How to Find Truth within Legend

Post III May 15, 2012

Many books based in modern day romance, or history itself for that matter, will tell you how Arthur successfully defended all of Britain from invasion by Saxons, Engles (Angles) and Jutes.  We are told Arthur halted the Saxon invaders for a considerable period of time and won all his engagements except the last one, in which he as fatally wounded.  Up to this point, a point which is extremely generalized, everyone is in concordance.  Then it becomes interesting.  Very few scholars still insist that Arthur fought in Cornwall or that he was born there, for the simple reason that the Saxons were not invading Cornwall during Arthur’s lifetime.  The Welsh have never claimed that he was born and raised in what is now Wales -much less that he came from Brittany.  However, it becomes muddled as the translation of Brittany itself is argued.  Now, of course historians have wandered far and wide in ascribing some English city as the site of one or another of the battles there is some agreement he fought, especially that of the great victory of Mount Badon.  Some used to say that Badon was Bath, which is not exactly a mountain.  They also used to say that Avalon was Glastonbury, which is not exactly and island in the middle of the sea!  Some also would write that Arthur must have landed on the coast of southern England near Portland Bill, where the ancient Romans came ashore at various times.  Or that, as Malory had it, he came ashore at Dover where the Romans left a lighthouse.  Sometimes Arthur’s forest of Brocéliande in Scotland, where ancient Ptolemy had put a little picture of the Caledonian Forest on his map, and where Geoffrey of Monmouth had also put Arthur’s forest.  But the French are still hunting for the forest of Brocéliande somewhere inside Celtic Brittany, but so far they haven’t found a trace of it.  Their problem seems to be that they think Brocéliande is a French name and not, as Dr. Goodrich demonstrates in her book, actually a poor translation from the original Celtic and British place name.  The word Brocéliande thus gives one a fairly simple problem in phonetics.

Historians of the Anglo-Saxons say that Arthur could not have won his battles in England because the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that the Saxons conquered England in King Arthur’s lifetime and that it has been English territory ever since.  It this is true then, if Arthur fought a battle in “Salisbury,” near “Winchester,” he did not fight at the Salisbury in southern England or at that Winchester either.  And Malory was wrong to write “Westminster,” referring to the city on the Thames River in London, for what the French text had called King Arthur’s fortress, or “Snowdon West Castle.”  Meanwhile a historian at Winchester has denied categorically any connection between that ancient city and King Arthur.  Nor does Winchester claim that its relic, of a wooden table is the Round Table of King Arthur. 

This Anglo-Saxon Chronicle premise, you see, opens the discussion wide, doesn’t it?  I mean; with so little written and so many differing points of interpretation, it becomes difficult to get at the truth. 

Two more posts for the Introduction and then on to the specifics. 

Who was this guy named Arthur?

This is the second part of the blog originally posted on http://saveriomonachino.wordpress.com/ April 22, 2012: 

One more carryover posting and I will have the two sites in sync (yeah)!  So, stay tuned, and read 'em as they come.  Soon I'll dig into the specifics.

Part II:  Who was this guy named Arthur?

“Much of it is simply ridiculous,” Goodrich continued, speaking of the various takes on the legend of King Arthur. “Arthur was not a figure of the Middle Ages or of the Age of Chivalry, when knighthood was in flower.  His 150 or so warriors were not gallant knights gaily bedight.   He was not born at Tintagel Castle, which was not built until the age of stone castles, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  And the rest of the above-mentioned geography will have to go by the board, including Glastonbury (though it is an ancient and holy site), Bath, Dover, South Cadbury, Winchester, Salisbury, London, York, the Cornwall sites, and Brittany.”

But still finding the truth is difficult because the Arthurian legends are not easy to counter.  They have had centuries to swell and be embellished upon, like in the hands of Sir Thomas Malory, who recounted the collapse of his own fifteenth century under the guise of a rise and fall of King Arthur’s ancient Celtic realm, or Alfred Lord Tennyson who, among others, has swept aloft Arthur’s real life and deeds into high tragedy.  The worst part in any attempt to find out what really happened in that time period was the dearth of written history. 

Romance and modern comedies have served further to obscure the real Arthur from view, that he may have lived on the earth and reigned is, for most people, not even a question.  This is where Dr. Goodrich’s expertise came into play.  She was a professor in French and Comparative literature with a PhD in Romance Philology and had a command of more than 20 ancient and modern languages.  Her studies helped a great deal in opening new avenues of interpretation to the little which is really know of this time.   I do not think this is a cruel fate for someone who was for so long a renowned warrior, a defender of the Celtic realm, the greatest and best of kings.  He was said to have been brave and powerful, valiant and resourceful, honorable and beloved- and ideal, just ruler.  Historians used to think that he once ruled all of Britain.  It is just that now, those referencing Arthur, the Dux Bellorum, will have to be more careful with their superlatives. 

As I wrote above:  Stay tuned for specifics.

Really now, who was this King Arthur fellow?

Carry over from my other blogsite: http://saveriomonachino.wordpress.com/
This is part one (posted April 16 2012) of a long essay on King Arthur, the history and the legend both of which were used extensively in The Lost King. 

When I am writing it is very hard for me to focus in on one particular topic because there is so much going on in the world, and inside my head, that I wish to discuss.  It is even harder though to pass useful storyline information along without trying to delve deep into explanations.  This is a problem when stitching together pieces of a story for a book, and even harder when blogging because with my background in research I know how hard it becomes to convey truth.  But here, on this blog I will give it a try.   As mentioned in all of my books it is hard to focus on one topic and this is obvious in The Lost King.   I will not delve into all of the issues/storylines I used except to lay out a few at this time and over the course of these musings I will try to delve into them a bit deeper than in the book itself.  For example, what would you consider the biggest bio-terror threat we have today?  How about the difference between religious fundamentalism and terrorism?  And, are either new concepts?  How different can ones interpretation of events be if viewed from a different point of view?  And, of course, there is Arthur, The Dux Bellorum.

Since growing up and reading the Once and Future King, the romance of King Arthur legends has always had a place in my heart.  Growing up and taking on a liking for History and Anthropology I had become even more enthralled by the gaps in our understanding of the time period when the Romans pulled out of Britain and the Ingles and Saxons moved in.  Then one day I picked up a copy of Norma Lorre Goodrich’s book King Arthur and I just knew I would find a way to meld it into my storyline.

The lure of King Arthur began drawing me in when I was preteen.  It was also drawing tourists into Britain by the middle of the twelfth century.   Monks and friars from every monastery on the continent, it would seem, swarmed over the terrain, particularly that of Cornwall.  Everywhere in Britain sites bear the name of King Arthur, he is a point of national pride for the British.  Yet some of these sites date from the second millennium B.C. !  I, too, have loved clambering over the headlands at Tintagel, counting off the monoliths at Stonehenge, and peering out to sea from Merlin’s cave.  I have tramped the farmer’s pasture above the Golden Valley of Wales, even thought the site called Arthur’s Grave is plainly labeled Neolithic, or New Stone Age.  I have walked through the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey and gazed up at the Tor wondering whether Lancelot could have ridden his horse up its steep sides to pray at Guinevere’s tomb.  And I have come away from all of this with one response: not likely.

Much of it is simply ridiculous.  Arthur was not a figure of the Middle Ages or of the Age of Chivalry, when knighthood was in flower.  His 150 or so warriors were not gallant knights gaily bedight.   He was not born at Tintagel Castle, which was not built until the age of stone castles, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  (In Arthur’s day the site of Tintagel Castle may have been occupied by a Celtic monastery for hermits, however.)  And the rest of the above-mentioned geography will have to go by the board, including Glastonbury (though it is an ancient and holy site), Bath, Dover, South Cadbury, Winchester, Salisbury, London, York, the Cornwall sites, and Brittany.

The legend has not been easy to counter, it has had centuries to swell and be embellished upon.  In the hands of Sir Thomas Malory, who recounted the collapse of his own fifteenth century under the guise of a rise and fall of King Arthur’s ancient Celtic realm, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, among others, Arthur’s real life and deeds have been swept aloft into high tragedy.

Romance and modern comedies have served further to obscure the real Arthur from view, that he may have lived on the earth and reigned is, for many,, not even a question.  What a fate for someone who was for so long a renowned warrior, a defender of the Celtic realm, the greatest and best of kings.  He was said to have been brave and powerful, valiant and resourceful, honorable and beloved- and ideal, just ruler.  Historians used to think that he once ruled all of Britain.  Now they are more careful with their superlatives.