King Arthur - hero or myth

by Steve Cunningham< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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ARTHUR, King of the Britons… our greatest hero. But did he exist

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The British king appears in a cycle of medieval romances as the sovereign of a knightly fellowship of the Round Table.

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It is not known how or where these legends originated or whether the figure Arthur was based on a real man.

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Arthur was claimed as king of nearly every Celtic kingdom. In the 6th Century, many men named Arthur were born into the Celtic royal families of Britain, but it's likely that most of these people were only named in his honour.

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The story goes that an historical Arthur led Welsh resistance to the West Saxon advance from the middle Thames. This is based on a mixture of two early chroniclers, Gildas and Nennius, and on the Annales Cambriae of the late 10th Century.

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The 9th-Century Historia Brittonum of Nennius records 12 battles fought by Arthur against the Saxons, culminating in a victory at Mons Badonicus in 516.

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Later it is recorded that 'Arthur and Medraut fell' in the Battle of Camlann of 537.

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Early Welsh literature, however, made Arthur into a king of wonder. The earliest full stories concerning King Arthur and his exploits appear to be the little known Welsh tales of Culhwch and Olwen and the Dream of Rhonabwy, dating from before the 11th Century.

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Geoffrey of Monmouth, Archdeacon of Monmouth and later Bishop of St Asaph's, first popularised King Arthur's story in about 1139, in his History of the Kings of Britain, although he was writing some 600 years after Arthur's death.

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Soon after Geoffrey came the French medieval poet, Chr�tien de Troyes, who introduced us to most of the characters and tales that we now think of as an integral part of the Arthurian story.

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He specialised in tales of courtly love, including Lancelot and the Count of the Grail (also known as Perceval).

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He transformed the names of Geoffrey's characters from Welsh to the medieval French used today. It was Chr�tien and those who followed him who distorted the Arthurian story, so that the true Arthur became lost in a mix of Celtic myth and literary fantasy.

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Neither Lancelot nor the Holy Grail - for example - were part of the Arthurian legend before Chr�tien came along.

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Arthur's modern popularity owes much to his re-emergence during the Victorian age. Alfred, Lord Tennyson's elegy entitled Idylls of the King led to resurgence in interest, as reflected in much of the pre-Raphaelite art of the time. The fascination is still with us.