The stories of King Arthur are among the great legends of British history.

His rise to be the King of all England, the battles that he fought alongside

his Knights of the Roundtable, the quest for the Holy Grail, the Sword of the Stone, all that stuff, you know it well.

But behind the medieval mythology of it all, behind Merlin the magician and the lady of the lake

who was supposed to have given Arthur his beloved Excalibur, there were some pretty dodgy, sexy shenanigans going on, at least in the early to mid-medeval versions of that story.

And good virtuous King Arthur, well, he wasn't quite so innocent himself.

I'm Dr. Eleanor Yannica, and on this episode of Gone Medieval, I'm popping across to my history

hit Sister Podcast betwixt theets to spill the beans on King Arthur

with my sister podcaster Dr Kate Lister.

We're going to separate the man from the myth.

Oh, and I should warn you, as per usual, when I go on betwixt the sheets, some of the content

may be a little explicit for sensitive ears.

With that in mind, take it away, Kate.

King Arthur. That's what we're talking about today. What an interesting

strange little subject he is, right? It's part of British history but also it's a bit of French history, a bit of German,

there's some Italian in there. The Welsh would want a shout out as with the Irish as well.

It's this melting pot of different stories right? Yeah it's really

interesting so there's a term that medieval people use when they talk about what

we now call Arthuriana although maybe Arthuriana is still happening.

If you write something about King Arthur now, it's added to the canon, right?

That's still Arseiana.

But they have this way of talking about it where they call it the material of the English. This is the literary thing to write about if you're going to write about England.

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