Thursday, 25 May 2006
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Introduction (July 29, 2003)
I still remember the first time I heard the story of King Arthur....
It wasn't the sword in the stone that burned in my mind for weeks afterward. It wasn't the wise old Merlin, or the treacherous nephew (right?) or the beautiful Guinevere. Ah, I was too young for it to be Guinevere.
No, I spent weeks in a melancholy, thinking of his end. Not his death -- no death for noble King Arthur -- his end. Wounded, fallen, but not dead. Sleeping.
King Arthur, Great King, the Once and Future King (as he's been popularly called). Gone. Sleeping, waiting for the time of England's greatest need. He's supposed to come back, you know. He's supposed to wake up, to shake off the dust of the ages -- the dust of the Rise and Fall of Rome, of Christianity; the dust of the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution and Modernism and World Wars and atomic bombs and jet planes and a world wide web....
He's supposed to wake up, to shake off the dust of the ages, and save England from its gravest peril.
How?
I used to wonder, when I was a boy, why Arthur didn't come back during World War II. Now I wonder what good it would have done. What world is this for kings? What world is this for royalty, for nobility, for myths? What world is this for heroes, when heroes are such petty, sickly things....
The myths aren't dead. The heroes and kings of old aren't gone...they're sleeping. Petty politics and personal ambition are sufficient to govern the world today, to keep things running. The dragons are dormant, too. But Golden Ages end -- it's practically What-They-Do. There will come a time, not too far off (as these things are judged) when we will face our darkest hour....
It won't be bombs, or terrorists. It won't be man-made diseases or machines rising up against their makers. It won't be (I think) a vengeful God raining down his fires. It will be Us, mankind, grown all old and wise and stale until all that's left before us is decay.
We've survived on our science, our reason, our logic. We've devoured our souls to feed our minds. That's fine -- it's the way of things -- but things also have a habit of coming full circle. We'll be the phoenix. We'll fade, fade, until we're almost gone.
Then there will be a flash -- a fire like we have never known, except in story. There will be a bang (or something like it) and then we'll begin again. Made anew of flame and shadow, burning with passion and magic that push all our old reason out to arm's length.
There's my prophecy. For you. All our kings are sleeping, but the wake-up call is coming....
Listen....
Listen closely....
Hear it now?
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