Spear (2022)

Spear is a 2022 fantasy novella by Nicola Griffith. Drawing on Arthurian mythos, the book refashions the story of Percival and the Holy Grail but makes the character of Percival a woman. The protagonist of Griffith's version is Peretur, a girl raised alone in the wilderness by her mother, who develops a magical ability to communicate with animals. She sets out to explore the world dressed as a boy and seeks to join the service of King Arturus as a knight. At his court she becomes involved with his search for the Holy Grail and discovers that her own heritage is connected to it.

Griffith wrote Spear after being invited to contribute to an anthology of Arthurian retellings: her planned short story grew into a longer work. Griffith uses Welsh names for many characters and draws on Celtic mythos, such as the Tuath Dé and their treasures, thereby depicting a "Celtic Arthur". Peretur endures a series of challenges that bear close resemblance to stories in the Arthurian tradition, but one reviewer described her journey also as one of "understanding, of her past, of other people, and of the world". Griffith also explores how the Roman conquest made Britain more cosmopolitan than depicted in conventional adaptations: the novel also explores queerness, disability, and ethnic diversity.

Spear received critical acclaim, particularly for its prose, exploration of gender and sexuality and disability, and attention to historical detail. The Chicago Review of Books wrote that Griffith "threads the needle" by incorporating queer and polyamorous characters without couching their identities in modern language, while T. S. Miller of Strange Horizons praised the depiction of Llanza as a character with a limp who remained peerless in combat, as a "refreshingly casual" depiction of disability. Gary Wolfe of Locus praised Griffith's "luminous, rhythmic prose", while the Chicago Review called the book "an instant classic, born of classics".

Background, setting, and publication

The idea for Spear came to Griffith after she was invited to contribute to Sword Stone Table, an anthology of Arthurian retellings edited by Swapna Krishna and Jenn Northington. She began writing a piece intended to be a short story but which grew into a much longer work of fiction. Griffith wrote Spear while taking time off of writing a sequel to her 2013 novel Hild. The novelette was published on 19 April 2022, with illustrations by Rovina Cai. Spear uses a setting similar to Hild, being placed in a region corresponding to Northumbria during a period in which the English were being converted to Christianity. The book draws on Arthurian mythos but makes the character of Percival a woman. According to a review in Strange Horizons, the Welsh orthography of several characters' names, including Gwenhwyfar and Myrddyn, conjure a "Celtic Arthur", providing a geographic explanation for the presence of the Irish Tuath Dé. It also draws heavily on Celtic and European mythos.

Plot summary

In Ystrad Tywi, an unnamed girl lives with her mother Elen. Elen tells the girl stories about the Tuath Dé and their treasures. Elen implies that the girl is the daughter of one of the Tuath, and that Elen stole Dagda's Cauldron before fleeing into the wilderness with her daughter. As the girl grows, she develops the ability to move unseen and to communicate with animals. She uses these abilities to save a group of knights from bandits; these knights are Companions in service to King Arturus of Caer Leon. The girl decides to leave her mother and explore the world, searching for something she isn't sure of. Elen names her Peretur after the Tuatha's spear; she then casts a geas which prevents Peretur from speaking of her childhood.

Peretur disguises herself as a boy and travels toward Caer Leon, following visions of a magical lake. She challenges Cei, the king's reeve, and disarms him; he presents her before Arturus and Gwenhwyfar. Arturus declines to accept Peretur as a knight because she is unable to reveal her parentage. Peretur meets Nimuë, Arturus's chief counsellor and the keeper of the lake that Peretur has been seeing in her visions. Entering Nimuë's magical realm, Peretur accidentally breaks Elen's geas.

Nimüe reveals that Myrddyn, the king's sorcerer, was seeking the treasures of the Tuath Dé. While powerful, these treasures will eventually corrupt their mortal owners. Myrddyn helped Arturus to find the Sword Caledfwylch as well as the Stone, which can seal things away from the mortal world. Nimüe was horrified by Myrddyn's lust for power, so she trapped him in a magical coma and sealed him within the Stone. Nimüe plans to remove the treasures from the world to protect humanity.

Nimüe and Peretur make love. Peretur learns that her father Manandán is seeking both Elen and the Cauldron. Elen sends out a cry which is sensed by many mortals; Arturus's Companions begin having dreams of the Holy Grail. Peretur tells Arturus that she is Myrddyn's nephew; he allows her to accompany Nimüe and Llanza to search for the Grail. The group rides to Peretur's childhood home and find that Elen has committed suicide rather than be found by Manandán. Peretur and her father fight; she kills him with his own spear and claims the weapon for herself. Nimüe is stabbed by Manandán in the commotion, but Peretur heals her with the power of the bowl. With his sister Elen's death, Myrddyn dies as well.

The searchers return to Caer Leon and tell Gwenhwyfar to drink from the bowl in order to heal her infertility. In truth, Nimuë and Peretur have replaced the bowl with a fake. The real one is sealed with the Stone in order to keep Arturus from producing an heir. Nimüe believes that Arturus would have spawned a line of tyrannical rulers, but allowing his lineage to die out will bring peace. Peretur holds Nimüe in her arms as they discuss whether they made the right choice.