In the first book of The Once and Future King, by T.H. White the Wart, an adopted orphan child, is raised by Sir Ector; along with Sir Ector's actual son Kay. After Kay loses their hawk, while they are hawking, Wart follows the bird deeper into the woods where he meets King Pellinore, who is on a hunt after the questing beast. The Wart eventually falls asleep in the forest after he awakes he comes across Merlyn at his cottage, Merlyn already knows Warts name, and tells him this is because he is a magician who lives backwards in time, and that he will be the Warts tutor, they leave for Sir Ectors castle.
Merlyn appears to be telling the truth, and becomes both the Warts, and Kays tutor. As their tutor, Merlyn turns the Wart into various animals to teach him lessons from these different animals social structures, he does not however do so for Kay, which can be seen as unusual because Kay is going to become a knight, and the Wart only his squire. Along with the various escapades as animals, the Wart (accompanied by Kay) also goes on a quest with Robin Wood to rescue a some of his people from the queen of the Fairies Morgan Le Fay.
After six years of various adventures, and teachings from Merlyn, Kay is being knighted when word is received from Sir Pellinore that king Uther Pendragon has died without an heir, and that a sword has appeared in an anvil, and supposedly whoever is able to pull it out of said anvil is the rightful king of England. Kay convinces everyone that they should go to the tournament, in fact Kay is so anxious to get to the jousting that he forgets his sword, and sends the Wart back to the inn to fetch it for him, with the inn being closed the Wart is not able to retrieve his sword, he does however see a sword in an anvil which he attempts to retrieve for Kay. He fails on his first two attempts to do so, but on his third attempt old animal friends seem to congregate around him, and give him encouragement, and he easily pulls the sword free. The Wart then proceeds to bring the sword to Kay. recongizing what sword this is Kay falsely claims that he pulled it out, but Kay soon tells the truth as Sir Ector questions him, after which to the dismay of the Wart, both his foster father, and brother kneel to him.
After a brief time of proving himself by pulling the sword from the stone in front of people, the War is accepted as the king of all England, and Merlyn tells him that he was indeed the son of Uther Pendragon, and that it was Merlyn himself who brought him to Sir Ectors castle as a child, and that his real name is Arthur.
Although The Once and Future king, and Le Morte d'Arthur tell the same basic story, The Once and future King goes into much more depth and description, and puts so much more emphasis on character development that in a sense they are quite hard to be seen as even close to similar in writing style. In a comparison, The Once and Future King easily wins out as far enjoyability simply because of the added depth. In The Once and Future King, Arthur (along with all the characters actually, but Arthur in particular), actually has reasoning, and appears to be a conscious thinking human being, unlike the characters of Le Morte d'Arthur, who seemed to follow a set narrow thinking, and did not differ from that path. T.H White on the other hand fleshed these people out, and gave them the ability to make decisions by themselves. I would like to make predictions of what is to happen next, but seeing as how I have read this previously, I don't think that would be the most truthful thing I could spend my time doing.
(p.s again... quite sorry for the lack of short summary writing ability.)
Merlyn appears to be telling the truth, and becomes both the Warts, and Kays tutor. As their tutor, Merlyn turns the Wart into various animals to teach him lessons from these different animals social structures, he does not however do so for Kay, which can be seen as unusual because Kay is going to become a knight, and the Wart only his squire. Along with the various escapades as animals, the Wart (accompanied by Kay) also goes on a quest with Robin Wood to rescue a some of his people from the queen of the Fairies Morgan Le Fay.
After six years of various adventures, and teachings from Merlyn, Kay is being knighted when word is received from Sir Pellinore that king Uther Pendragon has died without an heir, and that a sword has appeared in an anvil, and supposedly whoever is able to pull it out of said anvil is the rightful king of England. Kay convinces everyone that they should go to the tournament, in fact Kay is so anxious to get to the jousting that he forgets his sword, and sends the Wart back to the inn to fetch it for him, with the inn being closed the Wart is not able to retrieve his sword, he does however see a sword in an anvil which he attempts to retrieve for Kay. He fails on his first two attempts to do so, but on his third attempt old animal friends seem to congregate around him, and give him encouragement, and he easily pulls the sword free. The Wart then proceeds to bring the sword to Kay. recongizing what sword this is Kay falsely claims that he pulled it out, but Kay soon tells the truth as Sir Ector questions him, after which to the dismay of the Wart, both his foster father, and brother kneel to him.
After a brief time of proving himself by pulling the sword from the stone in front of people, the War is accepted as the king of all England, and Merlyn tells him that he was indeed the son of Uther Pendragon, and that it was Merlyn himself who brought him to Sir Ectors castle as a child, and that his real name is Arthur.
Although The Once and Future king, and Le Morte d'Arthur tell the same basic story, The Once and future King goes into much more depth and description, and puts so much more emphasis on character development that in a sense they are quite hard to be seen as even close to similar in writing style. In a comparison, The Once and Future King easily wins out as far enjoyability simply because of the added depth. In The Once and Future King, Arthur (along with all the characters actually, but Arthur in particular), actually has reasoning, and appears to be a conscious thinking human being, unlike the characters of Le Morte d'Arthur, who seemed to follow a set narrow thinking, and did not differ from that path. T.H White on the other hand fleshed these people out, and gave them the ability to make decisions by themselves. I would like to make predictions of what is to happen next, but seeing as how I have read this previously, I don't think that would be the most truthful thing I could spend my time doing.
(p.s again... quite sorry for the lack of short summary writing ability.)
