That Once There Was. . . and Is a Camelot

Alongside his poetry and the charming essays of family life and ordinary glory he has collected in other volumes, Jake Frost has now shown he is a teller of tales. In “The Light of Caliburn,” he reminds us that though the legends of long ago are wreathed in smoke, the fire at their heart continues to burn in our time too.

Jake Frost, The Light of Caliburn  (217 pages, independently published, 2021)

Is it true? That’s the thrilling question in any story about the legends of yore. Stories in which characters discover that there is fire behind the smoke of legends typically come in two varieties. In one kind, people from our time are transported back to the days of the legend. Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is an example. In the other, the legends are shown to be true because some figure involved in them is depicted as either still alive or traveling forward in time to our world. C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength is an example of the latter. Because of the peril involved in that story, Merlin is awakened!

In general, I like the first kind better. Travel to the past has always been more attractive to me as an idea because, along with the legend, one gets that whole disappeared world. But the second one has its pleasures, among them the chill of feeling that we have not been born too late for the legend. The world of magic and adventure continues!

Jake Frost’s new book, The Light of Caliburn, is a version of this second kind of story—and it gives off this pleasant chill. It is the story of Geo (pronounced “Gee-oh”), a painter in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and his girlfriend, Alette, a scientist at Michigan Tech, who together discover that Merlin is alive in their day and active even in the wilds of the Lake Superior region when they are caught up in an adventure that blends together the legends of both Arthur’s Court and the Native Americans who dwelt on the shores of Lake Superior.

The very first chapter drops us into the action as Geo has discovered in his antique portable writing desk a thin case with golden designs including “a tree in full leaf, rich with fruit, with a flaming sword before it, and two words, one on each side of the tree: Nimue on one side, Pelleas on the other.” The desk, used by the fur traders who had come to the Upper Peninsula centuries ago, had been a gift from an old man with a love of their history and that of the mysteries of the woods around the Great Lakes themselves: the sacred places of the Indian tribes, tales of Viking runes, treasures, and even arms and armor that had come from across the sea. The case, discovered only after a few years, seems to be part of a very deep mystery. It contains a volume titled The Book of Merlin, which is filled with—as if you couldn’t guess—magic that leaps off the page and transforms Geo into various elements as he goes through its cycles.

One of the delights for this book, which I would peg as best suited for fifth- or sixth-graders (though I read it to my second grader), is that Geo, who, though a U.S. Army veteran who’s spent the last decade hiking and paddling through the area, is physically tough and has the skills to survive in the wild, is not an expert in Arthurian legends. Thus, he is learning alongside the reader, who, at the beginning of each chapter, discovers passages from the notes of Alette. She has been going through the classic sources for the Arthurian legends and jotting out summaries for Geo so that he knows precisely what happened in the legends that have now invaded his life.

Invaded is the right word, too, for alongside the delightful magic that causes him to take the forms at various times of light, wind, water, and even animals, are the not-so-delightful magical figures who are out to get him. Dragon-men and other beasts seem to come out of the woodwork—or at least the woods—to attack him now that he manifests this power. Merlin is alive, it would seem, and Merlin is at war. Thus, Geo and Alette are part of the war. Thankfully, the magic of the ancient magician allows Geo to transform into a Kodiak bear when he is forced to fight a creature of the north woods who seems to be a relation, or at least a doppelganger, of the ancient Grendel.

The fighting, the magic, and the transformations will keep the attention of the boys, while I suspect girls who read the book may also appreciate the fact that it is Geo and Alette together fighting the war and learning together about Arthur, Guenevere, Nimue, Pelleas, the great sword Excalibur—or Caliburn!—and the true magical gift that is there for the taking in their own life. There is much worry, though, for they have different tasks in this adventure, and they cannot always fight side-by-side even when they fight together. Will they both survive this set of adventures and face new ones? Will they learn what is the true gift of Nimue? Will their love survive and grow?

I won’t tell you the answers to these questions. I will tell you that Joseph Pearce has called Jake Frost in these pages one of “those who are worthy of particular mention” in “the new generation of Catholic poets.” Alongside his poetry and the charming essays of family life and ordinary glory he has collected in other volumes, Mr. Frost has now shown he is a teller of tales. This particular tale reminds us that though the legends of long ago are wreathed in smoke, the fire at their heart continues to burn in our time too.

“Don’t let it be forgot,” wrote Alan Jay Lerner, “that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.” The lesson of Jake Frost is that, if we pay attention and act bravely and stoutly in the face of our own dragon-men, we may find that we are just characters in a later chapter of the legend. There once was a Camelot. If we but open our eyes, we may see that it is there, ready to be defended, cherished, and loved—even in the wilds of the Upper Peninsula.

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