Mr Charles Parkinson’s Lecture
On Monday the 25th January, Mr Charles Parkinson, author of ‘Lisia: Vortigern’s Island’ and ‘The Duke and the Decoy’, gave a lecture entitled ‘Arthurian Legends and Guernsey’ to a selection of English and EPQ 6th form pupils from The Ladies’ College and Elizabeth College.
The talk covered the little known history of Arthur as a warrior and cited the earliest known sources of information on the subject, including Gildas, writing on the battle of Mount Badon, and Nennius’ writings in which Arthur is also mentioned as leading the British into battle. He then considered the importance of the Norman Revival and Geoffrey of Monmouth's seminal text ‘Historia Regum Britanniae’ and the contribution of writers such Wace to the store of information on Arthur.
Mr Parkinson led the audience on to consider the likelihood of Arthur fighting with the Bretons against the powerful Franks and whether the etymology of the name 'Avalon' might in fact be a version of the Old Breton 'aval' (plural 'avalou') meaning 'apple' and was this indeed the original name for Guernsey? Another reason given for this hypothesis was that Guernsey was one of the two Norman isles in which ships of the period would, 'hull awhile', waiting for the tides for St Malo; those Norman isles that Merlin predicted would be lost: “Normandy will lose both its isles and be deprived of its former dignity”, according to Geoffrey's account.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable and informative talk and several pupils were inspired to ask questions concerning the language of the early authors: ‘In the case of Procopius, who was based in Turkey, was he writing in Greek or Latin?’; ‘What was the importance of the later Romances in relation to your research?’
We hope this event will also inspire them to further their own enquiries.
Ms J Doyle
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