My name is Merrie Haskell, and I've been interested in King Arthur since I was 13. I'm a bit older than that now, of course.

I got interested in King Arthur after my sixth-grade social studies teacher told us her version of the legends one afternoon, instead of making us learn about economics. Shortly after that, I read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and decided I wanted to write my own version of Arthur (I am a writer, too). When I saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I was intrigued by Indy's dad's Grail journal, and started collecting my Arthurian research in a small, 3-subject spiral bound notebook, intendeding to transfer them to a nice leather notebook as in the movie as soon as I could afford one. Instead of doing that, however, I ended up transferring my research to the web, either in late 1994 or early 1995 (I don't honestly remember!).

I have a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan. I speak French pretty well, and I can read Old English. I also know some Spanish and Attic Greek, but they aren't so helpful with King Arthur research.

I think everyone who is interested in King Arthur should try to read Hawk of May by Gillian Bradshaw, and its sequels. For the more ambitious, Tennyson's Idylls of the King is a gorgeous rendering of the Arthurian legend.

I've been to England several times, and made sure to go to Glastonbury twice. And somehow I failed to make it to Tintagel even once. In May 2002, I was in Brittany for about a week, but that was an exercise in frustration of trying to get to the Arthurian-related places near Paimpont with no car. I'm going to try to get there again someday. My biggest excitement abroad was in 2004 when I found Arthuret while on my honeymoon.

I hope you enjoy the site, and yes, I do believe King Arthur existed--it is just the how and when that elude us.