THE STORY NOTEBOOK

Every legend has
more than one layer.

Choose a thread. Read the story, see which book it comes from, and keep the source beside it.

Find a threadKind of story11 articles

How Malory’s young Arthur proves he should be king, in a London churchyard, one winter.

A second sword, a strange bargain, and Merlin’s warning about the scabbard.

A table in the stories, a painted table on a wall in Winchester, and a Roman arena in Wales.

A tower that will not stand, a boy with no father, and two serpents under a pool.

A New Year challenge, a beheading that does not end the story, and a green belt worn as a lesson.

Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott, and the older story in Malory that sits behind it.

A seat no one dares take, a sword in a floating stone, and a vessel nobody can see clearly.

An adder, a drawn sword, three queens in a barge, and a grave that might not be a grave.

What 18th-century Isle of Man tradition said about Merlin, Arthur and a sealed room in Castle Rushen.

What the earliest writers actually say about Arthur, and what historians can and cannot claim.

From a monk’s complaint to a Victorian picture book, in dated steps.