Posts Tagged ‘"King" Arthur’

This may not be applicable if everyone has magic. Then again . . . .

Is it something they’re born with? If so, is it strictly hereditary or is something else at play? For example, in J. K. Rowlings’s Harry Potter series, magical families seem to pretty reliably produce offspring with magic. But muggle-born witches and wizards, like Hermione or Harry’s mother, Lily, aren’t uncommon either.

Or, is magic something invested by some ritual or acquired or awakened in some other way? If so, is there a cost to gaining magical abilities? In Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series, magic users must “Snap” to awaken their latent magic. This requires an emotional or physical trauma, often a near-death experience. While, some of the nobles in Mistborn are ruthless enough to submit their children to a severe beating to try to make them “Snap”, even then, not everyone will. And, of course, the nobility have no monopoly on trauma; the farmer trampled by his own oxen or the convict beaten by the prison guards may “Snap” when a noble youth does not.

However, if the process needed to awaken the magic can be controlled—well, then you have the possibility of one group, the elites, monopolizing the process and excluding everyone else. And the question of what those others might do to create their own ritual so they could get magic of their own and use it against their overlords.

In my Arthurian story, there won’t be many humans who can do actual magic. Those few will have a natural gift, but . . . I don’t think I’m going to be able to—or want to—ignore those two springs at the base of Glastonbury Tor: the Red Spring (now called the Chalice Well) and the White Spring. And that tantalizing (possibly) maze-like path up to the tor. Yeah, there’s going to have to be some sort of initiation to improve access to natural magic.

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Some examples might be helpful here.

  • In Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, everyone has one magical talent. In fact, if you don’t demonstrate a magical talent by a certain age, you’re exiled to Mundania.
  • Likewise, in Patricia Wrede’s Frontier Magic series, everyone learns at least basic magic in school.
  • But, in the Harry Potter series, only a fraction of the population is able to become a witch or a wizard.
  • In Lindsay Buroker’s Dragon’s Blood and Heritage of Power series, the only ones who can perform magic are descended from dragons.

If everyone can do magic, then there’s not likely to be much in the way of a torches-and-pitchforks, burn-them-at-the-stake response to magic users. Though, there still may be some distrust of the powerful magicians.

But, if it’s limited to a few . . . well, that raises some other questions. Is it essential for those who use magic to hide it from their non-magical neighbors, as in Harry Potter? What happens if the muggles find out about them?

Or are magicians accepted as useful members of society as in Patricia Wrede’s and Elizabeth Stevermer’s Cecilia and Kate novels? If so, are the magic users automatically part of the elite? Or are ordinary folk magic users, too?

Or do the magic users use their abilities to make themselves the rulers of the non-magical population? And, if so, what’s the reaction to that? And how much (if at all) do the non-magic users resent that?

Do the religious institutions employ/conscript magic users? How do they use them? And how do they feel about magic users who aren’t under their control?

Or, as with the Lakewalkers in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Sharing Knife series, do the magic users feel a responsibility to spend their lives fighting the things that regular people can’t fight?

Or, of course, any combination of the above.

In the Arthurian story I’m working on, there may still be a fair number of people keeping alive the knowledge of herb lore and methods of divination, but those with actual magic will be few. Between the antipathy of the Romans and the Christian church, they will be isolated and at least somewhat secret. I have yet to work out exactly how they’ll defend their space, but I suspect part of it will depend on rumors and tales of the danger of breaching its boundaries. Fortunately, some such stories did actually circulate about the high ground around Glastonbury Tor, which may have been considered a boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead—ant therefore dangerous—at one time.

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I’ve reached a point in my Arthurian story where I’m going to have to start writing something about the (very limited) human magic systems. Merlin’s magic is based on draconic abilities and I can do anything I please with that. But any purely human magic systems in fifth-century Britain would be based—at least somewhat—on the original Druidic practices. Somewhat, because the Romans appear, uncharacteristically, to have done their best to squelch the Druids. (The Romans were usually fairly lenient toward local religious customs.) And, of course, because Christianity would have come to Britain sometime in the fourth century and that would have had some effect on how—and by who—the ancient practices were carried on.

So, I have tried to do some research on the Druids. Unfortunately, the only really reliable answer I’ve been able to arrive at is: Nobody knows. The bare handful of ancient writings by Greeks or Romans contemporary with the Druids barely say anything about their practices. And most of those are phrased by comparison, always unfavorably, to Greek or Roman practices, which actually says more about the attitudes of the writers than about the Druids themselves. Later writers appear to have made up a lot of what they say they know.

About the only thing that seems reasonably certain is that the Druids did have some methods of divination and might have also had some knowledge of healing and herbs.

So, it looks like I’m going to have to make up whatever magic system I use for the few humans who will have the ability. And, in this case, try to make it fit into a fifth-century context. Fortunately, I intend for any real magic (as opposed to herb lore, for example) to be fairly rare and somewhat limited.

Nevertheless, I thought now might be a good time to go into some of the questions I might ask myself in developing a magic system for one of my stories. These questions don’t always need to be answered in the story, but I may need to know the answers, even if my characters don’t. Also, some of the answers can be fodder for more conflict or obstacles for my story.

  1. Who can do magic?
  2. How do they acquire magic?
  3. Where does the magic come from?
  4. What is needed to perform magic?
  5. What can magic do?
  6. Are magic users organized in some way? How?

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