Legendary What Ifs: An Exclusive Guest Post from Alexandria Rogers, Author of The Witch, The Sword, and the Cursed Knights, Our March Young Reader Pick
Paperback $8.99
The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights
The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights
In Stock Online
Paperback $8.99
Adventure arrives in full force with this witty tale of two kids drafted to serve as knights of King Arthur’s Legendary Round Table. The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights was one of our Young Reader finalists in our 2022 Children’s and YA Book Awards, and Ellie and Caedmon’s underdog story will delight readers! Keep Reading for a guest post from Alexandria Rogers about how the Arthurian Legend inspired her in writing this novel and what it’s like to write a book heavily steeped in folklore.
Adventure arrives in full force with this witty tale of two kids drafted to serve as knights of King Arthur’s Legendary Round Table. The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights was one of our Young Reader finalists in our 2022 Children’s and YA Book Awards, and Ellie and Caedmon’s underdog story will delight readers! Keep Reading for a guest post from Alexandria Rogers about how the Arthurian Legend inspired her in writing this novel and what it’s like to write a book heavily steeped in folklore.
Some of my favorite stories have always been those that might be true. The legends that exist in the periphery of society, tantalizing with the question: what if? What if, once upon a time, King Arthur and his knights, Merlin and his trickery, all existed? What if Lancelot rode the Loch Ness monster? What if the monster was simply misunderstood and desperately desired someone to stop for teatime?
To me, the Arthurian tales endure for two reasons. One, because many people love that very same “what if.” It positions legends greater than life as mysteries we have yet to unravel.
Two, because the Arthurian tales capture “story” in its purest form while still leaving a thousand questions unanswered. They encapsulate every archetypal character, examine countless themes, capture the hero’s journey — and you’re still left wondering if the fallen Camelot could have been saved.
Beyond that, it’s a fairy tale, and fairy tales reflect our dreams and fears. They allow us to peer into mirrors and ask questions of humanity in ways that feels safe and contained.
All of this combined led me to my ultimate what if: what if King Arthur did exist, but a curse caused us to forget the true story? What came next was nothing short of an explosion of ideas in my mind.
Because so many questions remain unanswered in the medieval French and Welsh legends, I found that I had ample room to pay homage to the original tales’ themes and explore my own untold story. For I find that in any writing that borrows from legends, it’s not about repeating the same particular details; it’s about capturing the essence of why we fell in love with those stories to begin with.
This is what I focused on while crafting my own Arthurian world.
The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights takes place hundreds of years after the fall of Camelot, so I bore less responsibility than if I were to have written a true retelling. Even so, themes of chivalry, loyalty, courage, betrayal, friendship, and loss are woven into the books as surely as they’re woven into the original fabric of Camelot.
King Arthur is central to a story that reflects the rise and fall of a utopic society that can never come to fruition, because the people who comprise it are perfectly imperfect. The story of Camelot reflects life, and so it will endure long after I’m gone, just as King Arthur will continue to live in our imaginations as the once and future king, living indefinitely in the mist-shrouded land of the fae. In this indefinite lifespan, I’m merely grateful for my part.
(And in answer to the most pressing question Camelot asked of me, yes, Lancelot did ride the Loch Ness monster, and no, she is absolutely, unequivocally uninterested in teatime, and frankly, is rather offended by the mere notion that a monster of her caliber would ever be found idling over tea. The audacity).