From the top of the hill, I pointed out Pike Forest, but beyond that there was nothing but grey gloom, rising from the ground and falling from the sky. We couldn't see the violet hills or the shadowy shapes of the Black Mountains.
"Wales isn't there," I said, "but it is there."
"There's a word for that," said Grace, frowning.
"Paradox," I replied. "Something that seems to contradict itself."
Grace smiled. "You're a paradox," she said, and for a moment she took my arm. "Isn't there, but is there," she slowly repeated. "In that case, Wales is a matter of faith."

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On our way down to church for Terce this morning, Grace nudged me and said under her breath: "Try to find out."
"What?"
"Betrothal."
"I will," I said, "but my father never tells me anything."
Lights were dancing in Grace's eyes. "We can't often see each other," she said, "but we can still be like Wales to each other."
"What do you mean?"
"A matter of faith," said Grace.

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I love that book. Those are two excerpts from one of my favourite series about Arthur - you know, King Arthur? Well...not exactly. Its about a boy named after King Arthur but he lives many years later than King Arthur did. Late enough so that King Arthur was a tale. This boy lives in the year 1199 on the Welsh Marches and knows Merlin (I guess Merlin is impervious to time). Merlin gives this boy-named-Arthur a stone which Arthur soon finds out is a seeing stone. In it he sees the life of King Arthur unfold as a story over a number of years. Although most movies and books you see about King Arthur are set in the Middle Ages - 1200-1400? - King Arthur is actually originally set even farther back, in like...800 AD (I think the new movie they just made about King Arthur is set in the original time period). The English were still bushmen so I dont think Queen Guinevere possessed much divine beauty. Actually...back then, I guess if you were beautiful you must have been divinely beautiful because it was all natural, they didn't have a fraction of the kinds of beauty products we have now and certainly not half as advanced...

Lol, anyway, straying here. That was Arthur talking to his cousin Grace (its written in first person perspective, the perspective being Arthur's). They're only 13! Arthur is 13, and Grace is 12, they're cousins, and they want to be married (betrothed)....glad I don't live back then...no time to be children.

You should all read these books! They're amazingly written, his style is really...I dont know, it really grabs you and is very distinct. His description is short but expressive and effective, and his characters are realisitc and vivid. Also, it doesn't portray the Middle Ages as a time of prancing unicorns and pixies and princesses. Arthur finds out that his father is actually not his father but his uncle, and that his biological father killed his biological mother's husband so as to have her (complicated, yes). Consequently Arthur's hopes of marrying his cousin Grace are dashed because she is now...his sister (whoa!!). During his time as a squire at Lord Stephen's manor he hears of the dispiccable priest who has been abusing his powers. Later he goes on the crusades with Lord Stephen, and becomes terribly aware of the horrors of warfare and all the gruesome acts involved. Forget times of war! Usually life in the Middle Ages was hardly safe let alone peaceful. And cruelly, when Arthur comes back home from the crusades, his betrothed, a wilful girl named Winnie, is in love with Arthur's brother Tom.

yep, its incredible. read it!! they're written by Kevin Crossley-Holland. i need to find more of his work...this Arthur trilogy just whetted my appetite.

Shakespeare
Sonnet 116
The Picture of True Love

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

"Greater love has no one than this, that He lay down his life for His friends." John 15:13

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20

"Love is not the world, neither the things that are in the world." 1 John 2:15

"Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." Ephesians 5:25

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love...This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." 1 John 4:8,10

"The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." Hebrews 12:6

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:18-19

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:35, 37-39

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." 1 John:3:16

Shakespeare knew what he was talking about - true love is everlasting and selfless.