A Massachusetts Bookshop in King Arthur’s Court

The beautiful thing about the Arthurian legend is that so many absolutely diverse authors have raised their pens as if they were swords and rode to the challenge of its literary expression. Not only is the list of authors long, but so are the many centuries that they have been telling these tales, which have been expressed in so many ways. There are Arthurian novels, plays, poems, ballads, short stories, romances, literary criticisms, histories, bibliographies, movies, comics, and on and on. The one thing these authors and their readers share is a serious passion for the “Once and Future King” of Camelot.

So when I hear people come into my Three Geese In Flight Celtic and Arthurian antiquarian bookshop and say to me, “Gee this a very narrow specialty,” and then if they decide to step over the line of propriety and be a bit rude by continuing with, “How do you survive?,” I scratch my head and say, “No it really isn't very narrow at all,” and with true curiosity and yes perhaps my own vengeful rudeness say, “How do YOU survive?”

In actuality the Arthurian legend is really not a narrow specialty. Its mythos is the heart of western literature and after the Bible it is Europe's first bestseller. A thumbnail sketch goes like this. When the most likely historical Arthur lived in about the year 500 his songs of battles were sung by his “Bard Teulu.” This was a poet who sang of a king and his warband's joys, loves, and heroes. King Arthur was beloved and praised in song because he kept the Saxons (think German motorcycle gangs in boats) at bay. Arthur's Celtic culture also honored women, so that modern sensibility counterbalanced the war songs which created a tense and beloved oral narrative. These were sung or chanted with a harp accompaniment in a feasting hall by the bard. Flash ahead to the 12^th century and you have the first really beloved hand written medieval manuscripts of what? A romance of King Arthur; and a quasi (very quasi) history of Britain told by Geoffrey of Monmouth for lords and ladies in castles and monasteries. Fast forward to the 15^th century and you have Columbus, the printing press, and another epic of King Arthur, Thomas Mallory's printed Le Morte d’Arthur. From there it never stopped through the centuries. Even in prim Victorian England the hidden love of Guinevere and Lancelot could not be kept from the romance in people's hearts. Tennyson's Idylls of the King was so big it would have been made into a movie if they happened to have them at the time. Later even Tom Sawyer's white picket fence America had Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Then in 20^th century England the witty, anti-war, lovable-as-can-be The Once and Future King became a huge bestseller, spawning a president and a new Camelot in America both in the White House and on Broadway.

All sorts of writers produced Arthurian books, including Nikolai Tolstoy, John Cowper Powys, and John Steinbeck. Historical novels include Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff, and Mary Stewart’s Merlin Series (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, etc.). Recently Arthurian novels have exploded! Bernard Cornwall who wrote the Napoleonic Sharpe series produced a trilogy beginning with The Winter King. Jack Whyte, Parke Godwin, Gillian Bradshaw, and on and on. Even I have finished an Arthurian novel about an Arthurian colony in the 6th century among the Mohawk Native people. Arthur buries the Spear of Destiny beneath an Iroquois Tree of Peace. Mordred cuts the tree and steals the spear, which knowingly or unknowingly allows what was deep below from the first ages of Turtle Island to be free, and that’s not good. I have a great agent and I hope to join these ranks of what I love and sell.

So when I am asked about the narrowness of our specialty I really think of how nearly every country and every culture has embraced the Arthurian legend. People are surprised to know the medieval epic poem Parzival is among the most beloved literature in Germany. The Vulgate Cycle and Chrétien de Troyes of France spread the Arthurian legend everywhere in Europe. But if the width of the cultures surprises those who thought it was a limited interest, this next entry makes them ask for a chair. One of my shop’s most interesting and unique Arthurian offerings is Curt Leviant’s 1969 King Artus: A Hebrew Arthurian Romance of 1279!!! That's right. It has 13th century Hebrew on one side and English on the other. I think that says it all. But if that surprises people about the depth of the literature, the question I am asked even more than the earlier one is, “Where do you get all these books?”

Now I know all booksellers are asked this question. But with the Arthurian book question I really do not believe they are happy with the true answer I reluctantly give them. I would like to say, “A man in a long purple robe with a tall conical hat brought me to a ship where I sailed to kingdoms of sapphire and silver and there I beheld a glittering library and...” No, I tell them what I tell you. They come from everywhere. Mainly other booksellers from here and overseas, at their shops, at book fairs, and online; from people selling their collections; and of course that quest for the Holy Grail itself, the occasional library, garage, and church sales. The rare material gets harder because few collectors want to sell. What I like the best because I collect as well is to find something I never heard of or have never seen, and then of course comes the dilemma of dilemmas for booksellers—do I keep it or sell it? How to justify that, or what to trade from my own collection. However the other side of the page is more interesting…who I sell to. To begin with, as I'm sure you know, it usually is not the person who has asked me these questions.

I sell to as diverse a group of people as the subject's history. While I am a traditionalist and love having an open shop for people to browse where I can talk and share, it’s the internet that has really given our shop a new lease, so to speak. In our case the internet has been a wonderful boon. While my prices by the nature of how I buy my books are relatively high, I still compete with the general book dealer time and time again. I know each and every book I sell and that helps when I describe it online. Our customers usually know what they are looking for, or they look to me to elaborate a little and entice them. The internet allows you to do this. Often the collector is focused within our focus. There are some who just collect Arthurian novels—literature, if you will. There are so many Arthurian novels that the collecting is very exciting and fun and great reading, partly because you see completely different takes on this one story. Take mine. I want to create a “Lord of the Rings” for North America with King Arthur as the link to the entire mythology of the western hemisphere. Excitingly there are Elizabethan narratives that claim Arthur indeed did so.

Other Arthurian collectors are strictly interested in the historical material. They only purchase books that deal with the 5^th and 6^th centuries during the time when the Romano-Celtic Arthur fought off the Angles and Saxons. They want Welsh bardic poetry of Taliesin and Aneirin. Early medieval Saint’s lives of Ireland, Brittany, Wales and Scotland. Roman chronicles, Pictish king lists, Saint Gildas, Nennius, and archeology of the period. Some collect Arthurian medieval romance only. They want nothing to do with pure history or archeology. They want the Lady of the Lake and Lancelot and the Vulgate Cycle and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Some buy gifts for fathers and mothers, some for lovers. I sell a lot to universities such as Notre Dame, Vassar, and the University of Michigan at Kalamazoo. Then there are those that only want fairy tales and Celtic folklore; Irish history ancient and modern; Gaelic language Irish, Scottish, and Manx; Scottish Clans; French and Indian war battles; Breton music; Welsh and Cornish language texts; and medieval manuscripts. Most importantly there are those who want it all and they all come to me, because that is what I like. In all honesty, that is why I started Three Geese In Flight Celtic Books. 29 years ago there was no shop that sold all these. There were Irish shops and Scottish stores, medieval specialists, and purveyors of American colonial history, but there was no bookshop where an Irish Catholic nun could shop next to a pagan Druid, and a medieval Arthurian scholar or a pre-Columbian voyage researcher or a Welsh linguist could all look at books together in one location. Most importantly, like all of you reading this, Three Geese In Flight Books gave me a place where I could follow my dream and widen what was once seen as narrow while sharing something wonderful with the world.

Samuel Wenger operates Three Geese In Flight Books in Somerville, MA and can be contacted at http://www.threegeeseinflight.com.