It was the golden age of knights and fair ladies. Quests and
adventures, tournaments, revenge, dragons, and heroic battles. Out of the
barbaric wastelands of doom rose leaders who could cut their way through any
enemy, could survive any quest, defeat any foe.
Arthur was the hero who boys still imitate, still pulling the
sword from the stone. People still find themselves enamored with the king who
ruled part of a small island, fifteen hundred years ago.
We love Camelots and Arthurs. Heroes who rise above the
circumstances to defeat enemies without any difficulty. It is a part of human
nature to wish success would come easily to us, as is does to them.
The modern day Camelots, such as the Kennedy White House,
enamor us even after the veil has been torn from it, and the truth has been
established about the real goings on of Kennedy and his knights.
However, Arthur, at least in the way he is most often
remembered, may never have existed, he never rode the lands the way we imagine
him doing. If he did exist it would have been more of a barbaric king, a man
fighting to survive against other war lords.
And yet still the idea remains about him, even when we are
told the truth. It is unfortunate. It gives the idea that there are those to
whom everything comes easily. Hero worship has taught us that there are other
classes of people, and since we were not born into it we will never be great. But
they are all still human, in the words of the prophet, they are men of like
passions.
It takes hard work, but that is how great men are made. There
are no real Camelots, there are no real king Arthurs who are able to walk above
the world. But there are men who change it, by being common men doing uncommon
things.
Through His Strength We Will Conquer,
Andrew C. Abbott
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