Middle Ages

by Hélène A. Guerber

This classic work presents sixteen key myths and legends of the Arthurian, Carolingian, Teutonic and Scandinavian cycles which embody the chivalric code and which inspired the greatest works of romance literature and art. The tales illuminate the mystical significance of knighthood and its ethos of self-purification and honour, decoding many allusions found in medieval art, literature and song.

Genres: History, Mythology, Classics, Nonfiction, Medieval, Folklore, Reference

480 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1895

About the author

Hélène Adeline Guerber (1859 – 1929), better known as H.A. Guerber, was a British historian most well known for her written histories of Germanic mythology.

Her most well known work is Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas - George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd., 1908 in London.

Other histories by Guerber include Legends of the Rhine (A.S. Barnes & Co., New York, 1895; new edition 1905), Stories of the Wagner Opera, The Book of the Epic, The Story of the Ancient World, The Story of the Greeks, The Story of the Romans, Legends of the Middle Ages, The Story of the Renaissance and Reformation, The Story of the Thirteen Colonies, and The Story of the Great Republic.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting collection of myths and legends that were popular reading material in the Middle Ages. Some of the summaries are a bit quick or dry but it's just so darn interesting to think about what people were reading/hearing historically without having to do the hard work of slogging through translations of Beowulf. Sort of a "Tales from Shakespeare" for grownups. I do object to the fact that this is obviously a reprint of an older book but the publisher hasn't bothered to tell when it was initially published.

[Amelia]

Well, that was interesting.

About a month ago I decided to brush up on my very rusty high school French, and thought that reading French books would be a good way to do it. I had this on my bookshelf, and I don't really know why. It looks like someone picked it up at a book sale.

The stories in it are of varying quality. They're fairy tales, for the most part, and so they share a flat lack of character development, but the last two were a little more interesting. One story, "Les Trois Citrons" is possibly the most casually racist thing I have ever read (black skin being equated with evil). This was written a long time ago (copyright 1895), so obviously there are going to be some things in it that don't work any more, but still it shocked me.

Also, as I read through the middle of the book I began to suspect that the writing wasn't all that great. I was looking words up on every page, maybe a little more often, on average, but that didn't account for all the clunkiness of the reading experience. Some of the words I looked up were obscure in their English translations in the back of the book. Most likely, this book is a bad way to get a handle on modern French. As a sort of advanced beginner/lower intermediate reader, it was okay, despite its limitations.

One final note: The bookbinding and paper quality were great. I accidentally spilled water on it halfway through, and it dried out without leaving a trace. I don't think you'll find that in many books printed and bound in the past 80-ish years.

I'm going to be moving on to L'Etranger, which appears to be much better written on a sentence level.

[Csenge · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good collection of the most important legends of the Middle Ages from all around Europe. As a storyteller, many of them were familiar, but even so the book made a great recap, and a very entertaining read.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

 
One thing that emerges when looking at the myths and legends of the Middle Ages is an understanding of Europe’s blood-soaked history. With the exception of the stories about Reynard the Fox, all the stories here are about fighting.

The writers of the Middle Ages were very much given to hero-worship. Almost all the stories have someone that we are intended to identify with and admire. It is only now in a later age that we have become more cynical about worshipping heroes – some of us anyway.

A real-life hero is a dangerous figure, too big for the time in which he lives. He is able to use the adulation that he receives to acquire dangerous levels of influence and power. All but the most fanatical of his supporters will live their lives without disillusion.

Whether it is Hitler or Trump, the tendency to hero worship has led only to dictatorship and repression. If you don’t agree with a hero, what does that make you? A villain? Evil? What should we do with those who are evil?

There are other aspects in which the legends of the Middle Ages prepared the way for the horrors of the twentieth-century. Look at the glorification of fighting. Our heroes are always military heroes. The quality that makes them most admirable is fighting prowess. Sure, other qualities are needed – gallantry, mercy, loyalty, and so on. However a knight can dispense with a few of those along as he can fight.

So essentially what we are seeing is a glorification of violence, if we put it in bald terms. Fighting is heroic. War is an honourable way of getting what you want. Killing is a suitable solution to your problems. Have a dispute with someone or a neighbouring country? Go to war. Not enough resources in your own land? Invade someone else’s. Dislike any group of people? Exterminate them.

While religion plays a lesser part in this book than in some other entries in the Myths and Legends series, it is present here. Many of the knights are Christians, and that influences their quests, whether to seek the Holy Grail or to pursue less benign goals, such as attacking Moors for having another religion.

It may seem fanciful to link such pretty stories to the wars and genocides of later years, and I am far from saying that old legends caused them. Rather they are a symptom of human weakness – our awe for strong leaders, soldiers and using force to get our own way. It has been so throughout history, and we are not free from this mindset yet.

This may sound like a po-faced reading of H A Guerber’s book, and of course it is. I consider it an interesting area of speculation, but that did not prevent me from enjoying the book.

Guerber covers the legends of numerous European countries, spanning Scandinavia, Italy, France, England, Germany and Spain. These include famous stories such as Beowulf, the Nibelungen, King Arthur and Merlin, and Parzival. Lovers of Wagner operas will have a chance to look at the real stories.

Some readers seem to find Guerber’s style dry. I did not for the main part, though some of her summaries of the nature of mythology are a little stuffy. She certainly uses many stock phrases over and over again. Why say ‘tomorrow’ when you can say ‘on the morrow’? While Guerber does not rush through the stories, she is obliged to condense them greatly.

Hopefully Guerber will at least interest readers enough to attempt a few of the original medieval poems and stories that she provides details in precis. If not, you can enjoy the chance to learn the original tales that you have experienced in fleeting form in other sources.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a lot of fun with this one. I've always liked myths and legends, but I think I'm always going to be looking for some character I can really resonate with and admire, and unfortunately the morality of the Middle Ages is a bit...strange. Like, it's ok to kill this dude, but as soon as this dude slaps some one that is CROSSING THE LINE. Which...is odd no matter how you slice it. I think in many respects I'm always going to prefer the reimaginings of the old legends for entertainment purposes because the morality and the characters are more in line with what I prioritize and think is important. We won't have as much of the madonna/whore complex, characters will be a bit more fleshed out, the logic will be easier for me to follow. But it was really interesting to read the originals (abridged) and see where a lot of it all started. Origin story of the origin story. Also, the art work was beautiful and fun and it was so cool to read the stories I was familiar with but also meet some new ones. Would I recommend this for everyone? Only if you're going to be a bit of a history geek about myths and legends. If you're just looking for a cool Middle Ages-style story like the tv show Merlin or something like that? Go for a reinterpretation of the legends, you'll be more entertained.

[Hildie Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good round-up of the Chansons de geste, popular in Medieval times. The tales are written as summaries so that really long epics like the "Nibelungenlied" or "Charlemagne and his Paladins" are in a short story format, so that everyone can access them, without a college class, a long opera, or a deep-dive into the early tales of the Medieval world. Some of the stories were a bit repetitive, though the author does rightly point out that that they were popular tales across Western Europe, encompassing the Authurian, Carolingian, and Teutonic cycles. I did like that, as they are short stories, one can just read one tale at a time (good for small reading breaks, like before bed, inbetween commercial breaks for sports, or while you're waiting for the oven to heat up). If you would like to learn about the literature of the people of the Middle Ages, I would recommend this book. The illustrations are a nice touch, too!

[Matilda Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a vivid collection of myths and legends from the Middle Ages with frequent illustrations and detailed stories. Each chapter is about a different hero. My favourite chapter was that of Beowulf, possibly because I understood it more, as I've read about Beowulf before.

Beowulf aids Hrothgar, King of the Danes, by killing Grendel, a monster that wrecks havoc on Hrothgar's hall every night and brutally kills his men. After defeating the monster, Beowulf kills Grendel's mother, and then is killed during a fight with a dragon in his later years after the dragon is disturbed by a man stealing a golden goblet.

This book also contains several romances, such as Tristan and Iseult, and more tales of adventure, like Charlemagne and his Paladins. It was a bit boring at times, but most of the stories were interesting.

[Eric Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a reprint of a late 19th century text and is a summary of literature from the Middle Ages, edited by an author who was looking for chivalric tales more than scholarly analysis.

The summaries are not very moving. If you are looking for inspiring tales from days gone by, this isn't it.

But if you do want a deskside reference then this could be handy. Read the summary at the end, first. It will help with understanding the selection and structure of the book.

[Guera25 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice survey of the subject broken into easily digestible sections. I loved the patrician yet convivial tone, which kept it from becoming a tedious slog after the third tale of a noble hero disguising himself as a lowly merchant or trader in order to gain access to the treasure/throne room/lady fair.

[J-Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

What if I told you every maiden was the most fair maiden that had ever been seen? What if I told you every hero was stronger than 10 men, 20 men, or even 100 men? Every sword secretly magic and even more unbreakable than another secretly magical sword?

I love fables and was intrigued when I found this in a used bookstore. But this one after the first quarter was very tired.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong anglo-saxon/british influence

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este libro se me hizo más difícil de leer en comparación con los otros libros de Guerber que he leído. Sin duda esto se debe a que los mitos que ella relata en este volumen están menos interconectados que los que ella describe en sus libros de mitología griega y nórdica. Los mitos no fluyen de uno a otro y esto hace que la lectura sea más fragmentada y menos cautivante. De todas formas, Guerber si llega a darle al lector un entendimiento de las diferentes sagas de caballeros que dominaron la mitología de la Edad Media. Esto es especialmente valioso para aquellos lectores, como yo, que, aunque interesados en estas historias, no están dispuestos a leer las interminables versiones originales.

[Okan Ergul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Avrupa'da ün kazanmış ve edebiyatı çok etkilemiş Ortaçağ efsanelerinin önde gelenlerini aşırı detaya inmeden, ama anahatlarıyla anlamaya da yetecek şekilde özetleyerek tanıtan güzel bir çalışma... Konu üzerine bilgi edinmek isteyenlere öneririm. Türkçesini İlya Yayınları'nın basımı olarak okudum.

[Amy Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a nice reference book of myths and legends of the Middle Ages. I only read the chapters on lovers Tristan and Isuelt and Parzival and the Holy Grail. It includes summaries of many myths and legends, and the summaries include some bits of lays and poems of the Middle Ages.

[Sally · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good lord, this was dry reading.

[Joe Defazio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot read Dutch; I purchased this book at a yard sale in 1994 for the excellent illustrations.

[Jeff Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

was somewhat dry but it gave me a good sense of how literature of the the middle ages looked.

[Wajima Alvarado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Possibly the best book on Myths and Legends for those who love the art of storytelling.