Anyone who has known me for some time understands my often peripatetic quest to collect myths and folklore from around the world. I have spent years studying how different cultures tell stories through myth, and have imbued much of my fiction with folklore. When asked to share my favorite novel based on mythology or fairy tales, I happily went through some popular Hindu retellings, such as those by Vaishnavi Patel and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, the very popular Greek epics by Madeline Miller, and even fairy tales impeccably reimagined by Kate Forsyth. In fact, I have posted about some of thee books before.

They all brought back warm memories of curling up with amazing myth-based tales, but Joan Wolf’s The Road to Avalon stands out as a dog-eared favorite that has somehow survived decades on my shelves.

The Road from Myth to History and Back

The Road to Avalon is a coming-of-age retelling of the King Arthur myth and one well-suited to who I was as a teenage girl in the 1980s. When the book first came out, I was smack in the middle of high school. By then, my love of all things King Arthur was long-established. Ironically, that particular myth came to me through, of all things, historical fact.

I recall being in a summer program sometime during middle school where the facilitators asked each of us to join one of many tables focusing on different eras of history. For one reason or another, the Middle Ages had always fascinated me. So, that week, I spent my days learning about unicorn tapestries, the various bits and pieces that made up a knight’s armor, and, incongruously, the lyrics to “Greensleeves.” On our way out at the end of the week, each of us received a recommended reading list, one that had a very meaty section on fiction around King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

I devoured T.H. White, struggled my way through Thomas Malory and Mark Twain, and ambled my way through Marion Zimmer Bradley and Mary Stewart. Then, a friend handed me Joan Wolf’s book. At the time, I was only mildly interested. A look at The Road to Avalon’s cover told me this was more romance than mythology; plus, nothing about the Arthur/Guinevere story had compelled me to date. But one chapter in, I was hooked. This was no Harlequin epic, nor anywhere near as salacious as the other books we got away reading in the late 80s. This was a love story but also a coming-of-age tale. It was historical fiction born of myth but leading toward history.

Why This Book?

This telling of King Arthur disarmed me from the very start. Wolf deftly portrays Arthur as a young boy neglectfully given to an abusive foster home by his grandfather, Merlin. In a bid to make amends, Merlin rescues Arthur and delivers him to his steward, Sir Ector. Arthur grows up alongside Sir Ector’s son, Kai, and Merlin’s own daughter, Morgan. Unlike other versions of  Morgan le Fey fame, this Morgan is a sweet girl who serves as Arthur’s true love and the moral center of the book.

Wolf treads the line between delivering on key pillars of the Arthur myth and offering a sweet love story that shows how a person’s youth can impact the adult they become. Had I first read this book as an adult, I might not have fallen in love with it. However, the grounded way Wolf balanced magic and myth, along with the perils of adolescence, felt true to me at the time.

The two other books in the trilogy were not based on Arthurian mythology, per se, but continued stories of what happened to the land after Arthur’s time. Both were far less romantic and followed known history much more closely and honestly served as a beautiful bridge between my original love of myth and my eventual love of historical fiction.

What novels based on mythology have captured you? And why?