Well the story of Arthur interests me, as someone already stated the name was common in them times like the name Michael, Jack etc are common names right now. But too which i believe of the two the crusader knight version of the medievil period or the Roman knight i'd probably bear down more on the side of the Roman Hedrians wall version.

My reason is basically there is proof and hard evidence that someone called that was up their at the time and did have a band of knights so it would give the whole proof to the pudding that there was an 'Arthur' and a set of knights.

But the whole templers idea also is intreging i know near nothing to make a structured comment but they were a band of knights to if we can link anything else to them for me i'd have to research into it.

Still for me there was a KIng Arthur is a great myth or legend that will always stay as such.

yeah you missed the point.

I also tend to be more incline toward the Romans....when the R. left the island the saxons came.
So it is NOT impossible some romans volonteired (perhaps somebody who had nothing awaiting home in Italy, Sarmatia, Illirya ect ect) to remain and fight in the island (perhaps we could call them desertors??).
I saw the movie from 2005 (If im not mistaken) about King Arthur and the knights of the great wall, I think the history are plausible but there are to much patriotic garbage inside that movie to make it serious, but however it was a nice movie anyway.

I agree about the time period, however he did not necessarily need to be a Roman who stayed behind in Britain. Often the Roman army would recruit countrymen of the nation they annexed into their army. So Arthur may have been a Briton (probably Welsh according to some sources).

Metalkannibal, would you like to enlighten me (and others?) as to what you were referring to with the round churches link? I would like to read your thoughts.

sure it is wery probable it was a Briton...the romano-british they considered themself roman; after all Rome was not a etnical empire, since they had emperors from all the empire (spain, Germany ect) and Roman citicens of colors.

My impression is that, by the time the Roman Empire collapsed the line between Roman culture and Celtic culture had become blurred. When archeologists examine sites from the period (e.g.- Vindolanda on Hadrians Wall) they find evidence that the Roman soldiers there had married Celtic woman, there were lots of half Roman/half Celtic kids around, etc. I think that King Arthur came from this cultural mix and was part of a military effort to stop the Saxons.

The poet Aneirin (ca. AD 535-600) wrote that someone " fed black ravens on the ramparts, although he was no Arthur". He would have written this about 70 years after the proported Arthurian battles. That would be like someone today writing about the Great Depression (in America) or the rise of Nazi Germany. Seventy years is a long time, but it's hard to imagine that Aneirin didn't have SOME historical basis.

The Arthurian legend is not a single legend, belonging to a single people. It's a blending of Roman, Briton, and Celtic lore, and inspired by different legendary or historical figures.

There is no single right answer here. Whether the 'knights' were Sarmatians, or Arthur was a Celtic war cheif, or perhaps a Roman who stayed behind...it's a great tale.

after hundreds of years of the templars/hospitalier being gone people made up legends (partly because they were secretive). their churches turned to tables,the grial to a magical cup of presurved blood,while he blood was actually the templars/hospitalier/merivingians. I HATE GETTING STUCK WITH THE BURDEN OF PROOF!

after hundreds of years of the templars/hospitalier being gone people made up legends (partly because they were secretive). their churches turned to tables,the grial to a magical cup of presurved blood,while he blood was actually the templars/hospitalier/merivingians. I HATE GETTING STUCK WITH THE BURDEN OF PROOF!

unless u think King Arthur had same father as Jesus i would say his LEGEND is composed of at least 3 diferent people... why do i say this ... because in his LEGEND he dies 3 times and comes back to life twice... so i would have to say either jesus or diferent person ... i however absolutlly LOVE king arthur stories...

/me huge Medieval fan

no such thing as king arthur or the round table. romantic mythology im afraid

Did Arthur exist? I think most definitely and even many academic historians believe so too. Was he a king? I don’t think so and I subscribe to the views of Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd in their books on the subject. He was probably a warrior and warband leader. The Vatican version of Nennius’ Historia Brittonum (9th Century) even says so and calls him a ‘warrior’, and saying ‘there were others nobler than him’. Even the Harleian version points to him being the commander of the British but not a king. The Annales Cambriae don’t call him a king either. The first to give him that title is the Life of St Caradog but most early Welsh traditions don’t call him a king either. (One has been interpreted as calling him an emperor but this come from the Latin imperator, which is a military commander). We have Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th Century) and his so called 'History of the Kings of Britain' to thank for starting the legend we know of today. It wasn't a story, it was a 'history', believed to be true and used by the Normans and later English for political purposes. But it didn't fool everyone! Every Goeffrey's contemporary, William of Malmesbury, said this 'history', and especially the Arthurian bit, was a load of old cobblers... in and Anglo-Norman way, of course.

If he was a warband leader for one of the Welsh kings, and Blake and Lloyd point to this being the kings of Gwynedd, Cadwallon and Maelgwn (father and son reigning 500-517 and 517-549 respectfully), it also explains why in the Welsh tradition he didn’t even fight the Saxons. If he fought anyone it would have been the Irish who were constantly raiding west and north Wales and who Cadwallon expelled. Also in Welsh tradition he seems to fight mostly people with British (Welsh) names. He’s not even associated with the Siege Badon Hill. It also helps to explain why he isn’t liked much in the South Walian Lives of the Saints texts as Maelgwn had a habit of raiding them. It could also explain why the 6th Century cleric Gildas never mentions him as he only berates the kings of Britannia, and only the bad ones at that. Gildas also tell us that after Badon (c. 500) there was a peace between Britons and Saxons (Saxons, Angles, Jutes et al) that lasted for two generations and the Britons had turned to civil war. This is what archaeology sees and this would be why Arthur fights other Britons as Gwynedd tries to expand and dominate North Wales.

But you mustn’t think that a warband leader had no power. He was second to the king in medieval Wales, usually because he was also the prince but not always, and there’s no reason to suggest it wasn’t the same in the 6th Century. He took his place when the king wasn’t at court. He was also ‘crowned’ with a battle coronet, a taith, and it may have been this so called Crown of Arthur that Edward I took from Wales and had destroyed along with many other relics and books during his conquest of Wales.

Did he exist? Yes? Was he a king? I don’t think so. Did he fight in all those twelve battles attributed to him? Probably not. Did he fight all over the isle of Britannia? Not if he’s who Blake and Lloyd think he was. His sphere of activity was not only limited to what was once the province of Britannia Prima (what is now Wales, the Marches and southwest Britain) but probably only North Wales with incursions into Mid and South Wales. Did he fight at Badon? Could have done but maybe not. Did he die to rise again in Britain's hour of need? Not according to Welsh tradition, he's definitely dead... and he missed his chance with World War II at saving Britain. Was the legend an amalgam of characters? Yes, and a load of fiction as well. Between the 12th and 15th Centuries he went from a warband leader to a king - and a King of England at that, not of Britannia - who developed a round table, chivalrous knights, a sword in the stone, Camelot, Lady of the Lake, Lancelot... to name but a few. No wonder everyone's confused!

I am tempted to throw another name in here that we know more about with an equally impressive reputation that lived a thousand years ago....ok it is William "Greatest Knight that Ever Lived" Marshal


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marsh...arl_of_Pembroke

William Marshall would have been exactly the audience Geoffrey of Monmouth aimed his history at, and probably was inspired by! He wrote it for his Anglo-Norman master after all.

Some interesting theories here. Well, except for metalkannibal anyway.
One thing no one has mentioned yet is Arthur's father. Uther Pendragon was a real historical figure and was around at the right time for the Arthurian legend. We know that Uther held his court in Tintagel Castle, reputed to be Arthur's birthplace, after he defeated the Duke of Cornwall in battle and took all his lands as his own. We also know that Uther had an advisor called Myrddin (a name that may well have been bastardised into Merlin in more modern times). It was quite common for noble men to keep the people who served their fathers, which would be why Merlin (or Myrddin) was so prominent in the Arthurian legend. According to church records of the time, there were three people called Myrddin around that time, all living in the South West of Britain.
It's also interesting to note that the most favoured site for Arthur's final battle, the battle of Camlan, is near the English/Scottish border in Cumbria, also called The 'Lake' District. This would fit very well with the part of the legend concerning what happened to Excalibur.

Wow, excellent post. Some great points with historical relevance that help to flesh out and concrete the argument for a historical Arthur. Thanks

I think the legend of Excalibur has a pretty simple and actually rather mundane explanation.

There is a myth that Romans were the only ones who had any degree of technology. This simply isn't true. It was said that the Romans invaded Gaul, in part, to extract the huge reserves of mineral resources. The truth is that, the Gauls were already doing, very nicely thank you, mining them.

The evidence suggests that the Celts smelted metals to a far higher purity than the Romans could manage, this would mean that their swords would therefore be, that bit more resilient in battle. Now the working of metals, in Celtic society, was viewed as form of *magick*. Those who held the secret of such techniques were revered in their own way, like the tribal shaman were.

So imagine that during the Roman occupation there were a small band of Celts who managed to keep that knowledge of metalworking going. Passing the knowledge from generation to generation. So the Romans leave and suddenly, those talents, become even more important. Those who wield a sword made to the old Celtic formulae have a distinct advantage in combat from the outset. You can imagine some poorly forged sword literally, shattering as it meets a Celtic forged blade. It would to many, seem that these swords carried, within them, a genuine mystical power.

Over the years, those few swords became, in folklore, a single sword which represented the lost art of Celtic metal smelting and forging. The quasi religious elements were simply tacked on to the legend as the Christians adapted it to suit their own ends.

I have that book in a 2 book set with the "Book of Merlyn"

The only problem is that, even though they had good weapons, they were lightly armoured. The metal might be very much like in a similar way to demascus metal, which was very strong and every sword made was used to kill a strong slave to put the power into the weapon. The process to make demascus metal is now unknown.

As for Uther Pendragon, we don't know that he is an historical figure at all, it was, again, Geoffrey of Monmounth who made him Arthur's father. In most of the early Welsh tradition we don't know who Arthur's father was, only his mother. Geoffrey also made him Ambrosius' brother, again to give Arthur a royal lineage that the early Welsh source, and Ninnius, say's he never had. It's even possible that Arthur was called 'uthr pen dragon', a title meaning 'terrible head dragon' ('terrible' as in 'terrifying' and not as in 'not very good'!). Why head dragon? Because the warriors of Gwynedd were called 'dragons'. It was also Geoffrey who attached Arthur and Uther to Tintagel. We can't even be certain that the kings and lords of Kernyw are the kings and lord's of Cornwall (Kernow)! Cornwall wasn't even called Cornwall until the 9th Century and no ones even sure why? It could have even got it's name from a peninsular in Britanny! What was the Cornovii tribe and civitas of the northwest Midlands could have become a Kernyw and Blake and Lloyd argue that the Lleyn Peninsular in West Wales was Kernyw (the name virtually means people of the headland/peninsular). They also argue for it to being Kernyw because Arthur's main court was at Kelliweg/Celliweg/Gelliweg (Camelot was invented much later) and the only site in the UK that has a place called this is on the Lleyn, not in Cornwall. It was also said that the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland could be seen from this court and, on a clear day you can see these mountains. They can't be seen from anywhere in Cornwall.

Geoffrey also joined Myrddin and Arthur, before him they were separate stories, but he didn't invent Avalon, Afallach (pronounce something like Avaclokh) in Welsh. Afallach was initially a god figure of North Wales but it's also very possible that it existed as a place in North Wales, and not Glastonbury. The confusion comes because of the word 'ynys'. Ynys in modern Welsh does indeed mean 'island', which in Latin became Insular Avalonis and the Isle of Avalon in English. However, in Old Welsh/Brythonic, it can also mean realm, or enclosed land, so we now need to look for a Realm/Kingdom/enclosed land of Avalon. There happens to be an old hillfort in northeast Flintshire, Northeast Wales called Caerfallwch, which could very well be a mutation from Caer Afallach. Regardless of this, there's a 12th Century Cistercian manuscript, not translated until 1981, that says that after the Battle of Camlann, which I'll come to later, Arthur wanted to be taken back to Gwynedd, because that's where Afallach was, and he wanted to be healed there... he was taken, but didn't survive. This manuscript was written at the same time the monks of Glastonbury were saying they'd found the grave of Arthur! A claim thought to be entirely fraudulent - not the bones but the claim - and done because they'd just had a fire and needed money from pilgrims to pay for the refurbishment. It worked, and does so to this day!

His sword, called caledfwch, later to become excalibur via Latin and French, possibly meaning 'hard lightening', was his pride and joy, any warrior's pride and joy. It was special to them regardless of how good the metal was. Being able to own a sword was like owning a Porsche. His sword may have been of great quality simply because he could ‘afford’ to have one of great quality made. However, he probably used his spear more than his sword. The long spear, spears and all wood elm javelins (tipped with adder poison by the men of Gwynedd) where the main weapon, mainly because they were cheaper!

The sword in the stone, from Geoffrey again, probably comes from an earlier tradition of a king taking a sword that lay on a stone, or others giving failty to him as he stood on a stone holding a sword in the air. Throwing the sword into the water is directly from the 'Celtic' votive offering of throwing swords in lakes/rivers, once the had been bent, to their water gods. Again, a later addition. Probably one that went straight over the heads of the Christian reader.

The round table, again, probably come form the ‘Celtic’ tradition of warriors and their king sitting in a circle.

The Battle of Camlann, which has been placed all over the UK from Northumbria to Cornwall could be the easiest of all Arthurian places to identify, especially if Arthur was from Gwynedd. There’s a valley and river in Powys (the kingdom south of Gwynedd), just north of Dolgellau, called... wait for it... Camlan. Not something like Camlan, like all the other sites, but Camlan. This is where Arthur was mortally wounded, possibly fighting his nephew Medrod/Medraut who became Mordred of the romances.

There’s also much written about Arthur being some pagan hero. He most certainly would have been Christian, like the vast majority of western Britain in the so called Dark Ages. Possibly some far flung peasant were still pagan, but the church had band paganism many years before Arthur. This doesn’t mean that they still didn't hold pagan beliefs in the form of superstitions. They certainly believed in faeries, dragons, ill omens and other supposedly none Christian things, just as people did for centuries. They saw no problem in being a staunch Christian and holding these beliefs... even if the Roman church did.

I subscribe to the Sarmatian theory. The Sword in the Stone and Caliburnus are also two different swords that have been blended in time as being one. I believe Caliburnus has Trojan or Greek origins.

The Sarmatians are a great bunch of characters and there's evidence they were still in the Chester (Deva/Caer Lleon) area in the 6th Century. As for them and the King Arthur movie, well, they went and placed Artiorius in the early 5th Century (420) when he lived in the 2nd before Britannia even had any problems with the Saxons. Britons, Picts and Scotti maybe, but not Saxons. But he did command the Sarmatians, so they got something right!

The Romans took the designs for the swords that they used from their enemies.

I think that the gladius was a spanish short sword, and later, particularly for cavalry, the celtic longsword was favoured.

They must have been better than the old celtic sword described in Roman sources, one description describes how they had to bend them back into shape with their feet, and how they became quickly little more than clubs (quickly lost their cutting edge). They were unsuitable for combat in closed spaces, being long cutting objects (the user had no room to swing), and when swung they exposed the vulnerable side of the user.

Now im not sure whether the sword described by the romans unfavourably was iron or bronze, it may be worth a look. I know that the bronze swords were particularly well made, and seem to recall a program discussing it. The presenter, an arms expert, took the newly forged bronze sword which had been faithfully produced using the 'newly discovered method' (not sure how new), and struck an iron sword with it. The result was unexpected, with the bronze model superior. Im not sure how scientific that demonstration was or how it relates to the above post, but thought it worth mentioning. I wonder how the bronze one would have stood up to repeated impacts...hopefully someone here will know more.

It may be also possible that the 'prized' sword that became the Excalibur of myth was steel, of a central asian origin (i think someone else has already mentioned the Sarmatian sword in the earth thing). There are also stories of swords fashioned from iron found in meteors.

edit: forgot to say, Uther means Victor in welsh; 'Gwythyr' is the modern welsh for victor (perhaps a romano-british name ((would have had both versions))).
Also Bardsey island has a claim to be Avalon too....just off the Llyn peninsular too. Supposedly before its name was changed, it was called Ynys Afallach. ('f' pronounced 'v')

lol, the guy who made the sword sells them online....



http://www.templeresearch.eclipse.co.uk/br...ds_for_sale.htm

nice site.

Its a bit earlier of an iron sword to be relevant.

I've never been able to totally verify this but, as far as i know, the mystery of Celtic Iron working is still that. I remember an archaeologist saying that . "No clinker has ever been found at sites of Celtic iron working*. The suggestion being that, their methods of extracting ore has yet to be rediscovered. The Celtic iron secret would have gone to Anglesey with the Druids etc and probably only survived with a very few families, non of whom, would be predisposed to handing over its' secret to the Romans until probably the end of the 2nd century CE.

It is worth remembering, Celtic swords were incredibly expensive. Weapons were passed down from generation to generation because of this. They have found swords that started off as a long bladed weapon to end up as a short sword as the weapon has been reworked several times due to damage.

The Roman choice of the short sword was mostly a practical one. In the Legion it was just way more suitable a weapon given how they fought side by side as a unit. The Roman sword was a long dagger rather than a sword. It had virtually no cutting edge and was used virtually exclusively in a stabbing motion.

You're absolutely right, we don't know anything about 'Celtic' iron working, FireMoon. But I don't agree that the 'secret' would have gone to Anglesey with the Druids to be lost after they were slaughtered in 63AD. The weapon makers, of which there must have been more than Druids, would have retained the knowledge. There were plenty of client kings still allowed to bear arms after the second century so they too must have known how to make swords, unless, as you say, they were only allowed to use hand-me-downs. We don't even know if individual tribes used different methods of weapon making.

'Celtic' is used so freely these days that anyone would think there's absolute proof that the Celts actually came to Britain and populated the whole isle, rather than people of 'Celtic' culture possibly coming to a parts of it. (Many are surprised when they hear that the DNA of western Britain and Ireland is from Iberia , possibly the Celtiberians, and not from the central Europe Celts. Having said that, the Greeks, who are the first to mention the Kelts, say they were in Spain, so there's another debate as to whether the Keltic culture did expand from the Danube out or from the Iberian Peninsular out).There's a ranging debate going on at the moment as to whether the eastern side of Britain was 'Celtic' at all, but Germanic before the Romans arrived. Even Caesar says the Britons of the southeast spoke a similar language to those in Belgae/Northern Gaul, but they are believed to have been Germanic speakers, not Gallic.

Archaeological evidence for the Post Roman/Dark Age/Early Medieval period shows the swords of Britons, Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians are almost identical, in look and make and, in discussing Arthur, that's the periods that matters. Not the weapons of the Iron Age, Roman or Late Roman periods. They were different in look, construction and use. As you mentioned, the Roman Legionary sword was used for stabbing, but this did change with fighting methods in the Late Roman period and they did become longer. As you probably know, the late Roman army looked nothing like the one we're used to seeing: head to foot chainmail for some, large oval shields ect. The look and make of Arthur's sword would have depended on how it was used. He may even have had a dress and battle sword. If he fought from horseback it would be a longer cavalry sword. But as to it being 'magical', that's a totally medieval invention. It seems Arthur was one of Britannia's best warriors ever: a killing machine. I think anyone seeing what he was capable of at that time probably had to put it down to the power of the sword, or God, and not the man.

Thanks for listening.

Today's King Arthur will return....as of now...in 2008!!!!

Nice post. It's always a pleasure to read a post that's well written and thought out. Much better than someone just saying "sorry, you're wrong".
Uther was actually being mentioned in Welsh heroic poems some two hundred years before Geoffrey Of Monmouth wrote his histories. It was these poems that placed Uther within the right time frame for the Arthurian legends.
The Camlan you mentioned in Powys, in my own opinion, isn't the site of the battle. For one thing, the word 'Camlann', as taken from the title of the battle, means Crooked Bank. The river Dovey, which runs close to Camlan in Powys, might meander but couldn't really be called 'crooked'. Also, there are no lakes in the local vacinity. The lake where Sir Bedivere (sp) threw Excalibur had to have been close by. Arthur was mortally wounded in the battle and it took Sir Bedivere three times before he actually threw the sword into the water. Bareing in mind that Sir Bedivere would have only had a horse at best (or be on foot at the worst), there is no way Arthur would have survived long enough for Sir Bedivere to travel a long distance, three times no less, to complete his mission.
I would also like to ask a question. If, as you say, Arthur would have been a Christian. Why would he have Merlin as his chief advisor? Merlin was a Magician, most probably a Druid. Surely a Christian king wouldn't have been allowed, nor even want, a Druid in his service?

Good arguments Seffy.

Uther is indeed mentioned in the Welsh poems but no where does it say 'arthur map uthyr'. His first reference in Pa Gur? is 'Mabon the son of Mydron, Uthyr Pendragon's servant'. The confusion seem to come from another poem which, in Brythonic say: 'mab arthur uthir ig kertev' - 'The son of Arthur terrible in song'. It's argued that it is this line that Geoffry of Monmouth used as an excuse, or mistake, to call Uther/Uthir/Uthyr, Arthur's father. It's more likely that he knew what he was doing as he knew the Brythonic language and just had to give Arthur a father as there wasn't one. He even made Uthyr Ambrosius Aurelianus' brother to give Arthur a good Roman/Ruling lineage. But you try and find Uthyr in any of the ancient royal Welsh genealogies, or Arthur for that matter, and you'll fail. If Uthyr was a famous king (and in the Welsh tradition he isn't and only has a son called Madog), and Arthur was a king at all, you'd think one ancient kingdom would want to claim him!

Camlann, as you rightly say, means 'crooked bank', but regardless of whether the river in Powys can be described this way, it still got called Camlan and the earliest records call it this. It could have been named because somewhere upstream or near the source there is a crooked bank, and we are talking 1500 years ago and rivers change in that time.

Why do you need a lake? This is a later tradition. It's not even a Galfridian (Geoffrey of Monmouth) invention. Geoffrey just says that Arthur went to Avalon to be cured of his wounds... nothing else. You'd think if it had been an earlier tradition there would have been a triad written about it. The same goes for Bedivere, or Bedwr/Bedwyr to give him his old name. If the lake story is a later one then he didn't do it anyway, which is brought even more home by the fact that there's a triad saying he died at Camlann and was buried in the mountains of Snowdonia.

Arthur didn't have Merlin as a chief advisor, not until much later. Even Geoffrey of Monmouth (who started the whole legend) doesn't do this, he only associates Merlin with Uther. Also, it's wrong to think of him as a druid. As far as we know there weren't any and the Christian church would certainly have hounded them as heretics. Druids had huge politic power, which is why the Romans tried to slaughter them all at Anglesey, and the Roman church had the same view of them. They hunted down anyone with a different Christian view let alone pagan, such as the Briton Pelagius in the 5th Century and his idea that we weren't born with original sin, so they weren't going to tolerate a druid. (They touched on Pelagius in the awful film King Arthur, making him a friend of his). But we mustn't attach the modern view of Christianity to these people. Christianity and seers/astrologers/bards ect, still went hand in hand, although the church didn't like them much either.

Earlier writings, as testified by the 6th Century epic poem Y Gododdin (where he's first mentioned in a single line 'but he was not (no) Arthur'), are battle eulogies and not romances, they didn't come until the French in the 14th Century. So any early oral tradition (bardic), later to be written down, is only going to record who killed who, and by what method, who was related to who, where they were from, their past deeds, how brave they were, how drunk they got and, if we're lucky, where they were buried. Anything attached after that will come from folklore and by the time we get the Medieval period, loads of people filling in the gaps with their own theories, and downright fictions, just as I'm doing at the moment with the screenplay I'm writing about him.

As I've learned over the past 20 years of studying him, most people want to believe in a chivalrous, romantic figure with a wizard and magical sword rather than a Dark Age warlord, no matter what the evidence shows, and I don't blame them!

I think Pastscapian has got the gist of it theres not much more I can add. Just a few little points:

dont forget all elements of the Legends of King Arthur have widely disparate origins! IIRC Merlin comes from pre-roman legends, and so does Tristan and Iseult, whereas Lancelot appeared long after Arthur.

On the Religious front: Chances are that Arthur or whoever (ambrosius, or all the other C5th candidates) could have had a druid advisor/non christian wiseman. Why? cos Christianity had only just started to spread, and when the saxons arrived in force it suffered a setback.

Firemoon: interesting stuff about the swords....

THe legend of a sword being taken from a stone also predates arthur (which would be about right cos merlin won it in a contest...apparrently)

And Im wandering if theres something in a theory my mother told me once, one that links nicely with its name "hard lightning". Imagine a meteorite hits the Earth , and as it heats up on entry to the atmosphere the iron ore within it changes its composition slightly to something more like steel (Im a bit fuzzy on metal working and how you get from one to the other...I should probably look it up)...Imagine then this ore is discovered upon the ground...maybe someone saw it hit, its fiery descent to earth. They made a sword from the metal ore they found, and discovered properties very different to those of bronze or iron weapons. It kept a better edge, was stronger (though not as flexible) and made a very different ringing noise when it was struck.

I dont think we're to far away from where the myth of a magical, powerful, singing sword, pulled from a stone, and forged by a powerful smith, meets reality.


BTW the recent film of King Arthur was rubbish.
The Warlord chronicles by Cornwell however are made entirely from Awesome and Win!

Good points Torchwood except I have to disagree about the above point, of course it all depends on his dating. All the evidence, both archaeologic and written evidence shows Christianity arriving in the 4th Century and flourishing in the late 5th and well established by the early 6th. The Saxons (Saxons, Jutes, Angles ect) only set it back in the eastern portion of Britain. The west and especially what was the old Roman province of Britannia Prima (roughly Wales, Devon, Cornwall and the border counties of England/Wales) was the hotbed of Christianity. Irish Christianity came from western Britain. The kings of this period got advise from their many councilors, made up of chieftains, elders and especially their bishops. Surely the 6th Century cleric Gildas would have had something to say in his polemic on the British kings if they'd used none Christians or Druids as advisors. He doesn't, he mentions the bad advise of stupid clerics, but he does mention the bards because they extolled only the warlike virtues of their kings in the ballads and fuel there arrogance.

I agree, it can be hard to map the chronology and spread of christianity in those years so I could be wrong.
however the few sources we have of those times were written later by christians: so Arthur and his advisors will get rewritten as pure christians (or at least any pagans will be quietly forgotten). After all, your average christian monk/scribe wouldnt spent to much preaching the virtues of pagan heroes would they?

The sources I'm referring to ARE from the period (6th Century) Gildas' De Excidio Britanniae , and the epic poem Y Gododdin . Y Gododdin certainly wasn't written by a cleric but by a court bard, Aneirin. Here are a few of verses from it that mention Christianity:

Men went to Gododdin, laughter-loving, bitter in battle, each blade in line.
A brief year they were quiet, in peace.
Bodgad's son with his hand took revenge.
Though they went to churches for shriving, old men and young, noble and lowly,
True is the tale, death confronted them.

Men went to Catraeth at morn.
He made certain the shame of armies; they made sure that a pier was needed.
The most savage blades in Christendom, he contrived, no request for a truce,
A blood-path and death for his foeman.
When he was before Gododdin's band Neirthiad's deeds showed a hero's bold heart.

He rushed to battle before cattle rose.
A well-trained war-band, shields in tatters, shield rent before Beli's blaring herd.
A lord deep in blood, guarding the flank, sustains us, grey-haired, from a charger,
A prancing steed, fierce golden-torqued ox.
The boar made a pact in the front of the line, fitting message, shout of rejection:
'Lord who calls us to heaven, save us!'
He brandishes his spears for battle.
Cadfannan, name famous for plunder, none denied hosts would be his pavement.

...and here's the verse that mentions Arthur...

He thrust beyond three hundred, most bold, he cut down the centre and far wing.
He proved worthy, leading noble men; he gave from his herd steeds for winter.
He brought black crows to a fort's wall, though he was not Arthur
He made his strength a refuge, the front line's bulwark, Gwawrddur.

There's only one king about which Gildas has this to say:

No, surely, but unless (as the psalmist saith) thou shalt be speedily converted unto our Lord, that King will shortly brandish his sword against thee, who hath said by his prophet, "I will kill, and I will cause to live; I will strike, and I will heal; and there is no one who can deliver out of my hand." And there could be a very good reason why he (King Aurelius Conanus) either wasn't a Christian, or Gildas makes him out not to be a Christian, and that's because he was probably gay, judging by Gildas' description of him and his 'activities'. Imagine being gay in the 6th Century!

This, and the many other reasons I've mention, is why most scholars of the period believe they were not only Christians but probably fanatical Christians. But, you're right, it doesn't mean everyone was a Christian (at his own peril) and many could call themselves Christian and not extol any Christian virtues what-so-ever.

Just in case you're wondering... no, I'm not a Christian.

Thanks for this debate.

Neither am I!:D

Unfortunatly only Gildas is an authentic C6th source, (and if IRCC he doesnt actually mention Arthur...) Y Gododdin may have been originaly composed in the 7th century, but even that gives us another 100 years for christianity to spread and influence everything, however its only known form wasnt written down till nearer the C13th by a pair of scribes (who almost certainly would have been christian). Given the number of pagen references and the fact that there are various inconsistencies with the poems form (something to do with the wrong number of syllables in certain areas) it could easily be that the Christian elements were added in later. Its well known that the early christians were more than happy to absorb pagen beliefs and traditions with only slight modifications as a way of convering people without destroying the history and heritige (which would only annoy them!).

Having studied history a fair while myself Ive not come across many writers who claim that post roman Britian was heavily christianised, after all they seem (according to various visitors after the collapse of the western Empire) to have done a pretty good job of keeping up the Roman ways, one of which included finding time for pretty much any God they came across, and worshipping any that took their fancy. Of course theres probably an exception I cant quite recall!

Hi Torchwood, sorry not to have replied sooner but other things got in the way.

I think we'll just have to agree to differ on the Christianity debate, but my parting shots will be that the Romans certainly weren't pagan and followed any god by this time. They were the Christians and had made it their official religion from 380s.

As I've said, this doesn't mean they wouldn't still have pagan leanings and superstitions but they'd become part of the western Christianity, especially western Britannia. There were still astrologer and seers ect but there's no evidence of druids. There is another late 6th Century source and that's Taliesin. If we sift out all the middle age forgeries (which the brilliant early Welsh linguist, Sir Ifor Williams did) we're left with the praise poetry, which is what a bard did. I'll quote from the paper The Expulsion of the Blatant Beast...

"Now a word on the character of this poetry: it is highly formulaic, full of mentions of Urien’s lavish generosity and skill in battle, and with remarkable emphasis on the poet’s own feelings. One of the poems is a moving elegy for his lord’s son, Owain son of Urien, again praising his generosity and military valour as the highest virtues. The poems tend to be of loose 8- or 9-syllable lines, ornamented with rhyme and lots of alliteration. They are paeans of praise, elegies, requests for reconciliation, not narrative poems. The language is fearsomely difficult – we normally teach people this poetry only when they have been reading Middle Welsh intensely for at least a year. Many lines are obscure and have to be emended, as one would expect for very old poetry which had passed through centuries of textual transmission.

What they are not, in any way at all, is ‘mystical’ or ‘druidic’. I’ll say that again – the earliest poems associated with Taliesin, which were written only a couple of centuries after the general conversion of the Britons to Christianity – have nothing pagan, druidic, or magical in them. The ‘Elegy for Owain’, one of the best poems, explicitly refers to the Christian God, asking that he consider the soul of the fallen hero.

The rest of the material in the Book of Taliesin, in the mouth of the ‘mystical’ Taliesin, is later. It must date to a 300-year period between about 900 AD and 1220 AD. Some individual poems in the manuscript can be dated precisely – the ‘Prophecy of Britain’ can be exactly dated to 930 AD. You may ask, quite reasonably, why the hell we can’t tie these other poems down any more precisely. The reasons are several. The first is that we often use references to contemporary political and social events to help date medieval poems. (This is, for example, how we know the date of the ‘Prophecy of Britain’ so accurately.) ‘Mythological’ poetry tends to be an inward-looking genre, which makes little reference to outer, worldly events and so in this case this approach tends to avail us nothing. Secondly, this kind of poetry, with its short lines and deliberate opacities, is rather unlike the rest of the verse which was being composed in the period – the religious verse and exalted praise-poetry of the poets known as the Gogynfeirdd, the 'Fairly early poets'. Thus it is difficult to compare it directly with other works surviving from the period, which might have helped us date individual poems. Finally, the skills required are highly specialised, and you need an expert in Welsh literature, linguistics, history and poetic forms to sit down and devote a decade or so of research-time to the material. Such people are few on the ground, but we are fortunate that Marged Haycock of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, has recently published a magisterial edition, commentary and introduction to the poems that are most of interest to pagans. She is undoubtedly the world expert on this poetry. (She also examined my PhD thesis - I was very honoured.) Her book is Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin (Aberystwyth, 2007), with a companion volume, Prophetic Poems from the Book of Taliesin, forthcoming. Anyone who has a serious interest in Taliesin and the traditions associated with him cannot do without this book."

I've just realised something else. This is of course the Unexplained Mysteries site, and the last thing we should be doing it trying to explain! LOL

I know the name of Riothamus has been mentioned before on this site, but there is also the fact that c. 470 AD, after being beaten by the Goths, his last known location was near the Burgundian city of Avallon. This may be where King Arthur's sailing to the Isle of Avalon after his final defeat came from.

cormac