They are crucial to ground the story of Merlin, because it is so completely unknown. Merlin also did not come first: before Merlin and Arthur were King Uther, who was Arthur’s father, and his elder brother the High King Ambrosius, who was Merlin’s father. I’m quite aware that Arthur is a myth and a fantasy in many forms, but for simplicity I’m going to pretend he was a real person, because in the world of this genre he is, and because it saves me writing a lot of conditional ‘might haves’. Part of its attraction is that it isn’t about Arthur as such, but about the events led up to Arthur being born. It was completely unputdownable, and still is, for me. That was the first and last time I went on a camping holiday of my own free will, and The Crystal Cave did a lot to make the experience bearable, by taking me away from it completely. My favourite is The Crystal Cave, which I first read lying fully dressed in a sleeping-bag, in a tent in mid-Wales, in the March snow, desperately trying to finish the book before the light went, or my torch battery went.

I’ll have to go and buy it now, * but I do know that it’s about the finding of the Holy Grail. I think this must be because I bought the other four novels in one go, and this last one was published after that, and I simply didn’t notice.

The fifth novel, The Prince and the Pilgrim, I haven’t actually read, and I didn’t even know it existed until I started researching this pod. The following four are The Hollow Hills (in which Arthur grows up and comes to his kingdom), The Last Enchantment (the early years of Arthur’s reign, still struggling against the Saxons), and The Wicked Day (the story of Mordred, given a rather sympathetic twist). Mary Stewart wrote a magical series of five Arthur novels, starting with The Crystal Cave, and the life of Merlin. She died in 2014, which came as a shock to me. I had been living in the same time as one of my favourite authors, and never had the gumption to write her a letter? Fool. Urn:oclc:36704228 Republisher_date 20120429223311 Republisher_operator Scandate 20120429020322 Scanner ’ve reached the point in this recap of Really Like This Book podcast scripts about King Arthur when we really have to talk about Mary Stewart. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 19:27:18 Boxid IA178001 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City Thorndike, Me.

Mary stewart the prince and the pilgrim