Hero Homes
There’s a mounted statue of Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, in Prague.
He’s the “good king” of the Christmas song. Although he died in AD 985 and was
declared a saint soon after, he’s not necessarily at rest. Folk legend holds
that if the Czech Republic is ever in mortal danger, the statue will come to
life, leave its pedestal, and raise an army to defend his homeland. Beethoven, Strauss Jr, Borodin,
Sibelius, and Smetana are just a few classical composers who composed works in
honor of their homelands. And don’t
forget compilations of folk music like those of Liszt, Brahms, Vaughan
Williams, or Folkways’ Anthology of American Folk Music.
The source of the name “Camelot,” in
tradition a fabled headquarters for King Arthur, is unknown. The place was
first so designated in the 1100s by Chrétien de Troyes, and in Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. Folktale and poesy
transformed it into a castle-town hosting the Knights of the Round Table and a
wide-ranging court, as depicted in the 14th-century Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight. Other theories hold that the name derived from
Camlann, supposedly the site of Arthur’s final battle. Only in the 1970s did
Camelot gain a reputation as a silly place.
See you Monday!
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