The Great Thing About Medieval Literature Is That It Returns Us To A Time When Men Were Men And Women

Late 60s Early 70s medieval revival part 1

Whenever arthur gets a new bethrothed

Merlin: Gaius she's evil

Gaius: you cant say that about every woman arthur tries to marry merlin, at this point you might as well marry him yourself if none of his suitors are to your standard

Merlin already making the plague rats sew together his wedding dress like cinderella: im prepared to make that sacrifice

Leaving them in silence, lower me down

|| Merlin x Arthur ● T ● WC: 315 ● No Warnings ||

Summary: The day after you both run out of words: a board of splinters, your sheaf of lifetimes, and near a dozen languages canyon between you. // When Arthur returns, he and Merlin no longer speak the same language. Inspired by ‘Words Are Dead’ by @mightybog.

women keep coming up to me giggling and blushing and running their finger along the edge of my mighty greatsword like STOP theres literally evil afoot

Mighty the Pale, probably.

Mighty the Straw-Haired

Mighty of the Beer

Mighty of the Bog

Quick what’s your knightly moniker

Observances

Merlin/Arthur | Mature | No Archive Warnings Apply | Word Count: 373

Historical AU | Festivals | Prophecies | Second Person POV (Merlin)

For the @merlinmicrofic prompts "feast" and "new year."

Will post to Ao3 once it's back up.

Arthur's halls are decorated for the birth of the sun, Saturnalia was a sennight ago, and you saw an ominous sign this morning in the movement of the birds.

small tw: for animal (bird) death

☾ ☾ ☾

Arthur’s hall is decorated with yew branches. Up and down the benches there is elaborate food upon decorated plates of a dull silver that he told you was called pewter. His hounds whine and beg for scraps from the revellers, having grown bored of the swan wing that had been tossed to them. Now it lay on the straw strewn floor, gnarled and upsetting. 

Your eyes are on him, but everyone’s eyes are on him, they always are. Warlord, lord, king. Tonight he wears an abolla that is a red as rich as blood (and you’ve seen plenty of blood, by now). His hair and eyes are pale against the colour but not diminished by them. 

But his eyes are on you. They shouldn't be on you, not as much as they are, they need not ever be on you, but they are. You’re a servant, what’s more you are of the Silures, reviled by his father, yet his eyes have been on you since you were crowned with oak leaves for saving his life.

What a strange mix of observances that he claims as his own. 

On Saturnalia he said that you could do anything, so you sat in his lap and had him feed you figs and almonds with his fingers.

But that was a sennight ago, now above his chair there is a bower of willow and ivy, now he raises his cup and you go to his side to pour him grape wine from across the sea. 

He would put you to death for your aurgury this morning. It was the flight of the hedge sparrows that alerted you just a breath before it happened; a peregrine claimed an ouzel, too slow to retreat to the coppice, right before your eyes. There are signs in everything, you are finding, even the strange prognostications of the Romans. Ouzel cock, black druid, guide to the otherworld. Your people go unmarked in death as they do in life. There are few left, even, to cry your name. Fewer still will survive to see the spring.  

The fire is making you sweat, causing the woad staining your arms to run. 

His cup goes up, the room stills.

“The sun is reborn,” Arthur says. 

Eugene gets me

Periodically I'll google Irish email etiquette because I can never remember the sign-offs and it will be perpetually entertaining to me when they translate Beir bua as Best wishes.

I'm sorry, I'm a medievalist, and this phrase is literally in Oidheadh Con Culainn:

"Best wishes". What a funny way to tell somebody to take victory!

Anyway, this is how I read emails with Irish salutations:

O Ruairi, my ally,

I hope this email finds you willing to aid me in battle. If you're still open to sending me those unpublished editions you're working on, I would be incredibly grateful, as they'd help a lot with my research.

Take victory,

Finn