The Winter King

In an era without an accurate calendar, it is principally the changing of the seasons that mark the passage of time. As The Winter King unfolds over a period of many years, Derfel frequently notes the changing of the seasons, each of which has clear associations. The opening vignette of Mordred’s birth is on a bitterly cold winter night, where the dying earth aligns with an aging king, his dead son, and mother and child both clinging to life. When Arthur marries Guinevere, he and his followers enjoy one idyllic summer, where Arthur seeks to “build a heaven on earth for his bride” and even manages to escape any immediate consequences for his utter failure to tend to military preparations (210). Summer is the one time of year when nature seems to relax its otherwise firm grip on life. Yet the most important season, year after year, is autumn. Autumn is the time of the harvest, and the harvest gathers sufficient food supplies for an army on the march, before the onset of winter renders such marching impossible. There is thus a kind of inevitability to autumn as the fighting season, and it is Arthur’s refusal to abide by this deterministic march of events that allows him to surprise and smash Powys’s forces.