Dinner and Arthur

Life here at the Casa Santa Maria is filled with many blessings, but the least of which is the many fine priests with whom I live. We have with us here at the Casa two priests from England and seven from Australia. This evening I had an enjoyable conversation with one of the Englishmen.

Our conversation began with the Battle of Hastings and then moved to the Magna Carta and then turned toward King Arthur. The conversation ranged from his origin and history, geographic and archeology, and ended up - naturally enough - with the legends that built up around him.

It is rare to find someone willing to talk about King Arthur and even more rare to find someone who actually knows something about the early history of England and about the Legends of the Knights of the Round Table. It has been far too long since I've had such a conversation!

We ended dinner right about 7:45 p.m. and every Monday night we have "English Night" at 8:45 p.m., which means watching a British comedy or two (and sometimes more) before calling it a day. With studies beginning early in the early in the morning and being sometime tiring (being taught in a foreign language and all) - and after along walk this afternoon - I knew that I did not want to return to studies for this interim hour but I was not quite sure what I did want to do. Now I know: I shall sit down with Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur and delve into the legends.