Rambling -- A Note For the Granddaughters -- Nothing About the Bakken

Some days ago I posted the following to add a bit of color to a note regarding oil activity in eastern Montana:

Makoshika State Park, Glendive, Montana

I was intrigued by the beautiful music, and subsequently found this:


The Shores of Avalon, The Seekers ...and of course that led me to hours of searching, listening, and enjoying The Seekers once again. I've placed a few of their videos throughout the blog.

I never read the King Arthur legends when most others first read the stories (middle school, high school) and by college it was "too late."

Some weeks ago, on a whim, I picked up a 1975 hardcover with torn jacket, The Celts by Gerhard Herm, and was more than pleasantly surprised. I suppose if I could take only two books of this genre to a desert island, it would be The Celts and How The Scots Invented the Modern World.

Chapter 16 of The Celts is devoted to King Arthur and the knights of the round table. 

The Celts, who entered the European landscape as head-hunters, now leave it as Christian knights, though without -- as the legend of Arthur shows -- ever being untrue to themselves. At its centre is a classical Celtic couple, the lord of a retinue and his Druid, stylized into a magician. Merlin lived in the forest like the priests of Gaul or Irish hermits; he had brought up his prince, advised and tutored him ....

Earlier in the chapter:

... he withdrew the sword effortlessly and thus succeeded the now dead Uther. At the same time he also had the weapon destined for him, Excalibur.

The island now enters on a great chivalric epoch. Arthur selects Camelot -- a place no one has identified -- as his residence and marries Guinerva (in Cymric, Guanhumara, or 'the White One'), daughter of the dwarf-king Leodegrance. The king takes one hundred and fifty knights to follow him because he receives, as part of her dowry, a huge round table that can accommodate that number of guests (it must have been at least forty metres in diameter). 

And, so Arianna and Olivia, just one more reason why I love to blog. Who would have guessed? From the Bakken to Makoshika State Park, Glendive, Montana, to the Seekers, and to Avalon and King Arthur.

Makoshika is a variant spelling of a Lakota phrase meaning "bad land" or "bad spirits."