King Arthur's Death
DESCRIPTION: "On Trinity Monday in the morn, This sore batteyle was doomed to be." Arthur and Mordred meet in battle, with both hosts effectively destroyed. Mordred is killed, Arthur mortally wounded, Excalibur is tossed back into the lake, all that Malory stuff
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1750 (Percy MS.)
KEYWORDS: royalty battle death
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Hales/Furnival-BishopPercysFolioManuscript, volume I, pp. 497-507, "Kinge Arthurs Death" (1 fragment)
Percy/Wheatley-ReliquesOfAncientEnglishPoetry III, pp. 27-39, "King Arthur's Death" (2 texts, one a fragment from the Percy folio and the other Percy's "improved" text)
Bell-Combined-EarlyBallads-CustomsBalladsSongsPeasantryEngland, pp. 108-116, "King Arthur's Death" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSPercyFolio}, The Percy Folio, London, British Library MS. Additional 27879, page 178
ST BeCo108 (Partial)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "King Arthur and King Cornwall" [Child 30] (subject: Percy Folio texts about King Arthur)
NOTES [33 words]: For background on the King Arthur legend, see the notes to "King Arthur and King Cornwall "[Child 30]. The whole piece is much too Malory-esque to be traditional; clearly it is a minstrel piece. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.3
File: BeCo108
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