Firelord

Firelord by Parke Godwin. mass_market edition. ISBN: 9780553148947.

Firelord is a historical fantasy novel by Parke Godwin, published in 1980. It is a retelling of the King Arthur legend. Godwin tells the story of King Arthur from a historically accurate perspective, based on research & his own archeological trips to various parts of England. The novel has Arthur dictating a memoir to a friar at a monastery. A flashback leads thru his formative years & his 1st meeting with Merlin. Godwin takes the traditional story & makes it his own, from more historically accurate regional names for the main characters such as Artos for Arthur & Ancellius for Lancelot, to changing key relationships. Lancelot is no longer the best friend, Bedivere Ap Griffin is. Gweniver is also updated & modernized, possibly patterned after Queen Elizabeth I of England, as Godwin borrows from one of Queen Elizabeths most famous speeches for a passage in which Arthur forsakes Morgana, his lover, & accepts the responsibilities of Kingship at the cost of personal happiness, just as Elizabeth so famously did during her reign.