but the Battle of Mount Badon is first recorded here, taking place "44 years and a month" before Gildas was writing, and Gildas says he was born in the year the battle took place. Later, the English monk Bede relied on Gildas exclusively while writing about the British resistance to the Anglo-Saxons, thus not mentioning Arthur as well. (He also mistook Gildas's figure of 44 years to mean the Battle of Mount Badon was fought 44 years after the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain.) Much has been said about Gildas not mentioning Arthur, but the work is more of a sermon or diatribe than a proper historical narrative. Gildas himself states that he is writing not so much to praise brave warriors but to castigate lazy and unworthy leaders. He names only a few British leaders during and after the Saxon invasions, praising only one Ambrosius Aurelianus in contrast with his descendants who have not lived up to their noble ancestor (or literally, grandfather). Ambrosius is said to be the leader around whom the Britons rallied as they scored their first victory against the invaders by the grace of God. "From that time on", the Britons both won and lost battles until Mount Badon, "almost the last and certainly not the least slaughter" of the Saxons. The British leader or leaders who won at Mount Badon is/are not directly named and it is unclear if Gildas meant Ambrosius. Gildas is also thought to be the first writer to speak of Vortigern, though he is also not mentioned by name like Arthur, also not yet as a king but only as a usurper or tyrant who, along with a council of leaders, first let the Saxons in.

• Historia Brittonum (or History of the Britons), traditionally ascribed to the Welsh writer Nennius in the 9th century, although it may be much older. While not a story, per se, it contains the oldest written record of Arthur and lists the twelve battles he fought against the invading English, with the last being Mount Badon. Of note is the fact that Arthur is not depicted as a king here but a dux bellorum, "leader of battles", a warlord fighting on behalf of the British kings. He is said to have been so successful against the English that they were forced to bring in further troops and kings from Germany, increasing their numbers dramatically until the island of Britain was finally subjugated. It also includes the story of a "fatherless" boy who sees two battling dragons, symbolizing the British/English conflicts. In the work he is called Ambrosius and turns out not to be fatherless after all, revealed to be the son of a Roman official and eventually becoming a king himself. But later authors starting with Geoffrey of Monmouth made him Merlin, who really has no human father.

• Pa Gur yv y Porthaur? ("What Man is the Gatekeeper?"): a poem found in the Black Book of Carmarthen, the oldest known list of Arthur's warband and the first mention of Cei and Bedwyr (later to be Kay and Bedivere). Arthur seeks entrance into a fortress, recalling the heroic feats of his retinue for the gatekeeper. This list was expanded on over the centuries, with each tale adding more and more characters from both history and folklore. A decendant is found in ''How Culhwch Won Olwen'', at which point the retinue has swollen to over 260 warriors, not counting fantastic animals.
• Preiddeu Annwn ("The Spoils of Annwn"): a poem about Arthur's expedition to the Otherworld where he and his men carry off several treasures - including a magic cauldron, thought by some to be the root of the later Grail legend.
• The poems Geraint son of Erbin and Y Gododdin (referring to a British tribe) and the Lives of certain British and Breton saints are not Arthurian works per se but contain very early references to him. Geraint son of Erbin, an elegy for a prince who may be the basis for an Arthurian knight of the same name, mentions Arthur as an "Emperor" of the British. Y Gododdin praises a certain hero but still says "he was not Arthur". The Saints' Lives often show Arthur butting heads with them in sharp contrast to the model Christian king he later became. An anecdote about Gildas, an author mentioned above, offers an explanation to why he never mentions Arthur: he had a brother whom Arthur killed, and he deleted Arthur from his work in revenge.

• Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who is thought to have been of mixed Breton and Welsh stock. Completed ca. 1138. Geoffrey's work is the earliest surviving narrative of Arthur's reign from beginning to end. He introduced or codified still-familiar elements like Merlin and his role in Arthur's birth, expanded Arthur's role as an uber-warrior — and, most significantly, was one of the first to explicitly call Arthur a king, in practice a high king ruling over allied kings. Though it focuses on battle, seeds of the chivalric themes that would dominate in later years also appear: Arthur's royal court sets a standard of courtliness imitated by others. Geoffrey retells the story of the boy Ambrosius with Merlin ("also called Ambrosius"), who is the offspring of an incubus and a princess-turned-nun. But he also includes the king Ambrosius as Arthur's uncle and precursor. Geoffrey's work was so pivotal to the development of the legend that scholars often divide it as "pre- and post-Geoffrey" (in fancier terms, "pre-Galfridian" and "post-Galfridian", coming from the Latin form of Geoffrey's name).

• Prophetiae Merlini (Prophecy of Merlin) appeared earlier, ca. 1130-1135, and was mostly incorporated into the larger Historia. The opening has the vision/prophecy of dragons from the older Historia Brittonum which later authors would pass on. The other prophecies mostly seem to refer to stuff happening around Geoffrey's own time, and are generally ignored by later authors. But for some time the work took on a life of its own apart from the larger Historia, treated by some like the much later Nostradamus quatrains.
• Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin) was Geoffrey's sequel completed ca. 1150, in which he combined some recaps of the Historia with adapted Welsh stories of Myrddin the wild prophet whose name he had used for Merlin. This Myrddin, a bard who went crazy, was originally unconnected to Arthur and was said to have lived after his time, so Geoffrey's Merlin goes on to have a career long after Arthur's reign. The work also has the first appearance of the magical healer Morgen, who would later undergo major Adaptational Villainy as Morgan le Fay. But here she is the benevolent ruler of Avalon who personally tends to Arthur after his last battle. Merlin also meets Taliesin, another legendary bard with his own body of Celtic legends and poetry. Geoffrey is also one of the first to write that Arthur may one day return to save his people, as expressed by Taliesin.

• Roman de Brut (Romance of Brutus) by Maistre Wace from Jersey, an expanded version of Geoffrey's Historia written for king Henry II of England in French verse and making even greater use of Breton traditions, completed in 1155. The Round Table is mentioned here for the first time. Wace inserts a little more elements of chivalry and courtly love, though in passing since he follows Geoffrey's focus on war.
• Brut, ca. 1190 to 1215, a retelling of Wace and Geoffrey's works by the English writer Layamon (or Laghamon, or Law(e)man). It's both the earliest Arthurian work in the English language, and the earliest example of Misaimed Fandom regarding the mythos once you consider the early Arthur's enemies. Written in alliterative verse, it is longer and more detailed. For the first time, two ladies escort Arthur to Avalon (three in later works). Queen Argante (Morgan) and her ladies are identified as elves, and the baby Arthur is also blessed by elves. The Round Table is also introduced only after an Escalating Brawl over seating occurs. While later authors ignored this, it may have roots in Celtic legends where feasting warriors fought over precedence (and thus better portions of food).
• Several stories from the Mabinogion, a compilation of prose from several 14th-century Welsh manuscripts. Scholars generally agree that the stories are older, but how much older (and in particular if they are or not older than Geoffrey's Historia or even Chrétien de Troyes' romances) is still a matter of debate. Currently the stories are placed in the years between 1060 and 1200 and it is assumed that the version of the stories of Peredur/Perceval, Geraint and Enid/Erec et Enide, and Owain/Yvain were developed independently by Welsh writers and Chrétien based on the same older sources.
• The 5 poems of Chrétien de Troyes, written ca. 1170 to 1190. Literary historians see Chrétien as the first author to treat the legends as fiction. In many ways, he created Arthurian romance and was very influential on other authors.
  • Érec et Énide (Erec and Enide)
  • Cligès
  • Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain, the Knight of the Lion)
  • Lancelot, le Chevalier de la Charrette (Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart)
  • The unfinished Perceval ou le Conte du Graal (Perceval, the Story of the Grail)
• The earliest surviving versions of the Tristan and Iseult romance were written independently ca. around 1150 to 1170 by the poets Béroul and Thomas of England. Later retellings naturally upgraded Tristan to a Knight of the Round Table, but the tale was associated with the wider Arthurian framework from the earliest stages. The main characters can be traced to the Mabinogion and other Celtic material, though there lies no trace of the Star-Crossed Lovers premise of the romance.

• Lanval, one of the lais or lays (shorter than romances) by Marie de France, about a down-on-his-luck knight. Another early example of treating the legends as fodder for fiction. Inspired later works like Syr Launfal, a late 14th-century English poem by Thomas Chestre.
• Lanzelet, a German verse romance by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven composed ca. 1194. An early treatment of Lancelot which notably does not include the Love Triangle, even though it was written later than Chrétien's Lancelot, leading scholars to believe that element started with Chrétien.
• Merlin and Joseph d'Arimathe, ca. 1200, poems by Robert de Boron in French. Merlin has the first appearance of the Sword in the Stone, and Joseph d'Arimathe has one of the first mentions of the Holy Grail.
• Erec and Iwein, German verse romances by Hartmann von Aue, both based on Chrétien de Troyes.

• Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, from the first quarter of the 13th century. The most successful verse epic of the middle ages (by far the most manuscript copies surviving), a retelling and continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' last Arthurian romance. Wolfram also ties in the story of Percival with two other existing legends, making Parzival the father of Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swan, and establishing Parzival's half-Moorish elder brother Feirefiz as the ancestor of Prester John. Wolfram started a prequel epic somewhat misleadingly called Titurel (after the first person mentioned in the text) but did not live long enough to finish it.

• Tristan by Gottfried von Straßburg, a contemporary of Hartmann and Wolfram, based on an older form of the story of Tristan and Iseult by the Anglo-Norman Thomas of England (of which only fragments survive). Gottfried did not finish this "classic" version of a much older story (which originally was tangential to the Arthurian myth), so two other Middle High German authors wrote their own endings.
• Lancelot-Grail, or Vulgate Cycle; followed by the Post-Vulgate Cycle - The common label for a cycle of 13th-century French prose epics, originally a trilogy consisting of the so-called Lancelot propre (partly based on Chrétien), the Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest For The Holy Grail, which introduces Galaad/Galahad), and La Mort le Roi Artu and in all likelihood produced by several writers (quite possibly Cistercian monks) according to a general plan. This was followed by two prequels, the Estoire del Saint Graal and the Estoire de Merlin, completing the first cycle to relate the entire story from the beginning of Arthur's rule to his death.

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A 14th-century English poem about Gawain's adventures after being challenged by a mysterious Green Knight. Translated by J. R. R. Tolkien, among others.

• The Stanzaic Morte Arthur: A 14th-century English poem about Lancelot's affair with Guinevere and the downfall of Arthur.
• The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A 15th-century English poem about Arthur's rise and fall. Written in alliterative verse and known by that name to distinguish it from the previous entry. Mentions another sword of Arthur's named Clarent (stolen by Mordred) which is sometimes identified as the Sword in the Stone on This Very Wiki and elsewhere without textual basis.
• The Weddyng of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell: A 15th-century poem which uses the motif of the "Loathly Lady", whose roots lie in folklore outside the Arthurian myth. "The Wife of Bath's Tale" in The Canterbury Tales uses the same motif along with an Arthurian setting, but no Arthurian characters proper. By then the Arthurian myth was firmly established as a fairy-tale setting.

• Le Morte D Arthur by Thomas Malory, an Early Modern English compilation of many earlier stories and epics, fusing the French Lancelot cycle with other stories like Tristan and Iseult, completed in 1470 and printed in 1485. Considered to be the ultimate medieval Adaptation Distillation of the legend (in the English-speaking world) due to its late date. Does not use the "Green Knight" and "Dame Ragnell" Gawain tales, though some think Malory is the anonymous author of the latter.

• King Arthur: The Hero, The Captain and The Good King.
• Sir Kay: Arthur's foster brother who became his steward. In earlier works, he is a Boisterous Bruiser, The Snark Knight, Magic Knight, The Big Guy and possibly the original Ace among Arthur's crew. He was also notable for having magical powers including an ability to become as tall as the tallest trees in the forest and being able to generate a fire/heat. In later works, he becomes the resident Jerk with a Heart of Gold and the Butt-Monkey. He is fiercely loyal to Arthur and, in many retellings, also has a good relationship with Guenivere.
• Sir Bedivere: Arthur's oldest companion, besides Kay; Bash Brothers with Kay and vice-versa. As the spotlight shifts to other (newer) characters, both are Demoted to Extra, Bedivere more so than Kay. But he is most known for being the Sole Survivor of Arthur's last battle who returns his magic sword to the lake from whence it came. He's also likely to become a carbon copy of Lancelot in modern novels where the latter isn't present.
• Sir Lancelot: The Ace, The Tragic Hero, The Sixth Ranger, Sailor Earth. He is a latecomer in two senses: first, in that he first appears at the Round Table long after the vast majority of its membership has assembled; and second, because the character entered the myth cycle several hundred years after it was first compiled. Originally found in French-language sources, hence his name. Sometimes upgraded to The Lancer and Number Two in modern works, but in the medieval works Kay has a better case for that since he is more of a heroic Foil for Arthur and he is more often at Arthur's side while Lancelot often goes off on knight-errantry.
• Queen Guinevere: The Heart, Damsel in Distress, The High Queen, and God Save Us from the Queen! in some iterations. Sometimes has a sister, called Gwenhwyfache or the False Guenivere. The former is Mordred's wife. In a Love Triangle with Arthur and Lancelot.
• Sir Gawain: Originally established as The Ace, then wimpified by the French to pump up Lancelot. Modern versions are more forgiving, after their fashion. While either Perceval or Galahad found the grail in most versions, in “Diu Krone” Gawain found the Grail.
• Sir Percival: The young, naive fool who became a knight and saw the Grail... until later stories had Galahad see it instead.
• Sir Galahad: Heroic Bastard son of Lancelot, Messianic Archetype and an early Marty Stu.
• Merlin: The original Wizard, Mentor, The Professor, sometimes half-demon. Based on legendary Welsh mystic Myrddin Wyllt, who wandered the woods as a wild haired mystic and converted to Christianity, later adopted as an oracular figure for Arthur, since both of them were basically Welsh; the Welsh maintain separate accounts of the "historical" Myrddin's life and places he visited.
• Morgan (or sometimes Morgana) Le Fay: Sometimes The Man Behind the Man and would-be Queen, sometimes a Trickster Mentor, almost always an Evil Sorcerer and Lady of Black Magic. Except in certain feminist and/or neo-pagan retellings of the stories, in which she's usually the hero and Arthur is an evil patriarchal Christian bastard, or the pawn of same; in probably her earliest appearance in Geoffrey of Monmouth, she's just Arthur's on-staff magical healer and sister; and in recent works calling back to Geoffrey, such as The Magic Treehouse series.
• The Lady of the Lake: Mysterious magical ruler of a lake, to whom Excalibur is returned after Arthur's death. May or may not be the same character as Morgan and/or Nimue.
• Queen Morgause: Arthur's half-sister, the mother of Gawain, Mordred and their brothers, sometimes blended with her sister Morgana. The wife of King Lot, a rival king turned ally.
• Nyneve/Nimue/Vivian: Merlin's pupil, and lover. She eventually goes Deceptive Disciple on him and, in the classical version, places him under an enchantments and seals him in a tree or rock. Whether or not this is justified depends on how she and/or Merlin are portrayed. Frequently blended with Morgan and/or the Lady of the Lake for the convenience of having a Composite Character be responsible for all of Arthur's woes.
• Sir Mordred: Arthur's illegitimate son and nephew, though he was originally just a nephew and foster son on roughly equal footing with Arthur. The Final Boss.
• Arthur's nephews (Gawain, Agravaine, Gaheris, Gareth, and Mordred)
• Tristan and Iseult: Star-Crossed Lovers.

There are many other knights of the round table, each with their own complex storyline, and, just in case you thought that wasn't enough, most of the names also have other, wildly different spellings. The worst offenders are probably 'Guinevere', 'Mordred', and 'Iseult', with special mention going to 'Nyneve', who sometimes gets entirely new names such as 'Nimue' and 'Vivien.' (Then again, try telling those names apart in cramped Gothic handwriting.) It's pretty much up to the individual what you choose to call them.

The main locations:

• Camelot, Arthur's capital and seat of his court. First mentioned by Chrétien de Troyes, though he said Arthur's main seat was at...
  • Caerleon, Arthur's capital according to Geoffrey of Monmouth. May still show up as a secondary city even after writers came to prefer Camelot.
    • Still earlier traditions shown in Culhwch and Olwen and the Welsh Triads say Arthur held court at "Celliwig in Cernyw" (interpreted as "the forest grove in Cornwall", which is of little help to archaeologists) and two other seats of "tribal thrones". Obscured by the preference for Caerleon and Camelot.
• Tintagel, where Arthur was conceived due to a Bed Trick.
• Avalon, where Arthur was taken to be healed after his last battle.
• Camlann, the site of his last battle. "The Strife of Camlann" appears in the Welsh Annals along with the battle of Mount Badon, and the latter is thought to be a real event regardless of Arthur's existence. But Camlann survived in the retelling of the legends all the way to Malory while Badon fell into obscurity after Geoffrey.
• The Grail Castle, the home of the Holy Grail's keeper.
• Arthur's kingdom is sometimes called Logres, from Lloegr, the Welsh word for England. Arthur is more often just called king of Britain or in later works England (which means "land of the Angles", referring to the Anglo-Saxons who ironically were Arthur's enemies in older material).
• The forest of Brocéliande, where Merlin is supposed to be buried.

The main Public Domain Artifacts:

• Excalibur, Arthur's Cool Sword which is part of the earliest stratum of the legends. Alternately known as Caliburnus in Geoffrey (modernized to Caliburn) and Caledfwlch in the Mabinogion and other Welsh material, plus other Celtic and French language variants like Calesvol and Calabrun, until everyone agreed to use Excalibur.
  • There are two origins to Excalibur: the first and older tradition, stating that Arthur received it from a surprisingly benign member of The Fair Folk, the Lady of the Lake, after the Sword in the Stone was broken; the second, that Excalibur was the Sword in the Stone from the beginning - this is a more modern origin, as writers thought it simpler to have only one magical sword, rather than two. The Celtic version of Excalibur predated the Sword in the Stone element, and thus didn't have an origin.
  • The only magic power Excalibur was ever traditionally specifically accredited with was glowing brightly, and that not always, but the scabbard was said to stop the wearer from bleeding, making it almost invaluable on the battlefield. It was said that the wielder of Excalibur could never be defeated in combat, but the actual mechanics of how this was possible were never traditionally set in stone (if even stated at all).
  • Insane sharpness is another reasonably-constant quality of the sword.
  • In some early French works, Gawain is the one to wield "Escalibor".
• The Sword in the Stone, which is featured as an entirely different sword than Excalibur/Caliburn in most versions of Arthurian myth, but is the same sword in others. First introduced by Robert de Boron.
• The Round Table: Barring Excalibur, the most iconic item in Arthurian mythology - the freakin' furniture they installed. The congregation of knights are named for it, after all. Originally introduced by Wace as a symbol of equal status among Arthur's retinue, it came to symbolize their higher order of chivalry as well.
• The Siege Perilous, the last chair of the Round Table to be filled, prophesied to be filled by a knight who would not live long thereafter.
• The Holy Grail, an addition which came to dominate the late medieval version of the myth, though it is often excised in modern works.

Other artifacts

• The Broken Sword — The Grail Sword
• The Sword of the Red Hilt
• The Shield of Joseph of Arimathea
• The Shield of The Burning Dragon Knight
• The Green Sash
• The Thirteen Treasures of Britain
  • The Chessboard of Gwenddolau, son of Ceidio
  • The Mantel of Tegau Gold-Breast
  • The Whetstone of Tudwal Tudglyd
  • The Crock and the Dish of Rhygenydd the Cleric
  • The Coat of Padarn Beisrudd
  • The Knife of Llawfrodedd Farfog
  • The Chariot of Morgan the Wealthy
  • Dyrnwn, the Sword of Rhydderch Hael
  • The Halter of Clydno Eiddyn
  • The Hamper of Gwyddno Long-Shank
  • The Cauldron of Dyrnwch the Giant
  • The Horn of Bran the Niggard from the North
  • Llen Arthyr yng Nghernyw - The Mantel of Arthur in Cornwall
    • The Stone and Ring of Eluned the Fortunate - owned by Merlin; sometimes replaces this in lists.
• The Ship and Armaments of Arthur
  • The Scabbard of Excalibur - prevented its wielder from bleeding in battle
  • Prydwen - his ship
  • Goswhit - his helmet
  • Rohngomiant - his spear
  • Crewennan - his dagger
  • Wigar - his armor
  • Wynebgwrthucher - his shield
  • Llen Arthyr yng Nghernyw - his mantel
• The enchanted spear of Britomart the Knight of Chastity
• Chrysaor, the sword of Artegal the Knight of Justice
• The Pendragon Banner - magical banner that breathed fire on its enemies; became the Flag of Wales
• The Armaments of Lancelot
  • Aroundight/Arondite - his primary sword
  • Secace, the Saxon-Slayer - another sword
  • The Dispelling Ring of Lancelot - a Ring of Counterspell
  • Lancelot's Shield - healed its wielder continuously
• The Shield of Judas Macabee
• Fail-Not, the Bow of Tristan
• The Stone of Giramphiel
• The other swords of Arthur:
  • Brownsteel
  • Marmiadoise, the Sword of King Rione - stolen by Arthur
  • Chastiefol
  • Morrdure, Gloriana's Gift to Arthur
  • The Sword of King Cornwall - stolen by Arthur
• The Shield of Evalach
• Galatine, the Sword of Gawain
• Honoree, the Sword of Marriage, the Sword of Gingalain son of Gawain
• The Armors of Color:
  • The Armor of Gareth the Black Knight
  • The Armor of Ironside the Blood-Red Knight of the Red Lands
  • The Armor of Persant the Blue Knight
  • The Armor of Pertelope the Emerald Knight
  • The Armor of Percival the Red Knight
  • The Crimson Armor of Edlym Redsword
  • The Green Armor of The Green Knight
• The Horn of King Cornwall - stolen by Arthur
• Coreiseuse, the Wrathful Sword of King Ban, father of Lancelot
• The Magic Skein of Thread of Ilamert of Lanoeir

The Grail in detail:

• See also King Arthur and the Holy Grail

The history of the Holy Grail is rather complicated. Ostensibly the cup that Jesus drank from during the Last Supper, brought to Glatonsbury by Joseph of Aramathea, it's a Celtic invention that was unknown on the continent before the Arthurian mythos brought it there. It first surfaced in the late 1100s, in an incomplete poem by Chrétien de Troyes (whose contributions to Arthurian canon were action packed and unconcerned with spiritual matters), in which a naive Welsh knight named Perceval meets the Fisher King. A grail appears as part of a larger and quite bizarre mystical procession and is referred simply as "a grail" with no holy context, apart from carrying a host wafer. The word "grail" could also refer to a dish or bowl, not just a cup. Perceval fails in his quest by not asking the Fisher King what the hell's going on (making this story the first ever Sierra adventure game).

Robert de Boron was the first to call the grail the "Holy Grail" and gave it the Biblical origin above. Over subsequent centuries, the Holy Grail grew into the entire raison d'etre of the entire Arthurian Court, when originally the Grail Quest was so singularly dangerous that there was a special chair at the Round Table reserved for those who dared attempt it, called the Siege Perilous. By giving the knights a single sacred focus rather than having them stumbling around Britain falling ass backwards into quests, this transformation made the sprawling tangle of stories more coherent, and elevated the moral standing of the knights.

The Holy Grail itself also grew hugely in significance, in some cases taking on parts of various other magic hamper and cauldron myths, which created a mythological snarl whose origins modern scholars are nowhere close to deciphering (compare to the several lucid theories about the Sword in the Stone that have cropped up in modern scholarship). By the first decade of 13th century, in Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzifal's calling to the Grail Quest is explicitly a calling to a higher and better world than the normal quests of Arthur's court. The text claims that the Grail itself was the stone the neutral angels of Heaven stayed in during the war against Lucifer. By the 15th century, Malory depicts the Grail as so powerful that when Galahad (the most pure and dedicated of all the knights) succeeds on the Grail quest he instantly ascends to Heaven.

• See also here for more works that use the legends in a less direct way.

• The myths were adapted into two series by Toei Animation in the late 1970s/early 1980s: Entaku Kishi no Monogatari: Moero Arthur (lit.: "Story of the Knights of the Round Table: Burn Arthur"), and Moero Arthur: Hakuba no Ouji ("Burn Arthur: Prince on White Horse"). A number of foreign language dubs of the former series are called simply "King Arthur", although there was an English dubbed compilation movie called "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table". Video game players may recognize the theme song of the latter series from the arcade game Frogger if they got far enough.
• Kin'iro no Mabinogion: Arthur Ō no Imōto-hime by Nanpei Yamada is about three high schoolers transported from modern Japan to King Arthur's time.
• The Seven Deadly Sins draws influences from the Arthurian myth. To name a few: The main character Meliodas is named after Tristan's father, while two others are named Ban and Elaine after Lancelot's parents. The country in which the series takes place is called Britannia and there is a kingdom called Liones (from Lyonesse). An allusion to the Sword in the Stone was made by one of the antagonists, and Arthur himself appears as a supporting character, mentored by a Historical Gender Flip version of Merlin.
• Four Knights of the Apocalypse, the sequel to The Seven Deadly Sins, leans even more heavily into the Arthurian influences, with the titular knights being the aforementioned Tristan and Lancelot, as well as Percival and a Historical Gender Flip of Gawain, with the cast also including Isolde and Guinevere.
• Vinland Saga has Askeladd, leader of a band of Viking mercenaries who is in truth the last living direct descendant of Arthur (Artorius), and thus he eventually declares himself to be the rightful king of Britain. A flashback shows Artorius leading the Britons (Welsh) against the Anglo-Saxons (English) centuries earlier.

Comic Books

• Arthur The Legend by David Chauvel and Jérôme Lereculey
• In Camelot 3000, published by DC Comics but not part of the DC universe, Arthur and Merlin return in the year 3000 to defend Earth against an alien invasion led by Morgan le Fay. The knights are reincarnated in various forms (they're from different nationalities, Tristan is female, Perceval is a grotesque mutant), and the various storylines like the Grail quest and the Lancelot-Guinevere affair play out again.
• Don Rosa's Donald Duck story "The Once and Future Duck" has Donald, his nephews, and Gyro Gearloose traveling back in time to meet King Arthur... only this Arthur is a lot closer to the historical figure that may have inspired the legends. Once again, Don Rosa shows his work.
• Dracula vs. King Arthur: In which Dracula is transported to his timeline and begins a conquest to take over Camelot, turning many of Arthur's knights and even his wife along the way.
• Immortal Red Sonja: This arc tells the story of young Red Sonja after the fall of Camelot.
• Matt Wagner's Mage trilogy, Mage:The Hero Discovered, Mage:The Hero Defined, and Mage:The Hero Denied, features King Arthur and a whole lot of other culture heroes reborn in twentieth-century America and recapitulating the myth. Kevin Matchstick is King Arthur reborn, Edsel is the Lady of the Lake, Mirth literally is an immortal Merlin, et al. The Fisher King, the Marhault Ogre, Crom Cruich and the Wild Hunt put in appearances, often with some modernization. Excalibur manifests as a glowing white baseball bat.
• Muppet King Arthur: Kermit as Arthur, Rowlf as Merlin, Piggy as Morgana, Camilla the Chicken as Guenevere and Gonzo as Lancelot. The twist is that the Arthur/Morgana and Guenevere/Lancelot pairings are stable, there's no Love Triangle and they all live Happily Ever After. The Lemony Narrator notes that this isn't how it's supposed to go, but there we are
• Once & Future by Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora begins with Arthur's return and explores the nature and symbolism of myths and legends, taking an All Myths Are True approach with the Arthurian legend taking the most spotlight. Various competing versions of Arthur and crew show up.
• Unholy Grail is a Horror reimagining of the story with a demonic Merlin manipulating Arthur and his Knights for his own purposes.

Comic Strips

• Prince Valiant, subtitled "In the Days of King Arthur".

Films — Animated

• Camelot, a Lighter and Softer version by Golden Films.
• Dragon and Slipper, a Hungarian animated comedy film from 1990 that parodies the Love Triangle stories between Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot.
• Quest for Camelot, a 1998 Animated Adaptation of The King's Damosel by Vera Chapman.
• The Sword in the Stone, a Disney animated version of the first book of T.H. White's The Once and Future King.

Films — Live-Action

• Dragonheart is set after the Arthurian era, but the hero is a knight of the "Old Code" established by Arthur and the Round Table.
• John Boorman's weird and haunting Excalibur is often considered one of the best modern versions to play the myth mostly straight, explicitly setting the story in a mythical version of The Dark Ages and surrounding it with a mysterious sort of magic.
• First Knight deals with the whole Arthur/Lancelot/Guenevere love triangle.
• The Green Knight is an adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight starring Dev Patel as Sir Gawain.
• Kaamelott: Premier Volet, a French comedy and The Movie of the Kaamelott series with Alexandre Astier reprising his role as Arthur.
• King Arthur (2004), in the Dark Ages setting, is unusual among popular portrayals for having Arthur as a Roman officer. It was also unusual for claiming to be Very Loosely Based on a True Story. The writers studied up on the various candidates for the historical Arthur and settled on a "historical" theory that the public are generally unfamiliar with, namely that Arthur was the commander of a legion of displaced Sarmatians, Trapped Behind Enemy Lines and Fighting for a Homeland, who became leader of the Britons after the fact.
• King Arthur: Legend of the Sword features a High Fantasy world created by Guy Ritchie, featuring an Arthur raised on the streets as a gang leader who unexpectedly draws Excalibur from the stone to fight against the magically empowered King Vortigern.
• Knights of the Round Table (1953), inspired by Le Morte D Arthur, is as Knight in Shining Armor and Ye Goode Olde Days as a 1950s medieval epic can be. By the invokedsame production team that made Ivanhoe the year before and The Adventures of Quentin Durward in 1955.
• Lancelot du Lac, a deglamorized telling of the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot story by Robert Bresson.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail is essentially a parody of various facets of the King Arthur legend, the Round Table, and medieval fiction in general. Ironically, because one of the Pythons was in fact an Arthurian scholar, this film is at times also one of the most accurate cinematic representations of the myths. For instance, it is the only film to properly depict Lancelot as he is written in Malory. No, really — Malory's Lancelot is a mentally unstable berserker prone to slaughtering innocents at almost no provocation, then collapsing in abject apologies afterward. Spamalot, the film's musical adaption, makes him Straight Gay, which is... tangential from Malory, to say the least. (Other writers were apparently more invokedHo Yay-oriented with Lance.) It also features an Original Generation character by the name of "Sir Robin", whose defining feature is his cowardice and of course Played for Laughs.
• Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a 1984 film starring Sean Connery as the Green Knight and based on the poem of the same name.
• Transformers: The Last Knight integrates Arthur, Merlin and the legends into the backstory of the Cybertronians, who have been on Earth much earlier than previously revealed.

LiteratureAny modern Arthurian literary work written in the 20th century and beyond that is not about either a) Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur/Mordred/Morgan and the rise and subsequent collapse of the court or b) specifically about Merlin, is generally going to be about the Grail Quest, despite dozens of other possible plots. However, Tristram and Iseult (usually under the German forms of their names, Tristan and Isolde) by themselves are also becoming more popular, mainly due to the popularity of romance stories. The genres used may vary from Historical Fiction (no magic and Saxon hordes as Mooks), to Heroic Fantasy, and the story can be set either in the Dark ages after the fall of Rome or in the present day, when King Arthur has returned.

• The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck. A modern-English adaptation of the Arthurian legend, based on the Winchester Manuscript text of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D Arthur. Sadly, Steinbeck died before finishing and it currently ends with the tale of Lancelot.
• Kevin Crossley-Holland's Arthur trilogy: The Seeing Stone, At the Crossing-Places and King of the Middle March retells the Arthurian legend and several others alongside the story of Arthur de Caldicot, heir to the Mediaeval estate of Catmole, as he travels to the Holy Land on crusade.
• Meg Cabot's Avalon High. It's actually not bad, or better than a lot of teen fare out there, at least.
• Lavie Tidhar's By Force Alone is a heavily Darker and Edgier retelling of the story, which keeps the supernatural elements but depicts all the characters in Low Fantasy style as self-serving thugs and politicians. Arthur is a sociopathic London Gangster who takes advantage of the chaos of post-Roman Britain to make himself high king, Merlin is one of The Fair Folk who draws nourishment from being at the centre of mythic events, and the Grail is a crashed alien spaceship.
• Camelot Rising trilogy by Kiersten White (The Guinevere Deception, The Camelot Betrayal, and The Excalibur Curse)
• Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
• The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper. Most specifically The Grey King and Silver on the Tree, the fourth and fifth in the series, respectively. Arthur, himself, makes only minute appearances in the series but many aspects reveal a heavy Arthurian influence (with a few events being direct consequences of the Arthurian Legends). And, of course, there's Uncle Merry.
• Dawnflight by Kim Headlee features a dangerous Guinevere, here called Gyanhumara, who's from Scotland and finds herself in an Arranged Marriage with one of Arthur's untrustworthy allies. Then she and Arthur meet, fall into love (and plenty of lust), and wind up becoming a Battle Couple, breaking off her engagement by the end. Notably, several key subplots and characterizations were derived from Norma Goodriche's theories on the mythos.
• Gillian Bradshaw's Down the Long Wind trilogy, consisting of Hawk of May, Kingdom of Summer, and In Winter's Shadow, follows in the footsteps of Sutcliff, casting the story in terms of historicity, with sub-Roman Arthurian forces and messy political and relationship tangles. However, she also includes elements of the supernatural, focusing on the character of Gawain (called here by the Welsh name Gwalchmai, another Sutcliff parallel) and his battle against the forces of Darkness summoned by his mother Morgan, and his allegiance to the forces of Light (capital letters firmly in place). The historical bard Taliesin serves as an stand-in for Merlin's usual role. The first two books focus on Gawain's journey, and he continues as a major figure in the final volume, but Guenevere (called Gwynhwyfar in the trilogy) takes the role of viewpoint character.
• David Drake's early novel The Dragon Lord: Drake has commented that the personality of his Arthur — a military genius, but vicious and twisted — is a cross between Alexander the Great and Adolf Hitler.
• Jack Whyte's A Dream Of Eagles series follows several Celtic, Roman, and Frank characters as they weave a "could have been, realistic" take on Arthurian legend.
• Parke Godwin's Firelord and Beloved Exile, which use the post-Roman warlord versions of the story. What little magic appears can be handwaved away, and The Fair Folk are cast as the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Britain. Notable in that the second book deals with the aftermath of the legends, following Guenevere through a fragmenting Britain after Arthur's death.
• The GrailQuest series by J.H. Brennan are Gamebooks where the main character is instead a farm boy (or girl) turned knight named Pip (with the mind of the reader implanted in him). Merlin would send him off on tongue-in-cheek adventures.
• Mercedes Lackey's book Gwenhwyfar, which takes the Welsh tradition that Arthur married three different women all named Guinevere (Gwenhwyfar in Welsh) and tells the story of the third girl.
• Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve is a new demythified version of the story. The main character is Gwyna, the real Lady of the Lake, who is a slave girl taken in by the bard Myrddin (pronounced almost exactly like Merlin), and helps Arthur to deceive people into thinking he's a destined hero. Most of the names return to something akin to their medieval versions, with Kay being Cei and Bedivere being Bedwyr.
• I Am Mordred by Nancy Springer tells the story of King Arthur from Mordred's perspective. Written as a young adult novel, it touches upon nearly all of the main Arthurian characters and it heavily plays upon the dichotomous themes of destiny and free will. Maybe Mordred isn't all that bad and maybe King Arthur isn't the paradigm of honor and chivalry he's always portrayed as. She also wrote a prequel, following Morgan in her early years.
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, a series of long poems, was very influential in the 19th century.
• Phyllis Ann Karr's The Idylls of the Queen (a title playing on Tennyson's Idylls of the King) is a retelling of part of Malory's Le Morte D Arthur as a murder mystery, using Kay as the Characternarrator/detective and Mordred as his sidekick.
• King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green
• Peter David wrote the Knight Life Series, with King Arthur set in the present day. The first book, Knight Life, has Arthur (using the name "Arthur Penn") Schwarzenegger his way into the office of Mayor of New York City. The second book had him quit being President to find the Holy Grail. And the third had the simple plan of his using the Grail to produce a healing tonic.
• The Lantern Bearers and its sequel Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff take the legend back to its roots, including partly Romanized Britons fighting off invading "Sea Wolf" Saxon raiders, the difficulty in gathering and maintaining mounted warriors, horses barely big enough to carry large men and saddles without stirrups, near-starvation every winter, ambiguous mysticism and superstition regarding both curses and the Hill Folk, rare chainmail armor stolen from enemy war chiefs in place of "shining armor", and a dilapidated ex-Roman hill fort replacing "Camelot". On top of that, the novels are part of a loosely connected historical fiction series following a Roman soldier and his Briton, Saxon and Norse descendants down through the centuries. One of Sutcliff's other novels, The Shining Company, does not feature the family directly but is about the events that inspired Y Gododdin, with the legacy of Arthur weighing heavily upon the fading Briton resistance. She also wrote three novels directly retelling the medieval Arthurian romances as opposed to Arthurian pseudo-history: The Sword and the Circle, The Light Beyond the Forest and The Road to Camlann.
• Mary Stewart's The Merlin Trilogy (and its sequels) tell the story of Arthur from Merlin's perspective. The point of view changes to Mordred for The Wicked Day. There is also a "side story," The Prince and the Pilgrim.
• One of the more popular modern versions of Arthurian legend is The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and its sequence of novels, a retelling from the point of view of feminist neopaganism which began the trend of highly sympathetic readings of Morgan.
• Douglas Clegg's Mordred, Bastard Son is another retelling of the legend from Mordred's point of view, casting Arthur as an incestuous rapist and Morgan and Morgause as insanely violent trauma victims. Oh, and Mordred's gay and in love with Lancelot.
• Mordred's Heirs
• William Morris wrote quite a few poems about Arthurian characters.
• Terry Pratchett's short story "Once and Future" features a time traveller stuck in the past re-enacting Arthurian legend. In a twist, the king who pulls the sword from the stone happens to be a woman.
• T. H. White's The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlyn.
• The Pendragon Cycle by Stephen R. Lawhead, beginning with Taliesin, have Celtic mythology being mixed with Atlantean (clearly Greek-influenced) mythology and is written from a strongly Christian perspective.
• Marcus Pitcaithly's The Realm of Albion is set in an Arthurian world, albeit a few centuries before Arthur's birth.
• Gerald Morris's The Squire's Tales retells a number of Arthurian legends. Classic King Arthur stories accompanied by a reconstruction of Camelot and Arthur as heroic ideals while deconstructing courtly love.
• Bernard Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles tells a largely historically plausible version of the story with lots of Saxon mooks, setting Arthur as a Celtic king fighting against the Saxon invasion of Britain. The same author's Grail Quest series moves the quest for the Holy Grail up to the time of the Hundred Years' War, by which time Arthur is a legend, claimed by the English, Welsh, Scottish, and Bretons as one of their own. It also subverts a number of traditional aspects, especially in regard to Mordred (who is Arthur's half-brother and his king) and Lancelot (who is a treacherous coward).
• Elizabeth Wein's The Winter Prince, the first volume of The Lion Hunters series set in sixth-century Britain and Ethiopia, focuses on Medraut's fraught relationships with his mother Morgause and his young half-brother Lleu, Artos's legitimate son and heir.
• The Wizards, Warriors and You gamebook series is set sometime after King Arthur's rule. Arthur and his knights are long deceased, but their actions and legacy still leave an imprint in the setting. The Warrior's sword was forged by the same smith who made Excalibur, and the Wizard was tutored by Merlin himself. One book even features the knights of Camelot coming back as ghosts to haunt the kingdom.
• Young Indiana Jones and the Ghostly Riders by William McCay has the young Indy visit Wales during holiday, where his schoolmate's family's coal mining business is threatened by sabotage. In the course of foiling the villains, Wales being "King Arthur country" is discussed, along with the possible history behind the legends. Indy and his friend discover the silver dragon ring and later the treasure of Artorius, aided by the ghost of Morgen, who is noted to have suffered Adaptational Villainy as Morgan le Fay. While wearing the ring, Indy briefly sees a vision of (or magically goes back in time to see, it's ambiguous) Artorius's men and Morgen fleeing the destruction of Cadbury Castle, identified as their fortress of Camlann (Camelot), and bearing the treasure which Indy and his friend later find. The treasure saves the mine from going under, and Indy's friend is revealed to be Artorius's distant descendant.

Live-Action TV

• The Adventures Of Sir Lancelot, the first UK series made in colour.
• Arthur of the Britons was a series featuring a realistic Arthur as a warlord fighting Saxon invaders in Dark Ages Britain.
• Camelot: A 2011 series co-produced by Starz and GK-TV.
• Cursed, a Netflix series adapted from the YA novel of the same name; a loose retelling of the legends focused upon Nimue, who wields a magic sword strongly implied (but never outright stated) to be Excalibur to save the Fey from a genocide led by the Catholic Church. Several other Arthurian characters show up, though they often bear little resemblance to their legendary counterparts; Arthur himself isn't Uther's son and the future king, instead being a mercenary and Nimue's love interest. It also takes place several centuries later than is traditional, with Britain facing invasions from Vikings rather than Saxons.
• Kaamelott: A French comedy, close in spirit to Asterix, with Anachronism Stew aplenty (Arthur is a Briton raised by the Romans who ruled Britain for them, though since they're kind of busy going through five Emperors per year they don't bother them too much, and the knights wear 16th-century plate armor). At least in the first seasons, it focused on everyday life and mundane events at Kaamelott (though it also included mythological/historical jokes from all over the middle ages). Most characters range from quirky to complete idiots, with King Arthur acting (most of the time) as the Only Sane Man. Over the years the show did include more serialization and became more of a drama.
• Merlin (1998): A Mini Series starring Sam Neill in which Queen Mab figures in place of Morgaine Le Fay, brings Celtic mythology into play.
• Merlin (2008): A BBC Saturday Night series focusing on the early life of the wizard. It follows the legends only loosely, with Arthur raised prince of Camelot and Merlin a boy close to Arthur's age who is Arthur's servant and must hide his magic due to King Uther and later Arthur forbidding magic in Camelot. Gwen/Guinevere is the servant of Morgana introduced as Uther's ward and only revealed as his daughter in season 3. Mordred is a Druid boy who may or may not be Arthur's nephew, Gwaine is a noble hiding as a commoner, and Lancelot is a commoner for real. Gwen is seduced by a zombie-type Lancelot but never cheats on Arthur.

Music

• Blind Guardian's "A Past and Future Secret" is about King Arthur and the fall of Camelot. "Mordred's Song" is, unsurprisingly, about Mordred. "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight" is about Tristan and Isolde. The singer's other band Demons & Wizards has "Winter of Souls," which is also about the conflict between Arthur and Mordred.
• A large portion of the songs by Heather Dale. Among others:
  • Mordred's Lullaby is about Morguase telling baby Mordred how he's going to grow up and kill Arthur.
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is about Gawain fighting the Green Knight.
  • Kingsword. Go ahead and guess what this one's about.
• Grave Digger's Concept Album Excalibur is based on the legend of King Arthur.
• Rick Wakeman's Concept Album The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Various edits of the opening track, Arthur, which tells us briefly of Arthur's ascendency, have been used by The BBC to herald every general election since 1979 (with one exception).
• The Mechanisms' Concept Album "High Noon Over Camelot" is a queer Space Western retelling of the quest for the G.R.A.I.L.

Pinballs

• In Crystal Caliburn, the player is King Arthur, and must assemble the Knights of the Round in order to undergo a quest to retrieve the Holy Grail.

Tabletop Games

• GURPS Camelot, which includes rules for three possible settings: "Traditional", "Historical", and "Cinematic" with the option of mixing-and-matching depending on what you want to be accurate mythology, what you want to be realistic Dark Ages, and what you want to be Rule of Cool. All three Camelots are referenced in GURPS Infinite Worlds, which notes that the "Historical" Arthur (Artorius Riothamus) is one of many Arthurs found in otherwise non-mythic timelines, fitting just about any theory as to who the "historic" Arthur was.
  On any parallel with a current date between 410 and 660 A.D., the Patrol by now routinely expects to discover the “real Arthur” in a North Welsh hill fort, a Scottish border wall, or a detachment of Roman cavalry.
• Pendragon is heavily based on Malory's Le Morte D Arthur, but not afraid to plunder other sources if need be, and notable for magic causing the timeline to advance rapidly from the Dark Ages (complete with marauding Picts and Saxons) right through to the 15th century during the course of Arthur's reign allowing just about any Arthurian tale from any of myriad versions of the myth to be fit in somewhere. The Great Pendragon Campaign explicitly identifies the phases of Arthur's reign with periods in the history of England, from the Norman Conquest to the Wars of the Roses, in terms of the political situation and the available technology.
• Shadows over Camelot is a board game styled after the Arthurian myths, where the players take on the roles of Knights of the Round Table of their choosing (including King Arthur himself). The knights cooperate in going on quests and defending Camelot against encroaching evil forces—with a twist that one of them is secretly evil (i.e. the other players don't know who the traitor is) and must work to ensure Camelot's downfall.

Theatre

• Lerner and Loewe's musical Camelot, an adaptation of White's The Once and Future King focusing on the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot Love Triangle.
• Henry Purcell wrote the "semi-opera" King Arthur, or The British Worthy (1691), at least one number of which, the Cold Song, is popular today. The libretto by John Dryden dumps pretty much all characters apart from Arthur and Merlin in favour of a new cast of new characters; Arthur ends up marrying Emmeline.
• La Légende du Roi Arthur, a 2015 French musical.
• Richard Wagner's Parsifal is somewhat loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Arthurian romance Parzival. Wagner's earlier Lohengrin also tangentially touches the Grail myth. Note that Wagner moves the action from the 5th to the 10th century A.D.
• Eric Idle and John Du Prez's musical Spamalot, an adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail focusing on being very silly.
• Artus - Excalibur, a 2014 German-language musical.

Theme Parks

• The now-defunct Camelot Theme Park in Lancashire, located at one of the claimed locations of the actual Camelot.

Toys

• SD Gundam Gaiden Knights Of The Round Table is themed heavily after Arthurian legend, telling the story of how Crown Knight Gundam brought together new members for the Knights of the Round Table to reclaim the Britis Kingdom from the Zabiloniya Empire. Years later it got a prequel, New Testament SD Gundam Gaiden Gundam King Story, starring Crown Knight Gundam's father King Gundam I and telling the origins of how the old Knights of the Round Table first formed.

Video Games

• One of the early Sierra games was Conquests of Camelot, involving King Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail and the three knights that went missing in search of it. It combines almost every aspect of the Arthurian mythos, and naturally, has room for several Monty Python references.
• The player character of the Interactive Fiction game Guenevere is the titular queen and the story opens on the day of her marriage to King Arthur.
• King Arthur & the Knights of Justice
• King Arthur The Roleplaying Wargame
• Knights of the Round, a Beat 'em Up with Arthur, Lancelot and Perceval as playable characters, taking a few visual cues from Excalibur.
• Sonic and the Black Knight: an Alternate Universe version of the Arthurian myth with the Knights portrayed as Sonic characters and an evil descendant of Merlin pulling the strings.
• Wild Blood, a Hack and Slash game where the player assumes the role of Lancelot who must defeat Arthur's evil handmaiden, the sorceress Morgana.

Visual Novels

• Fate Series:
  • Set in the wider Nasuverse, the series has utilized a unique re-sculpturing of Arthur from the idea of using the first sentence of the page quote from Excalibur, "I was not born to live a man's life", as a literal statement: their King Arthur is actually a woman named Artoria ^note or Altria (official translations disagree with each other on the spelling, though the Japanese pronunciation is unambiguously the former, and "Altria" is preferred by the creator despite the translators' begging) though male-oriented society of the time (and, indeed, at her own insistence) dictated that she be remembered as a man. Her identity as Arthur was originally a major twist, but she's become the face of the franchise so it's not much of a surprise anymore.
  • In the original entry, Fate/stay night, revolving around mages summoning heroic spirits from history and myths to help them fight for the Holy Grail, the king is summoned into the Holy Grail War under the Saber class. It is worth noting that this Historical Gender Flip of the character has been broadly utilized to address several social issues from the past and present, to combat future social injustice, such as the pros and cons of feminine leaders, the abuse of women throughout history, the possibility of an inaccurate historic record leading to a focus upon the consequences of such an inaccuracy, and what, from an ethical stand point, ought be any ruler's number one priority if they have only themselves to answer.
  • "Avalon" is not only the name of an afterlife where Arthur intends to go after death, but is also used to refer to the scabbard of Excalibur, able to be magically placed in a host to grant them a Healing Factor. It was used by Kiritsugu and Irisviel to summon Artoria and then placed inside of Irisviel, then was later placed in Shirou by Kiritsugu to help him heal from his injuries caused by the Great Fuyuki Fire, which later causes Shirou to accidentally summon Artoria as his Servant in the subsequent Holy Grail War.
  • Bedivere has a brief appearance in the normal end of the Fate route of Fate/stay night, carrying a mortally wounded Artoria to safety after the Battle of Camlann and returning Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake as per Artoria's orders, allowing Artoria to pass peacefully.
  • The prequel Fate/Zero also has Lancelot as Berserker, bearing the appropriate grudge against Artoria/Saber.
  • The Alternate Universe Fate/EXTRA also has Gawain as an enemy-exclusive Saber (your Saber is a gender-flipped Nero).
  • Mordred also gets a brief mention in Fate/stay night and a cameo in the 2006 anime adaptation, and is also a Historical Gender Flip; in the Nasuverse, she was a homunculus created from Artoria's DNA by Morgan. She later becomes the Saber of Red in Fate/Apocrypha. The series portrays her as a violent warrior with a chip on her shoulder towards her father and the Round Table and serious issues about being called a girl, but deep down still wanting Artoria's love and being a decent person underneath her rough manner, making this one of the more sympathetic portrayals of the arch-traitor.
  • Kay appears in the Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] audio drama, Curtain Call ~ LET US DRIVE TOGETHER, which takes place after the anime. Shirou, who has been frequently visiting Artoria's grave in Glastonbury Abbey, is visited by the spirit of Kay, who tells him that Artoria would've liked him to move on.
  • The Garden of Avalon novel, also included with the Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] blu-ray DVD release, also has chapters taking place from the perspectives of Lancelot (about his affair with Guinevere), Kay (about his and Arthur's childhood), Gawain (waxing on about how great Arthur is and the fight against Vortigern), and Merlin (musing on his mentorship of Arthur, which opens and ends the story with his imprisonment in Avalon).
  • In Fate/Prototype, a 12-minute OVA that gives us a look at what Nasu originally planned for Fate/stay night, King Arthur is still the main character's Saber-class Servant, but he's not a Historical Gender Flip. He's also much younger despite the modern portrayals of Arthur mostly portraying him as a middle-late aged old king. Mordred is also mentioned as being a yandere (father-son variant) for his father.
  • The Lord El-Melloi II Case Files series covers what happened to one of Arthur's weapons, the spear Rhongomyniad, in the modern era. It's been in the hands of Arthur's distant relatives as part of a centuries-long conspiracy to revive the king's spirit in a suitable host body, namely El-Melloi II's apprentice, Gray.
  • Fate/Grand Order:
    • This game features Galahad, fused with Mash into the Demi-Servant Shielder, and Merlin, who has been spying on the player through his familiar, Fou. All the above examples are also available as summonable Servants.
    • The Sixth Singularity, Camelot, introduces Bedivere (has been around since Stay Night, but played a really minor role) as a Saber who has a magical silver arm that's actually a transmuted Excalibur and Tristan as an Archer who wields a "bow" that is also a harp that upon strumming the strings fires sound waves. The chapter also shows Agravain and mentions Gareth, and from the other Knights' comments and confirmed later Gareth has a Gender Flip and is a Lancer who eventually becomes playable too, wielding a magical gun-lance. Gawain also mentions Percival, Kay, Gaheris, Bors and King Pellinore were all summoned before the Singularity started, but rebelled against the Lion King (a version of Artoria who never died and instead became a goddess through Excalibur never being thrown into the lake and using the holy spear Rhongomyniad) and were killed by the other Knights for it.
    • The Sixth Lostbelt, Avalon le Fae, is ruled by an Alternate History version of Morgan le Fay who has her own Knights of the Round Table in the form of three "Faerie Knights" named after Gawain, Tristan, and Lancelot respectively. An Alternate Self of Percival also appears wielding the Lance of Longinus, and Chaldea must help another alternate version of Artoria, this one a mage rather than a knight, fulfill her destiny as the prophecized "Child of Salvation. Also, Vortigern appears in the Ambigiuous Situation of being a Composite Character with the Fairy King Oberon. It also drops several reveals about Morgan such as the fact that in the Nasuverse not only is she Arthur's full sister rather than simply half-sister, but she had three separate Split Personality, one of which was The Lady of the Lake Vivian/Nimue. Also, Proper Human History Morgan le Fay was originally summoned by one of the Crypters, but sacrificed herself performing Mental Time Travel to help out her Lostbelt self.
• Guinevere: A story starring the future Queen Guinevere.^note The protagonist's name and appearance can be changed by the player at any time during customization.

Webcomics

• Arthur, King of Time and Space presents different perspectives on Arthurian legend as seen from different times and places — the basic Heroic Fantasy England, A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away..., Present Day America, and so on.
• In J. Flores's King Arthur and the Round Table Knights a reborn Arthur stumbles across the sword in the stone and has to recruit the reincarnated knights of the Round Table in order to battle foes from all across time and space itself.

Web Original

• The History of Arturius Aurelianus, a work purporting to tell the "true" story of King Arthur and squarely set during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain.
• Round Table Texts reimagines Arthur and his knights if they'd had access to text messaging.

Web Videos

• Brocéliande, a fan web-series based on Kaamelott and set in the eponymous mythical forest.
• REX, a web series by Severe Chill Studios, depicts Arthurian characters living in the present day.

Western Animation

• Arthur! and the Square Knights of the Round Table is a humorous Australian series from The '60s, with quirky design and animation influenced by UPA. Arthur is a very small man, only half the height of Guinevere who is always implied to be the brains of the pair. Lancelot is rather vain and has a speech impediment caused by a gap in his teeth. The Court Jester is the resident Deadpan Snarker ("What do you take me for — a fool?"), while Merlin is always coming up with new potions, not all of them entirely successful. Morgana le Fay is allied to the Black Knight, but their efforts to overthrow Camelot are always defeated, usually by a combination of their incompetence and bad luck. A handful of episodes made it onto DVD in Britain in 2001.
• King Arthur's Disasters a humorous, anachronistic, British cartoon about a moronic King Arthur's failed attempts to woo the spoilt Princess Guinevere.
• The Legend of Prince Valiant
• Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders^note known as "Starla and the Jewel Riders" in Europe (Robert Mandell's other series) was largely inspired by the myths. Including (but not limited to) Gwenevere's name (based on "Guinevere" from the original), Merlin as their spiritual advisor, Merlin's talking owl companion Archimedes (called Archie for short), and the series setting: the kingdom of Avalon (whose capital city is called "New Camelot").