In the Middle Ages, animal stories were immensely popular throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The people of the time were, of course, dependent on wild and domestic animals for their survival, and so had an obvious interest in the animals around them. But there is more to it than just a requirement for knowledge of the animals they knew and used; there is a distinctly spiritual and even mystical aspect to the animal lore of the Middle Ages.

The medieval period was intensely religious. In western Europe, the religion was Christianity; in North Africa and the Middle East it was primarily Islam. The Jews and their religion were found almost everywhere, living among Christians and Muslims, sometimes tolerated, sometimes not. Despite the frequent violence between them, all three religions were closely related and shared many of the same spiritual and historical texts. In particular, all three considered all or most of the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament by Christians), which contains many references to animals, to be sacred.

The Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest and most moving stories rooted in the ancient wisdom-tradition of mankind. Recited for nearly three millennia, it was virtually lost for another two with the advent of Christianity. Modern generations came to know about Gilgamesh only after the first cuneiform fragments of his story were excavated in 1853 at Nineveh from the library of the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, who reigned in the 7th century BC. Almost twenty years elapsed, however, before the clay tablets were deciphered by George Smith at the British Museum. On December 3, 1872, he announced to the newly-formed Society of Biblical Archaeology that he had “discovered among the Assyrian tablets . . . an account of the Flood” in one of the story’s later episodes. This stirred up considerable interest and, before long, more fragments of Gilgamesh were unearthed, both at Nineveh and in the ruins of other ancient cities.

For over a thousand years, storytellers have spun tales of King Arthur of Britain, his Queen Guinevere, and the circle of his noble Knights. Why do these stories endure? How does an outlaw in Lincoln green with a taste for disguise and foolery survive for six hundred years to inspire disguised tricksters from Alta California to Revolutionary France to the farthest reaches of the galaxy?
How have these songs and stories twisted and turned over the centuries, and how have they defined our expectations of heroism, romance, and adventure?

This is Legends, Paula Kate Marmor’s personal journey through the worlds of Robin Hood, King Arthur, D’Artagnan, and other swashbuckling characters of balladry, fiction, and film, from the shores of Avalon to the dungeons of Zenda.

Come, explore the worlds of Legends!