Another Literary Comparison

[junediamanti]

No: HPFGUIDX 76971

Well less lit than legend.  Spot some parrallels.

Stop me if this had been said before.  In Arthurian legend which is 
possibly the only truly "homegrown" British Legend (Alright - Welsh, 
Celtic whatever...)the hero, Arthur is the son of the King of 
England, Uther Pendragon, born at a time of great strife etc.

He is born as a result of a scandalous and adulterous mating between 
Uther and Igraine, the Countess of Cornwall, whose husband is an 
enemy of Uther (this is not disconnected with the fact that Uther 
fancies Igraine).  Luckily - one might say - Gorlois the Earl of 
Cornwall gets himself killed shortly after this coupling.  

Meanwhile, Merlin a magician or wizard had fixed it up for Uther to 
visit Igraine under a glamour as her husband - enabling the 
conception of Arthur.  The price that Merlin extracted for this 
useful piece of magic is the baby.

Arthur is born and Merlin takes the baby away in his arms and places 
it secretly with a family far away who treat it rather poorly - 
Arthur is only a squire while his foster brother Kay is to become a 
Knight and so on.  Uther dies in battle.

Arthur draws a sword out of a stone (not a hat) to become King of 
England.

He is betrayed by his best friend and greatest companion.

He establishes a fellowship of knighthood to combat evil.

He is killed in the final battle with his greatest enemy who is his 
son and nephew at the same time (I don't think this is going to be 
an element that JKR draws on somehow) - this is because he 
unknowingly commits incest.  He had half sisters but due to the 
scandal surrounding his birth does not know who his maternal family 
is.  So Arthur has a life-long problem about his identity and 
background. He is never re-united with his mother and never sees his 
father.

I'm not saying that JKR is re-telling the Arthurian legend cycle - 
not but what they couldn't bear another telling.  The point of this 
post is to say that I think all the great fantasy stories have 
echoes of each other which come from myths.  While I think the 
Arthur story is only a distant informant of the HP series, I do 
think that Harry is an Arthur like figure.  

June