The Fisher King

[tilly50]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this thread so please move it if there is a more appropriate place.
I've recently been reading about King Arthur and one book led to another (& another...) and have followed the trail to the stories about the Fisher King. I know that medieval literature is almost full of allegory, but two things have struck me:
1, the "wound" that the king suffers from in some of the stories is in his groin (or in some stories his leg or thigh) and does not heal. Could this be a reference to a kind of "feminising" of the king by way of reference to menstruation? I cannot, surely, be the only one to have thought of this? (could this also lead to the story from the bible regarding the woman healed by touching Jesus's gown?)
2, Henry VIIIth was said to have a weeping sore on this leg that would not heal and caused him great discomfort. Was this mentioned about him to lead people at the time to compare him to the legend of the fisher king?
I would be interested to hear other opinions on this.

 

[Timble2]

One interpretation of the wound on the thigh, is that it's the symbolic castration of the King, so that he can no longer rule his Kingdom. There's also the old motif of the health of the King being reflected in the health of his Kingdom (the film Excalibur picked up on this idea, though it made Arthur himself the wounded king.)

 

[Anome]

Well according to some versions of the legend, the Wounded King is also supposed to be impotent, which may relate to the symbolic castration.

 

[ZVZ__]

I believe that a wound in the thigh is your basic Middle English euphemism for castration. (The other place I recall the phrase being used is in Le Morte Darthur when Sir Percival's on his grail quest. Having very nearly allowed himself to be seduced by Satan, in the guise of adisinherited noble woman, he punishes his flesh for it's weakness by "wounding himself in the thigh"). The Fisher King's castration is linked to the infertility of the Wasteland, of which he is king.

 

[placeholder]

Henry VIII and Arthur

on your second point i seem to remember that Henry VIII felt his claim to the throne was a little tenuous and tried to associate himself with Arthur in order to strengthen his position. he had outings in woodlands merry men stylee for the court and i think there was a round tabel involved...i'm sure i couldn't have imagined all that so if it wasn't Henry VIII it was VII. don't we have any experts on kings and queens of England on the board? i'm Irish. :lol:

 

[eris1369]

not an expert, by any means...

Henry VII was Welsh, & the tudors claimed descent from Arthur. He named his first son Arthur (he died in his teens). Henry VIII did indeed do a lot of the "merry men" stuff, but that was Robin Hood, not Arthur. I seem to recall something about him having a round table, too, but I can't remember for sure.

 

[chockfullahate]

http://everything2.net/index.pl?node=Winchester Round Table

The Winchester Round Table is a massive circular wooden table, 18 feet in diameter, that hangs in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle in Hampshire, England. Constructed of 121 separate pieces of oak and weighing in at 1.25 tons, the table presently bears and elaborate painting of King Arthur which bears remarkable resemblance to King Henry VII, as well as the names of 24 Knights of the Round Table. The painting was apparently completed on the orders of Henry VII just prior to a visit by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to Winchester in 1522. Henry VIII had just recently lost out to Charles in a bid for the Imperial Crown probably wanted to remind the Emperor of his alleged descent from King Arthur and thus ultimately from Roman Emperor Constantine the Great.

There has been some suggestion that the table may have been first painted earlier, perhaps in 1516 or 1517, as X-Ray imaging has revealed an earlier portrait of King Arthur beneath the present one which is said to resemble a slightly younger Henry VII. In any case, the table had hung in the castle unpainted for several centuries before that. Many people, including printer William Caxton and Henry VII himself, believed the table to be the actual Round Table of King Arthur, and the table is the likely explanation for why Sir Thomas Malory identifies Winchester as the original site of Camelot in Le Morte d'Arthur.