Honeyed Words: The Hawk’s Gray Feather by Patricia Kennealy

The Hawk’s Gray Feather by Patricia Kennealy · 30 May 2007

Picture of the Taleisin card from the Arthurian Tarot Picture of the Sword Maiden card from the Arthurian Tarot

I first became enchanted with the legends of Arthur in High School, through the art of the Arthurian Tarot Deck. The deck had a companion book The Arthurian Tarot that I picked up to explore the artist’s interpretations Arthurian legend as tarot symbolism. Shortly after High School, I entered what I now refer to as my own personal Dark Ages (complete with literary blackout) from which I’ve obviously and gladly emerged. But during that time, Arthur was abandoned, as were my ambitious plans to read Le Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Malory.

Since then, I’ve done a bit of reference reading on Arthur, but I hadn’t returned to the source of the legend’s inexplicable pull, its mystery and mythic stories, until I read The Hawk's Gray Feather.

The character of Arthur is a blend of historical speculation and legend. The story of Arthur changes to fit the time and the needs of the people of that time. If you try to pin down the “real” Arthur story, you’re required to make a judgment call on which fleshing out of the scant historical facts you’d like to believe. The fables, the love story, the quests, and chivalry all come from interpretations made hundreds of years after the life of the possible historical Arthur. Because the stories of Arthur have been invented for their role in society, I think this, more than anything, is what qualified a story of Arthur as my mythology entry for the Once Upon A Time Challenge.

The Hawk’s Gray Feather is an the first in the Tales of Arthur trilogy, based in Patricia Kennealy’s larger body of works about the Keltaid, a system of planets inhabited by future day Celtic people descended from Earth. My copy of The Hawk’s Gray Feather listed an anticipated 12 Keltaid books in total, with the Tales of Arthur to be the second of four trilogies, but as of this review, only 8 books have been published, the most recent in 1998.

In The Hawk’s Gray Feather, Arthur’s story is told from the perspective of Taliesin the bard, self-portrayed as Arthur’s closet and longest lasting friend. Taliesin is recounting Arthur’s early days at the end of his own long life. The story starts with a tale of Taliesin’s tragedy as his father is called to account for his rebellious activities. Taliesin flees his childhood home in the dead of night with his teacher, Ailithir, and arrives at the estate of Arthur’s parents, where Taliesin is to be fostered.

I found the first thirty pages or so of the book a bit slow, but this was mainly due to frequent referencing of the glossary at the back of the book. Kennealy borrows heavily from traditional Celtic languages and many of the words were unfamiliar to me.

After acquainting myself with the lilting language, the pace picked up, slightly. Kennealy has created a world in which many of the characters, Taliesin included have “the sight,” the ability to glimpse the future. Taliesin of course has the advantage of hindsight as well, having lived the story and relived it in his memory countless times since. All this sight is passed on to the reader as an almost constant deluge of foreshadowing, so that sometimes the plot progresses only because we are told by a vision that it will be so. I oftentimes found myself uninterested in key points of the story when they finally unfolded, because they had been hinted at so broadly and frequently beforehand.

I also took issue with Kennealy’s casual use of futuristic technology. The descriptions, speech, and lifestyles of the characters are portrayed in the tradition of High Fantasy and in the tradition of our preconceptions of the Arthurian legends as taking place in the Middle Ages. The people live in castles, with lords, banquet halls, traveling bards, mysterious druids, and fierce warriors. When Taliesin casually mentions that outworlders find it strange and troubling that his sister Tegau did not choose to regenerate her breast in battle, his folk having “long since mastered such techniques” or in describing his new home says “the furnishings were like to those I left behind: carved cupboards and presses against the walls; fair hangings, intricately woven tapestries; a very workmanlike desk with inlaid computer pads” it creates an immediate disconnect for the reader.

If the people of Gwynedd (Taliesin’s planet) can regenerate limbs and have computers built into their desks, why are they living a feudal medieval lifestyle? Kennealy’s supposition that we should realize an oppressed world would be so far flung into technological regress that they’ve been reduced to hand tilling the earth seemed far fetched.

The strength of the story, for me, lay in the detailed description of lore, not surprising as Kennealy is a Celtic priestess. There were many moving passages about the importance of knowledge, the thirst for knowledge, and the necessity to keep knowledge alive during dark and troubling times. Also powerful were the monologues of the narrator Taliesin as the voice of the people of the rebellion, and as a compass of Arthur’s emotions. After a battle, Taliesin examines his feelings.

“It was Kelts I had killed this day, Kelts who had been trying to kill me; it had been Kelts killing Kelts, being killed by Kelts, all along. And a lord who kills his folk kills himself; a king who murders is a contradiction in terms. Kings give life, protect it, preserve it, serve it, ensure it, ennoble it; they do not take it away save by law alone, and law had no part in what had taken place here. And if I felt so who was after all only another sword-arm in this fight . . . how much more so must Arthur feel it, who would be in time a king?

It was interesting to read Kennealy’s take on the Arthurian legends. She branched out of the traditional relationships, choosing to make Arthur’s parentage and the nature of his relationship with Gweniver different than many other versions of the legend. The Hawk’s Gray Feather truly is a retelling of the Arthur story for our age, melding science fiction with modern mores. The focus is less on the chivalry and the religious overtones of the Grail Quest and more on the rebellion against tyranny and the strength of those who oppose it.

This book ends before Arthur is crowned king. I’m curious to see how Kennealy interprets the remainder of Arthur’s life, but I don’t know if I’m curious enough to plod through the next two books. I may read them eventually, but I there’s a lot more on my virtual booklist that I’ll be tending to first.

This book was reviewed for the 2007 Once Upon a Time Challenge.