Arthur of the North

Rich's exploration of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight is particularly interesting to me. It's funny, but my main inspirations for Sword Of Isgarion came from Peter Pan and King Arthur. An odd combination, perhaps, but life's a strange trip at the best of times, so I'm not too worried about my mental health in that respect!
Every now and then I take a trip up the North East coast, to visit the island of Lindisfarne, usually with Noel the Ultimate Proofreader, and sometimes Noel's lovely wife Chris comes, too. Windswept, bleak even in summer, Lindisfarne is a place you never forget once you've been there. In winter, the winds feel like they are cutting you in two, and as you look across the sea and capture the sky above the stormy waves, images of vikings and longships flash inside your mind, and pitched battles resonate along the deserted beach.
And there, I picture time and time again the legendary figure of Arthur, who is now named King Arthur in legend-history, fighting the invaders who often pillaged the settlements and murdered the people of the North. The true Arthur. The Northern Arthur. Oh yes - Arthur is a northerner. It's a northern name, for sure. Never a king, possibly a captain of some kind, he was a mighty leader in battle. Little is truly known about him, and the main source of information is basically legend. A great one, too - the most romantic of all legends in the history of literature in England. To me, it stands above them all.
Arthur, now though, is classed as a southerner, dwelling at Camelot, with roots in Glastonbury and the like, and cuts a dashing figure - unless you read Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists Of Avalon, where Arthur is portrayed as an infertile king and Camelot is turned virtually into an old people's home. There, Lancelot didn't actually get together with Guinevere until he was an elderly, failing knight, by which time the great writing had faded, along with my interest, and the story drifted away into the mist of its own title.
This, of course, brings me to the Isle of Avalon. Can't find it anywhere down south. Neither can anyone else. A mythical place.
Perhaps.
Until you visit Lindisfarne Isle in the north east of England, when the mist has cleared and the tide has gone out, and you can drive or walk across to its shores from the mainland, as people have done for centuries. And when you visit the ruined castle and stand inside the abbey, it dawns on you that you are there. That you are in Avalon. You feel it every time. At least, I know I do.