Essay 1: The King of the Wood is The Cynningwydd

The King of the Wood: I found the title in Frazier's wonderful book, The Golden Bough.  He starts the book with the myth of the King of the Wood, and somehow made it the focal point of his life's work. I made up a word for this mythical figure, the Cynningwydd.  Cyning meant King in Old English and Gwydd meant the woods or the wild in Gaelic.  And it became the title, for better or worse for now, of my lifetime's work, my novel.  I have spent my life writing this novel.  To me, in a sense, Arthurian legend and Greek and Roman mythology are real.  They form a fabric, a matrix through which our imaginations can wander, reading the stories composed by others, or recorded by others, or creating our own.  My credo, if I had a church, might be: I believe King Arthur lived; I believe he died and was carried away to some magical realm to return one day when the world needed him most; I believe that he actually has already done so in a manner that altered the entire destiny of mankind on Earth and that the details of that  adventure are contained in my novel, The Cynningwydd; I believe that the details of this tale were "inspired" into my subconscious by the White Goddess who wanted this tale to be made known to the world, and so on.  We all live in a myth; this is mine.  It helps me write what I do, imagine the things I do.

So this blog has two initial purposes.  First my hope to promote my own work, or if one returns to the myth, the Goddess wants to story to be known.  And truthfully, I'd like the work to be successful, naturally; I want readers and fans and movie rights and to win the lottery, so to speak, on my own merits.  I am an English teacher, my life's employment has been educating young people to appreciate good literature--so of course I wish for my work to be added to that body of literature.  I like to imagine people still reading my novel and enjoying wandering through my imagination, bringing it back to mental life by mingling their imagination with the printed artifacts of my own, long after I am gone.  Such an afterlife, even if I never achieved the success or recognition I desire in this one, would please me; does please me--after all we live in a myth.  I experienced such a communion with an author when I was a teenager and "discovered" Hudson's Green Mansions.  I can remember the shape and feel and greenish cover of that paperback novel, found on a lower shelf of The Paperback Shack, a store I walked past or stopped in almost daily during my years in Junior High School.  I bought it on a total hunch, intrigued by the copy, a total unknown quantity.  And then for the next few days my mind soared the romantic mysteries of Hudson's South American jungles; I dreamed his dreams and for a brief while his mind lived again as I imagined his fantasy.  And I thought, I would like it if someday, when I'm gone, some kid picks up a dusty copy of some book I've written, and for a few days. . .    I think that moment was really the birth of whatever career I might have as a writer.

The other is initial purpose is an exploration of myth and legend, of its meaning and relevance in our lives, of the extent to which it underlies all that we do and think.  I like mythology.  I loved teaching it for many years. And I have thoughts and insights and stories I'd like to share, or discuss, or explore. For my analysis of other areas of literature, of stories and poems, I will write on SilverNotes, another blog.  For my more philosophical musings, I have another blog in mind, Spiritual Atheism.  But where the main focus is Arthurian, or Mythological, this will be the place.