Arthur Osborne - My Life & Quest, Beginnings

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BEGINNINGS

 

As a small boy there were three books that I read over and

over again: The Knights of King Arthur, Asgard and the Gods and

The Arabian Nights.

 

It was King Arthur that was my favourite.

My mother had a leather bound edition that she had acquired

as a school prize, and there was not a page of it without my

grubby finger marks. Next in preference came the Norse legends.

 

The more sophisticated mythology of Greece never appealed

to me, but there was a wild grandeur about that of the Norseman

that stirred me so deeply that it has remained in my memory

ever since — the arrogant immensity of the giants in the time

of their ascendancy, so that even a blow of Thor’s hammer was

felt no more than an acorn falling on the brow. And then the

return of Thor to power. How the giants had stolen his hammer

Mjolnir and hidden it deep within the earth and would only

return it at the price of Odin’s daughter as bride to one of them;

how the gods tricked them, dressing Thor up in brides clothes

and sending him veiled to their palace. Even through the veil

the flash of his eyes could be seen. Then the story grew tense as

the bridegroom asked for the veil to be removed but the

pretended bride insisted that Mjolnir should be first placed in

her lap. Then, when this was done, how Thor laughed aloud

and tore off the veil as he rose to his feet, brandishing Mjolnir,

and how he left their whole palace in smoking ruins. This and

the more tragic stories: the killing of Baldur the Beautiful, the

treachery of Loki, the rise of his fearsome sons from the

underworld, and the end of everything in the last terrible battle

of Ragnarok.

 

As I grew older I began vaguely to feel the mystery

of symbolism behind the stories. Indeed it is remarkable all

three books should have been allegories of the universal doctrines

of the quest. Not only did I read these stories, but I constantly

made up my own, especially about King Arthur and his knights,

telling them to myself while walking or doing things. This was

my secret. I never told any one about it. Unknowingly, I must

have been telling the stories in verse, because I remember

puzzling why it was that if I added one word, that is one syllable,

the sentence sounded wrong, while if I added two it sounded

right again.

 

The time came when I began to consider these imaginings

as sin and resolved to stop them, but try as I would I always

slipped back into them. Once, as a penance and a constant

reminder, I decided to wear a knotted cord around my loins, as

I had read of medieval monks doing. So I found an old piece of

garden rope, made knots in it, and tied it tightly round my

waist. However, this gave me stomach ache and I could not

think of any other way of tying that would hold up, so I

abandoned the idea.

 

A favourite daydream at this time was of some mighty

king in a far off land in time and space. Many people came to

him, bringing all imaginable wealth and pleasures; and then I

would come in a monk’s robe offering him renunciation and

hardship. I was to discover later that the king was the ego

enthroned amid the pleasures of this world and then bidden to

renounce and set forth on the lonely quest.

 

All this does not mean that I was a morose or gloomy

child. On the contrary, I was exuberant, as a Sagittarian should

be, fun-loving, delighted when visitors came or when we went

out anywhere. Only there was this inner current of life also,

and it was something I did not speak about.

 

Extrovert or introvert? I do not believe the definitions are

anywhere near so widely applicable as commonly supposed: a

person of high vitality is often both, a person of low vitality

neither. Certainly I was both to a high degree.