Arthur’s women’ is a current project. A take on the Arthurian legend it is set after the Romans have deserted the island of Britain and explores the pivotal role of women in the story, told through their eyes.

Was Arthur conceived by the rape of Igraine?

How did Arthur survive after being taken by Merlin?

Was Arthur seduced by Morgan, his own sister?

What was the truth behind Guinevere and Lancelot’s affair?

Where, and how, did Nimue imprison Merlin?

Taliesin wants the answer to these questions, and more…

‘Arthur’s Women’, the story of Arthur, but not as you know it!

Women: Trade goods, pleasure vessels, comfort providers, child bearers. 

Men: Drinkers, hunters, whorers, warmongers. 

Women: Excuses for drinking, hunting, whoring.  

Warring, though, is solely men’s business. 

It is not credible that a woman could start a war. 

I did. 

With a silk dress and sunlight. 

‘Arthur’s Women’ – (c) Barry Silsby —

So says Ygraine, Artor’s birth mother with Uther pen Dragan, high king of the Britons

‘Arthur’s women’ is a current project. A take on the Arthurian legend it is set after the Romans have deserted the island of Britain and explores the pivotal role of women in the story, told through their eyes.

The first section of Arthur’s Women is told to Taliesin by Brigid, Artor’s wet-nurse and foster mother and follows his life up to the Sword in the Stone incident.

The Second section is underway told by Gwenhwyfar, a bit difficult as Gwenhwyfar (Guenivere) is dead. Taliesin travels to Nimue’s fiefdom of Avalon; the Isle of Apples where the veil between the lands of the living and the dead is thinnest.

The following might give you an idea.

(C) Barry Silsby – Arthur’s Women’.

Nimue watches us.

No, she watches him. Me she cannot see. At least not in the many forms he does. Sometimes she can intuit my shade. But see me as maiden, lover, no. See me as never a mother, never a crone, no. See me as a burned husk, my beauty turned to twisted melting flesh, no. He can. And she is jealous. So she watches.

“Tell me of love,” he says. And I know that all Nimue sees is Taliesin sitting in the clearing surrounded by the Apple trees that give her domain its name. Surrounded by the windfalls and their vinegary scent as they rot. 

She doesn’t hear his thoughts or see his spirit as it rises to confront me. She doesn’t see me as he does, as a continuous life from carefree maiden to burning witch. She can smell the scent of the rotting apples but not the sweet perfume, the bursts of musk, the hint of bonfire that he inhales.