King Arthur and Celtic Legend: Still Not Far From Wales

Sep 26, 2011
Vivien Young

The Round Table Winchester - Howardx

Tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are so entwined in our culture and national consciousness that fact and fiction are hard to separate

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are a byword in the English speaking world for romance and chivalry. Deeply rooted in the fabric of the past, the stories of Sir Galahad, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the wizard Merlin are revisited from time to time,perhaps in school, or perhaps by watching Disney's The Sword in the Stone, or by borrowing T.H. White's The Once and Future King from the library.

The charm of the Round Table, that gathering of knights where all are equal, where no one sits at the head or at the foot of the table, seems to have a universal appeal.

Merlin the Great Wizard

Merlin (in particular) is an iconic figure,literary ancestor of Prospero, Gandalf and maybe even Dumbledore, the archetypal White Magician, mentor,tutor and guide to the young King Arthur.

Carmarthen in western Wales is reputed to be the birthplace of Merlin (the town's name being a corruption of "Caer Myrddin" - Merlin's Fortress). An ancient oak tree known as Merlin's Oak used to stand guard over the town. "When Merlin's Oak shall tumble down, Then will fall Carmarthen Town," the local rhyme used to run. The remains of Merlin's Oak were removed from Carmarthen in the 1970s, after which, the town suffered its worst floods for years, which may be coincidence or may be not. A fragment of the old oak can still be seen in Carmarthen Museum.

King Arthur Fact and Fiction

King Arthur's presence in the Celtic lands of Wales, Cornwall and Brittany is still strongly felt.. After all, Tintagel in Cornwall has a myriad of Arthurian connections, as does Glastonbury. The Forest of Broceliande is a geographical feature of north western Brittany which is still seen even today as a place of legend and ancient mystery, and has been the subject of many literary works, including T.Gwynn Jones's poem (in Welsh) Broseliawnd.

Further to the south east ,King Arthur's Round Table (pictured below) hangs in the Great Hall in Winchester . It seems as though the whole south of Britain was at one time enthralled by King Arthur and his band of chivalrous knights, although these days, the western fringes of the UK and France seem to be more strongly identified with his adventures.

The first mention of King Arthur was made in the ancient Welsh manuscript Y Gododdin (although Wales and Welsh in those historical times extended far further north than they do these days.) Much of Y Gododdin's action is based around Edinburgh, so its geographical Welshness is a fairly fluid concept. The language of this ancient manuscript is unmistakeably Old Welsh, however.

Geoffrey of Monmouth was the writer who consolidated the Arthurian legend in his work Historia Regum Britanniae, although the ancient tale of Culhwch ac Olwen, found in the Red Book of Hergest also contains references to King Arthur. This tale is particularly interesting, as it tells the tale of the Hunt for the Twrch Trwyth (the Wild Boar), which is a popular theme in Arthurian legend. Statues of the Twrch are to be found throughout Carmarthenshire today (in St. Clears and also just outside Ammanford to give but two examples) as testimony to the power of this ancient legend in folk memory.

King Arthur's Place in History

Although it seems certain that Arthur was the king of Britain who followed Vortigern in the 6th century, his reputation and the myths which surround him far exceed any factual information to which we have access.

The ancient Round Table (pictured) has been dated to the eleventh century and was restored by King Henry Vlll (whose Tudor dynasty was of Welsh origins). Henry Vlll succeeded his brother, Arthur, romantically named by their father Henry Vll, who by all accounts was the most hard-headed of monarchs; yet the potency of the Arthurian name and legend must have influenced him in christening his older son.

Even today, the name and legend of King Arthur resonates within our culture, luring scholars and tourists alike to visits sites associated with the legends and continuing to inspire works of fact and fiction exploring the myth.