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.