THE FOOTPRINTS OF ARTHUR
I wrote this towards the end of a 3-week trip to Great Britain. It was my last college class and such a wonderful trip. Seeing as how I don't have an artist to feature today, I thought I'd feature one of my favorite characters/legends: Arthur Pendragon. I am a complete sucker for anything Arthurian-Legend-related... and this trip was one where we got to go see a lot of artifacts from that period of history. When we had to write a "personal/imaginative essay" about something that had really struck us on the trip, the essay almost wrote itself.
The Footprints of Arthur Pendragon: High King of Britain
She had been retracing the steps of Arthur; crossing the paths that he had trod, marking the great achievements of his life. She stood in the Great Hall and gazed up at the Round Table that King Arthur and his knights had once sat around (if you believed the stories, and she had long since chosen to do so). Even though she had walked through Arthur’s life in a somewhat backwards order; that did not lessen the magical quality of the things that she had seen.
The most memorable Arthur moment had been the great climb up to a place that was now referred to as “Arthur’s Seat.” She and two others had climbed that treacherous path together and shared the feeling of victory that had come with making it all the way to the top. The seat was really just a simple monument at the top of a very large “fell,” something taller than a hill and shorter than a mountain, but legend held that Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, had been crowned king on that spot.
The climb had not been easy, and it had taken the better part of two hours to reach the top, but it had been more than worth it. There was a steep climb at the beginning, because the three adventurers had decided to shun the easy, graded path at first. Of course, within about fifty yards or so of climbing they had run out of options because it was either take the easy path or climb a sheer cliff face that looked like something out of The Princess Bride. The easy path had lasted for quite some time, and then they had reached the winding stair. The stairway zigzagged back and forth across the mountain, and it had been made to look like part of the mountain face itself. The winding stair was not the easiest path to follow, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was easier than climbing the fell without any stairs at all.
As she climbed, the girl suddenly realized that she now knew why people tackle the great Mount Everest. The closer she got to the top, the harder it was to turn back. As they continued to trek up the mountain, she knew that there would be a great sense of regret and a feeling of having lost something truly valuable and precious if she turned away from the task with the end so near. As they climbed higher, a patch of blue sky opened up to greet them.
“Look!” she said, smiling, “We've climbed the mountain to seek out the sky!”
On this quest of utmost importance they had all begun to wax a bit poetic. At long last, as the sky began to darken, they climbed up the last, treacherous bit of rocky path and stood staring down at Edinburgh like heroes at the top of the world. As she looked around, the girl recreated the scene in her imagination, as it must have looked so many years ago. She could see the horses prancing at the base of the top of the mountain; they were decked out in their very finest. All the lords and ladies were assembled down in the shallow valley watching as Merlin raised the golden circlet high into the air. Arthur, the boy king, knelt before him. She imagined how he must have felt: nervous and afraid, proud and humble, excited and apprehensive. She imagined the words that might have been said, how Merlin would have reminded the people that this was the man who had managed to pull the sword from the stone in that mystical place called Stonehenge. She did not know if that would have been the name it bore in those days, but she liked to believe that the great sword of Arthur had once been imprisoned in a rock in the middle of a young and whole Stonehenge, back before time had worn away at the structure. Then Merlin lowered the crown onto Arthur’s head and declared him the king of Britain and the gentry cheered as the young man stood up and faced them.
“Yes,” she murmured, “That is how it must have been.”
With a shake of her head, the horses and nobles and even the young king disappeared. Merlin, however, remained a moment longer. His wise old eyes held a twinkle in them, and his lips seemed to smile slightly. He nodded to himself, as though he was glad to find someone left in the world who still bore the legend in her heart. Then he too disappeared into the darkness of the late afternoon grayness, and the three explorers began the long journey home.