Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Three key stories from the mists of Irish legend retold by Benedict Flynn, with atmospheric music and sound effects. Enter a mysterious world where the line between the fantastical and the real is blurred mortals and immortals live strange entwined ...

The great poetic tradition of pre-Christian Scandinavia is known to us almost exclusively though the Prose Edda, a collection of narrative literature, and its companion, the Poetic Edda. The poems originated in Iceland, Norway, and Greenland between...

Dramatic, intense, and gripping, The Inferno of Dante is an astonishing masterpiece that no listener can afford to miss. Robert Pinsky, the distinguished American poet, preserves the burning clarity and universal relevance of this 13th century liter...

There was once a time, nearly four thousand years ago, when the tall towers of a city called Troy reached gleaming into the sky; when its proud king fought against an invading army in a desperate siege. The Tale of Troy was so important to the ancie...

The Canterbury Tales are widely read and studied. The Middle English in which they were first written differs sufficiently from modern English, in vocabulary and usage, that most of us require a contemporary translation. On this recording the &lsquo...

The Knight’s Tale of medieval wars and chivalry is the first tale told to the pilgrims as they set out to Canterbury. It concerns Theseus, returning from fighting at Thebes, two brother knights Palamon and Arcite, imprisoned but yearning for t...

These stories are about how, many years ago, Arthur the once and future King of England, set out to save his country from the troubles that plagued it, aided by the brave knights of his Round Table, and the most famous sword in the world, Excalibur;...

Dante’s vision The Divine Comedy has profoundly affected every generation since it first appeared in the early fourteenth century. Here is a brief account of his life, compiled from various sources (including his first biographer, Boccaccio) b...

These three tales from The Canterbury Tales are read in the original Middle English by Richard Bebb under the direction of Britain’s foremost Chaucer scholar, Derek Brewer. This was Bebb’s last recording – he died shortly afte...