Derek Bryce

I picked this up based partly on the blurb. From the back cover:The author presents the reader with original extracts from the literature and a reasoned argument covering the topics of did Arthur exist? Who was he? What did he do? What is the meaning of the Arthurian quest?

Unfortunately, for me, The Three Arthurs was slightly disappointing. There is a good use of source material, going back as close to the sixth century as possible, and the author does try to create a possible "reality" for Arthur. I found the Arthur as Legend section very slight as the author didn't seem to be as interested in the medieval version of Arthur. The section on Arthurian quest seems to be the most personal for the author but, at least partly because of the brevity of the book, I didn't really "buy into" the author's thoughts.

I suppose that anybody who reads about Arthur has, to some extent, their own preconceived ideas and brings their own biases and opinion to the subject. So, taking that point into consideration, overall this book didn't go in the direction I wanted and it definitely could have done with some maps, especially as the author goes into place names and the possible locations of the Arthurian battles.… (més)

This is a nifty, short, well-illustrated overview of the history of the symbol of the cross in general, and of Celtic monumental crosses in particular, starting with the early pre-Christian "Market Crosses" (which often aren't cross-shaped at all) to the elaborately knotworked wheel crosses which are most familiar.

This book is small but packed full of information and lovely, clear illustrations; I had to keep reminding myself I wasn't reading a quaintly readable Victorian treatise rather than a modern New Age book. In fact, he repeatedly assures the reader that the wild theorizing about the meaning of symbols will be kept to a minimum; unfortunately, the result is that the occasional (reasonable) theories that do get mentioned end up entirely unsupported. The only other difficulty I had with this book was wishing that the figures would be referenced by number in the text, as sometimes I found myself unsure as to whether a cross being described had an illustration or not. But the book's worth it just for the illustrations themselves, with a variety of examples of early Christian and pagan symbols, as well as plaitwork, knotwork, key, chain, and spiral patterns, and many figures of the historic monumental crosses themselves.… (més)