Heroes need enemies. After all, without meaningful challenge, they will never have the opportunity to prove their heroic stature, to demonstrate those qualities that mark them out as heroes. To this necessity, King Arthur and his followers are no exception. To stand out from the ordinary throng and win the admiration of succeeding generations, Arthur must rout the Saxons at Badon Hill and kill the Giant on Mont St. Michel; Lancelot must cross the Sword Bridge, defeat Meleagant, and rescue Guenevere; Perceval and Galahad must vanquish demons on their quest for the Holy Grail; Gawain must play the Beheading Game with the Green Knight.

Unlike the heroes whom they confront, however, these enemies remain shadowy figures. Little is known of them before they make their appearance; during the confrontation it is not they but the heroes who are the focus of attention; and they die or disappear afterwards, leaving the heroes to enjoy the hard-earned praise of their comrades. They may boast of daunting achieve- ments, demonstrate awesome powers, and utter ominous threats; but in the final analysis their role is merely to provide the heroes with a chance to prove themselves. To distract attention from heroic achievement by creating interest- ing and sympathetic villains was not the intention of the composers of medieval chronicle, romance, and heroic tale.

Modern novelists, by contrast, are much more willing to create complexity in their characters, providing us with heroes flawed by weaknesses and villains struggling against their darker impulses. Sometimes, indeed, the barbarian invaders seem nobler than the civilized Romano-Britons who squander their advantages through corruption and selfish ambition; sometimes traditional foes like Mordred and Morgan le Fay seem more sinned against than sinning, victims in a ruthless power struggle. They oppose Arthur for understandable reasons: the invaders may need land to feed hungry families (as in Parke Godwin’s Firelord, 1980); Morgan may be avenging a beloved father, treacherously slain to sate the lusts of Uther and further the schemings of Merlin (as in Fay Sampson’s Daughter of Tintagel sequence, 1989-92); Mordred may be angered by rejection, his personality warped by a vengeful or neglectful mother (as in Rosemary Sutcliff ’s Sword at Sunset, 1963).

Yet by establishing the motivations of the characters who oppose Arthur, modern novelists also reveal what they perceive to be the greatest threat to the civilization that he is defending.