Offered in memory of the distinguished medievalist and founder of the D. S. Brewer publishing imprint, part of Boydell and Brewer Ltd, the Derek Brewer Essay Prize is awarded annually for an as-yet unpublished scholarly paper based upon original research on an Arthurian topic within the broad remit of Arthurian Literature.

Candidates for the Prize are normally expected to be either doctoral students in a recognised institution of Higher Learning or within two years of having completed a doctorate (from the date the degree was awarded). The paper should be written in English, between 7,000 and 8,000 words in length (including footnotes), and be prepared according to MHRA Style. The winning paper will be awarded a prize of either £150 in cash or £300 of Boydell & Brewer books, in addition to publication in Arthurian Literature. It is a condition of the Prize that the paper be submitted for exclusive publication in Arthurian Literature.

Candidates should send a covering letter, an abstract (between 200 and 250 words) of their paper, and their entry itself to both editors, Dr Megan G. Leitch and Professor K. S. Whetter, as an email attachment to LeitchM@cardiff.ac.uk and kevin.whetter@acadiau.ca, with the three documents combined into one file. The letter should make a statement as to the originality of the work; an indication of how the candidate qualifies for entry to the competition; agreement to the terms of the Prize competition; and name, postal address, email address, and institutional details.

The entries will be judged by a selection committee composed of members of Arthurian Literature's Editorial Board; their decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into. The Board reserves the right not to make an award should no essay of sufficient quality be entered in a given year.

Entries for the Prize should be submitted to the editors by 31 March each year; the winner will be announced by May of the same year, and the essay will be published in the following year's issue of Arthurian Literature. The inaugural 2022 Prize Essay, for instance, appeared in the 2023 issue (Volume 38).

This volume of Arthurian Literature offers a range of topics from Celtic to Latin, Middle English to early-modern French, and medieval to nineteenth-century Arthuriana. We are excited to begin with the inaugural Derek Brewer Essay Prize (awarded to a postgraduate student or very early career scholar): see the stimulating eco-critical account of The Weddyng of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnelle by C. M. Palmer. Palmer argues that Ragnelle typifies the strange stranger, blurring the traditional boundaries or binaries between animal and human; Ragnelle's strangeness both highlights the strangeness of Arthur's court and helps to strengthen that court.

Our first series of studies in this volume focuses on Geoffrey of Monmouth and his possible sources, his rhetoric and his influence and transmission. John Carey offers a thorough survey of Merlin's early origins as a prophet and madman and comparisons of Geoffrey's Merlinus with Lailoken and Merlinus Silvester and Merlinus Ambrosius in Irish and Welsh analogues. Carey is self-avowedly building on some well-established scholarship, but with this paper he establishes the most comprehensive and up-to-date account of the early history of this enduring Arthurian figure. Next, Vanessa K. Iacocca examines Geoffrey's wellknown ambiguity from the perspective of Bakhtinian discourse; Iacocca argues that Geoffrey's subversive discourse undermines the idea of imperial conquest. Having examined analogues to Geoffrey's Merlin and Geoffrey's own playful discourse, we move in Hélène Tétrel's detailed study to an assessment of the treatment of geography and place names in the Old Icelandic Brut; Tétrel uses the Norse-Icelandic handling of names to posit an intermediary source-text between Geoffrey's Latin text and his Norse–Icelandic epigones.

There follows a cluster of papers on Middle English Arthuriana. Matt Clancy reopens the vexed question of the Garter motto at the close of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, arguing that whoever composed the final lines in Cotton Nero A.x, both Gawayn's belt and Edward III's Garter are part of a larger Arthurian and chivalric materialism. The figure of Gawain recurs in different guises and discussions in the following series of essays on Malory's Morte Darthur, particularly in relation to ideas of shame.