Today is a Celtic holy day celebrating the day King Arthur was ferried to Avalon for the last time, after his fight with Mordred, to be tended by Morgan, Goddess of Healing. 10 facts about King Arthur:
He’s generally thought to be just a legend, but he may well have been based on a real historical person. The first mention of anyone vaguely like him dates to the ninth century when a monk called Nennius wrote about a fifth century warrior called Arthur who led an army against the Saxons. There’s no mention in Nennius’s writings about this Arthur ever being a king, however.
It was Geoffrey Monmouth who first made the legend we know today popular. He wrote the Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) in the 12th century, which he sold as a history of the British monarchy. This book included King Arthur and featured other characters from the legend, including Merlin and Guinevere. Historians today dismiss it as Medieval propaganda.
If Arthur and his compatriots were real, they probably didn’t look the way we tend to imagine them. We imagine knights in armour and stone castles, trappings of the 12th century when Monmouth wrote his book. Arthur would have lived in the 5th or 6th centuries when castles were still made of wood, metal armour wasn’t a thing, and he would have been fighting Romans, not Saxons.
King Arthur’s parents were King Uther Pendragon and Lady Igraine. His conception was said to be magically aided by Merlin. Igraine died giving birth to him and Uther died not long after, so the young Arthur was adopted by a knight named Ector. He had no idea he was adopted until his adopted mother died and her son Kay told him.
Arthur had a famous sword, Excalibur. The best known legend of how he came to be in possession of it is that it had been embedded in a stone and only the true heir of England would be able to pull it out. The young Arthur was looking for a sword to use in some sword trials and came across the sword in the stone. He thought something along the lines of “That’ll do nicely” and pulled it out, thus revealing himself as the true king. The other version is that it was handed to him by the Lady in the Lake.
Nobody knows where his home and court, Camelot, was supposed to be. Cadbury Castle in Somerset, Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, Winchester and Caerleon in Wales are among the many places suggested as its location.
Camelot was home to the famous round table, around which Arthur and his knights would meet. The idea was that at a round table, nobody is sitting at the head or the foot, so everyone at the meeting is equal. There is a round table hanging on the wall of Winchester Castle, although it was actually put there by Henry VIII. Henry would have grown up hearing the tales as his father, Henry VII, was fond of them and claimed to have traced his family tree back to King Arthur himself, to strengthen his claim to the throne. He even named his eldest son Arthur, but this Arthur died before he could become a definite historical King Arthur, so it was his younger brother Henry who inherited the crown.
It’s said that King Arthur never died but is sleeping under a hill somewhere, and will return in Britain’s hour of greatest need. Since he didn’t appear at any point during world war 2, this is generally dismissed as mere legend. A couple of 12th century monks in Glastonbury Abbey discovered a grave containing the bones of a man and woman, both very tall, and an inscription saying they were Arthur and Guinevere. We can’t be sure, however, that it wasn’t merely a publicity stunt to attract more visitors to Glastonbury.
If King Arthur died, it was fighting his son, Mordred, who’d stolen Excalibur and taken over the kingdom. Arthur was mortally wounded in the battle to get it back. His knights left him bleeding out and took the sword Excalibur and threw it back in the lake. It’s at this point that Morgan, goddess of healing, stepped in and took him to Avalon to try and save him.
These legends have inspired many writers and film makers over the centuries. Disney’s Sword in the Stone, DC Comics series Camelot 3000, Monty Python and the Holy Grail are among many re-tellings of the tales. Other works, such as Game of Thrones, draw heavily on the basic stories and are set in worlds similar to the one King Arthur is said to have lived in.
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