.
Abstract
"Armour Wherein He Trusted" was Mary Webb’s final novel. Unfinished at her death, it was published posthumously in 1929 and tells the story of a young Saxon knight and his marriage to a mysterious Welsh bride, who claims elfin heritage. While contemporary reviewers were mixed in their criticism, many noted her experimental style, which differed from her previous rural novels, not least in its eleventh-century setting. However, more recent scholars have given the novel little attention or have even been dismissive of it. This article seeks to redress that balance and also proposes new approaches to Webb’s work. In an effort to suggest possible outcomes for the unfinished story, the current author asks whether such gaps in the text may be filled through an examination of potential sources of inspiration, including Shropshire folklore, specifically the legends of the Saxon warrior Wild Edric and his wife Godda, Arthurian legends, and The Mabinogion, something the author believes previous scholars have largely overlooked. The article also analyses how Mary Webb may have drawn inspiration from her own social and family situation in the years leading up to her death.
Schlagworte:
Mary Webb, Shropshire, folklore, Arthurian legends, The Mabinogion, Wild EdricLiteraturhinweise
Primary sources Google Scholar
Webb, M. (1929 [1922]), Seven for a Secret. London: Jonathan Cape. Google Scholar
Webb, M. (1935 [1916]), The Golden Arrow. London: Jonathan Cape. Google Scholar
Webb, M. (1946), Fifty-One Poems, London: Jonathan Cape. Google Scholar
Webb, M. (1946 [1920]), The House in Dormer Forest. London: Jonathan Cape. Google Scholar
Webb, M. (1978a [1924]), Foreword to Precious Bane. London: Virago Press: 6–7. Google Scholar
Webb, M. (1978 [1924]), Precious Bane. London: Virago Press. Google Scholar
Webb, M. (1979 [1917]), Gone to Earth. London: Virago Press. Google Scholar
Webb, M. (2008 [1929]), Armour Wherein He Trusted. London: Dodo Press. Google Scholar
Webb, M. (2016 [1917]), The Spring of Joy: A Little Book of Healing. Adelaide: Michael Warmer. Google Scholar
Secondary sources Google Scholar
Ashman, G./ Bennett, G. (2000), Charlotte Sophia Burne: Shropshire Folklorist, First Woman President of the Folklore Society, and First Woman Editor of Folklore. Part 1: A Life and Appreciation. Folklore 111/1: 1–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1260976 [accessed: 25.01.2026].
Crossref
Google Scholar
Bacskai-Atkari, J. (2015), Narratives of the Medieval in Walter Scott’s Ballads. In: Simonkay, Z./Nagy, A. (eds.), Heroes and Saints: Studies in Honour of Katalin Halácsy. Budapest: Mondat: 323–336. Google Scholar
Barale, M.A. (1986), Daughters and Lovers: The Life and Writing of Mary Webb. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. Google Scholar
Burne, C.S. (ed.) (1883), Shropshire Folklore: A Sheaf of Gleanings. London: Trübner. Google Scholar
Byford-Jones, W. (1937), The Shropshire Haunts of Mary Webb. Shrewsbury: Wilding and Son Ltd. Google Scholar
Child, F.J. (ed) (1890), Tam Lin. In: English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Vol. 1 Part 2. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company: 335–358. Google Scholar
Coles, G.M. (1978), The Flower of Light: A Biography of Mary Webb. London: Gerald Duckworth. Google Scholar
Davie, R. (2018), “The Other Side of Silence”: The Life and Work of Mary Webb. PhD thesis. University of Gloucestershire. (Unpublished). https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/5711/1/Rosalind_Davie_PhD_Thesis_2018.pdf [accessed: 20.01.2026]. Google Scholar
Davies, L. (1990), Mary Webb Country: An Introduction to Her Life and Work. Leominster: Palmers Press, Ludlow & Orphans Press. Google Scholar
Davis, S. (trans.) (2007), The Mabinogion. Oxford/NY: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar
Duncan, E. (1979), Introduction. In: Webb, M., Gone to Earth. London: Virago Press: (no p.n.). Google Scholar
“Escheat” (1998), In: Pearsall, J. (ed.), New Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 627. Google Scholar
Fauconnier, G. (1994). Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Friedman, S.S. (1993), Spatialization: A Strategy for Reading Narrative. Narrative 1/1: 12–23. https://shc.stanford.edu/arcade/interventions/spatialization-strategy-reading-narrative [accessed: 15.12.2025]. Google Scholar
Guest, C.E. (trans.) (1998 [1906]), The Mabinogion. New York: Dover Publications. Google Scholar
Hall, A. (2005), Getting Shot of Elves: Healing, Witchcraft and Fairies in the Scottish Witchcraft Trials. Folklore (April) 116/1: 19–36.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Hall, A. (2006), Elves on the Brain: Chaucer, Old English and Elvish. Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 124/2: 225–243. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ANGL.2006.225.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Hill, T. (2025), Webb’s Shropshire and Hardy’s Wessex: Literary and Geographical Influences on the Early Novels of Mary Webb. Acta Neophilologica 27/1: 81–103. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31648/an.11045.
Crossref
Google Scholar
The Holy Bible (1939), King James Version. London: Naval and Military Bible Society. Google Scholar
Huggins, M. (2001), The Regular Re-invention of Sporting Tradition and Identity: Cumberland and Westmorland Wrestling c. 1800–2000. The Sports Historian 21/1: 35–55.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Irving, J. (1996), The Imaginary Girlfriend. London: Black Swan. Google Scholar
Jackson, G.F. (1879), Shropshire Word-Book: A Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words, etc., Used in the County. London, Trübner & Co. Google Scholar
Johansson, B. et al. (2023), The Relationship Between Mental Fatigue, Depression, and Cognition in Graves’ Disease. European Thyroid Journal 12/4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1530/ETJ-23-0040.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Junquera, I.M./Moreno, F.M. (2018), Mythology and Ecocriticism: A Natural Encounter Introduction 1. Ecozon European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment (October) 9.2/1: 1–7.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Knight, S. (2009), Merlin: Knowledge and Power Through the Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Google Scholar
LeClercq, J. (1992), Monks and Hermits in Medieval Love Stories. Journal of Medieval History 18: 341–356.
Crossref
Google Scholar
McNeil, W.K. (1971), The Function of Legend, Belief and Custom in “Precious Bane”. Folklore 82/2: 132–146.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Origin and History of “Welsh” (n.d.), Etymonline. https://www.etymonline.com/word/Welsh [accessed: 11.09.2025]. Google Scholar
Palmer, R. (2004), The Folklore of Shropshire. Almeley: Logaston Press. Google Scholar
Pasiut, K. (2023), Merlin and Nimiane: The Unifying Force for the National Unity of Britain at the Waning of the Middle Ages as Depicted in the Fifteenth Century “Prose Merlin”. Acta Neophilologica 25/1: 133–148. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31648/an.8759.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Penjak, A./Karnincic, H. (2013), Sport and Literature: An Overview of the Wrestling Combats in the Early Literary Texts. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 3/5: 49–55. Google Scholar
Radford, A. (2004), A Note of Hardy’s “Tess” and Mary Webb’s “Gone to Earth”. The Thomas Hardy Journal (February) 20/1: 56–60. Google Scholar
Radford, A. (2007), Lost Girls: Demeter, Persephone and the Literary Imagination, 1850–1930. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Reid Chappell, W. (1930), The Shropshire of Mary Webb. London: Palmer. Google Scholar
Siegel, C. (1991), Male Masochism and the Colonialist Impulse: Mary Webb’s Return of the Native Tess. Novel: A Forum on Fiction (Winter) 24/2: 131–146.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Silver, C. (1986), On the Origin of Fairies: Victorians, Romantics, and Folk Belief. Browning Institute Studies special issue The Victorian Threshold 14: 141–156.
Crossref
Google Scholar
Smith, E.L. (1990). The Arthurian Underworld of Modernism: Thomas Mann, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Davies. Arthurian Interpretations (Spring) 4/2: 50–64. Google Scholar
Thrall, J.H. (2020), Mystic Moderns: Agency and Enchantment in Evelyn Underhill, May Sinclair, and Mary Webb. New York: Lexington Books. Google Scholar
Tripp, M. (2023), Cornish Wrestling: A History. St Agnes: Federation of Old Cornwall Societies. Google Scholar
Tucan, G. (2013), Cognitive Poetics: Blending Narrative Mental Spaces. Self-Construal and Identity in Short Literary Fiction. Enthymema 8: 38–55. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/2949. Google Scholar
Turner, M. (2026), Wandering Knights did Exist — but Think Wagner Group, not Saviours in Shining Armour. The Financial Times (January 10). https://www.ft.com/content/e6bed958-feae-47d7-a8ce-06597899bc5b [accessed 12.04.2026]. Google Scholar
Wall, T. (2014), The Singular Stiperstones. Leominster: Orphans Press Ltd. Google Scholar
Webb History, Family Crest and Coat of Arms (n.d.), The House of Names. https://www.houseofnames.com/webb-family-crest [accessed: 08.09.2025]. Google Scholar
Wrenn, D.P.H. (1964), Goodbye to Morning: A Biographical Study of Mary Webb. Shrewsbury: Wilding and Son. Google Scholar
Am häufigsten gelesenen Artikel dieser/dieses Autor/in
- Trevor Hill, THE PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW: ITS HISTORY AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE , Acta Neophilologica: Bd. 1 Nr. XX (2018): Acta Neophilologica
- Trevor Hill, The The use of literature and songs from varying cultures in Węgajty Theatre’s Kalevala; fragmenty niepisane , Acta Neophilologica: Bd. 1 Nr. XXV (2023): Acta Neophilologica
- Trevor Hill, "That's the Way to Wooooo It!" , Acta Neophilologica: Bd. 1 Nr. XXIV (2022): Acta Neophilologica
- Trevor Hill, No More Amber: The Baltic Literary Review Volumes 1 & 2. , Acta Neophilologica: Bd. 2 Nr. XXV (2023): Acta Neophilologica
- Trevor Hill, The Drama of Language Learning: Using English Literature with a Polish Teenage Youth Theatre , Acta Neophilologica: Bd. 1 Nr. XXVI (2024): Acta Neophilologica
- Trevor Hill, Webb’s Shropshire and Hardy’s Wessex: Literary and Geographical Influences on the Early Novels of Mary Webb , Acta Neophilologica: Bd. 1 Nr. XXVII (2025): Acta Neophilologica
- Trevor Hill, Getting to Grips with Wrestling History and its Uses for Literary Scholars , Acta Neophilologica: Bd. 1 Nr. XXVII (2025): Acta Neophilologica
