The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, rape, child abuse, and transgender discrimination.

Collum is the protagonist of the novel. He is a tall, handsome young man with “the shoulders of a stevedore and the delicate hands of a goldsmith” (11). Collum is strong and skilled at swordplay, favoring a rough, hardscrabble fighting style taught by his mentor, Marshall Aucassin. After Collum is initiated as a Round Table knight, he is given the coat of arms of a golden sheep; the sheep references both his stepfather, Paedar, a sheep merchant, as well as the classical Greek hero Jason, tasked with fetching the golden fleece.

Though Collum has great skill with the sword, he is naïve in political and courtly matters at the beginning of the novel. Collum represents the archetype of the novice or the initiate—the newcomer who learns the rules of the game as he ventures further in the plot. Collum is often called “Collum of the Out Isles” since he is from Mull (a real island off the west coast of Scotland). The moniker also serves to establish that Collum is an outsider, his world on the margins of Romanized Britain.