Captivated by Camelot
I was looking through my shelves of ‘best loved’
books and turned the pages of Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills,
overcome by a feeling of nostalgia. I
was twelve or thirteen, I think, when my elder sisters Rachel and Debbie were
trying to keep me occupied during the long, hot summer holidays. My mother had put them in charge, because I generally took advantage of any lack of "adult" supervision, riding off even during the hottest
time of day on my cycle. I don’t think I
ever got sun stroke, but my mother always feared I might. I can imagine that my two sisters, wishing to
go about their own business, must have debated long and hard over the most
failsafe method to keep me in the house.
I can picture them right now - whispering, conspiring, taking out first
The Crystal Cave and then The Hollow Hills and placing each book in turn, in my
restless hands. I have always loved
reading, but at that point in my life, I loved the outdoors more. However, for a part of that summer I stayed
indoors during the day, curled up on a sofa in the living room, completely
enthralled by one of the most amazing legends of all time – the legend of King
Arthur and his knights, and of Merlin, that fascinating magician. I then read Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of
the King’ which gave the Legend a new dimension altogether. I relived the charms of Camelot some years
later when Debbie managed to find, and lend me, The Once and Future King and
The Sword In The Stone by T.H. White.
Today when I see my daughters immersed in the latest
fantasy novels, I wish they would give the Arthurian legends a chance - to enjoy,
as I did, the indescribable bliss of being transported to the world of chivalry,
magic and romance that so inspired me one summer years ago.
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