Logres

[Esther]

My husband and I just finished re-reading That Hideous Strength, having both read it as teenagers. We were curious about the word and concept of "Logres." Was that something that Lewis invented, or is it taken from Medieval literature?

[Stanley Anderson]

[Messenger_of_Eden]

I know that Logres ("Llogres") was also featured in conjunction with the character Taliesin in Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle.

[alliebath]

Logres is based on the Mediaeval Welsh word for what now would be considered central England. In that sense, it empitomises in both Lewis’ That Hideous Strength and Charles Williams’ ‘Arthurian Cycle’ of poems an idealised ‘Britain’—Celtic and pre-Saxon. Lewis’ final part of the ‘Cosmic’ trilogy was heavily influenced by Williams’ Arthurian interest, with a significant gear change in the character of Ransom becoming the wounded Fisher King. In Williams’ poems there is also a Byzantine Emperor and a Roman Pope, and the whole of Europe—Western Christendom—and the Mediterranean lands are seen as the body of a woman. Against these beacons of light and faith there are the horrendous creatures of Po’-Lu’—an Antipodean alternative (rather Dantean) dark empire.