I’m interested in learning more about the mythology of King Arthur. Knowing that the most well-known stories come from the days of Middle English and before, are there any modern translations or retellings that give a reliable overview of the mythology as it was in that period? All the modern versions I could find were, like other fairy tales, retold and transformed in some way for the writer’s intended audience/purpose. Even a general overview would be great! I’d just love to do more reading besides Wikipedia.
If an older, but still understandable text for contemporary readers exists, that’s fine too.
If my question is already asked, feel free to send me to a previous post! Thanks to anyone who can answer :)
I'd recommend looking at Guy Halsall's Worlds of Arthur (2013). He opens the book by breaking down the early written sources on Arthur and then building a new picture of post-Roman Britain from the ground up, so to speak, using archaeology rather than written sources to build his narrative.
Halsall remains mostly focused on political structures. If you'd like a fuller picture of what the Age of Arthur really looked like, I'd recommend Robin Fleming's Britain after Rome (2011) or her very new The Material Fall of Roman Britain (2021). You might also be interested in Nicholas Higham and Martin Ryan's Anglo-Saxon World (2013).