Caerleon, Wales -- a Roman amphitheater |
It’s tough when you travel to another continent for research
and don’t get what you want.
That’s what I thought when my trip to the U.K. this summer
didn’t give me the results I expected. My husband had hired a private tour
guide to drive me around southern Wales, visiting places related to King Arthur
so I could gather information for my MG fantasy series, THE EIGHTH DAY.
The tour guide contacted me by email beforehand, asking specifically
what Arthurian sites I wanted to see, but I had none in mind. So I replied that
I was looking for inspiration. This research would be applied to a future book
in the series, and I was open to ideas.
Ogmore-by-the-Sea, Wales -- a 12th century castle |
I thought he was going to take me to 5th century
ruins. Instead, he took me to sites that were obviously dated long before or
after Arthur’s time – an excavated 1st century Roman fort and amphitheater
and the ruins of a 12th century Norman castle. When I asked the
guide what connections these had with Arthur, his answers were vague. Legend said that Arthur moved into the
fort after the Romans were gone. Legend
said that Arthur fought a battle on this plain before Normans built the castle.
But when the guide saw that I was serious enough to hear the
truth, he leveled with me. “There are hundreds of places from Scotland to
southern England and even into Normandy, France that claim an association with
Arthur. Not a single one can be proven. There’s more negative proof
than anything else.” He referred me to a book he’d recently read, The Camelot Inquisition by John F. Wake,
which I promptly downloaded on my Kindle.
Sadly, I came to the same conclusion as my guide. There’s no
credible evidence for a historical King Arthur. In fact there’s a lot of
evidence that weighs against him. Most notably: no historians from his time
period mention him at all.
Disappointment was followed rather quickly by a feeling of
freedom. If Arthur wasn’t real, then I was free to use Arthurian legends
however I wanted. I had already been questioned by a copy-editor about the
historical accuracy of using the name Arthur
Pendragon when Pendragon was
associated only with his father Uther until sometime in the 17th century. That
caused me some worry … but if there was no historical Arthur, then the historical
accuracy of his name isn’t really in question, is it?
If the tour guide had told me in advance he was taking me to
the ruins of a Roman amphitheater with only the shakiest connection to
Arthurian legend, I might have nixed the trip and gone elsewhere. And that
would have been a shame. Because what I thought was nothing was actually full
of the potential of everything – including
the placement of Arthur’s court in a centuries-old Roman fortress with an
amphitheater for his Knights to practice in – if that’s how I choose to write
the story.
I told my guide I wanted inspiration, and he delivered what
I asked for – just not in the way I expected.
I one did a research paper on Merlin and found the same evidence, or lack thereof. BUT. The only people who were writing back then were monks and priests and why on earth would they give credence to a heathen king? My conclusion was that Arthur and Merlin may well have existed but we'll never know because the people writing history at the time were unlikely to attribute much to a pagan king.
ReplyDeleteWell, you and I have discussed this before. Other kings of that time period are mentioned, and most of Britain was converted to Christianity by that time anyway.
DeleteWow, what a cool take away! And hey, you got to see some amazing sites. Glad it all worked out in the end.
ReplyDeleteWales was gorgeous and the perfect setting for anything Arthur-related!
DeleteI love that you learned so much from, at first glance, a failed research trip. Such a great way of looking at *anything* in general!
ReplyDeleteI guess the lesson learned is to be open to what's there to learn, not just to what you expected to find!
DeleteAwesome how you were able to to turn the trip into something positive. I love the freedom too of making things up rather than sticking to history. So excited to read your book!
ReplyDeleteNatalie, one of my favorite comments from my editor was that she couldn't tell what I was making up and what I took from the legends!
DeleteI had no idea so much legend surrounded Arthur. Glad your research wound up still providing inspiration and some freedom.
ReplyDeleteTheresa, what's really interesting is that the places who make a tourist-attraction-thing out of it (Think: The Camelot Car Park) are the ones with the most far-fetched connection to Arthur. Weirdly, the places with the most plausible connection kind of keep it hush-hush. Which lends a little credibility to Marcy's comment above -- were they trying to squelch his memory on purpose?
DeleteThis really surprised me! Are all of Geoffrey Ashe's books about the historical Arthur and the archeological evidence untrue? They seemed very convincing to me -- but maybe I am just gullible.
ReplyDeleteHave you read Rosemary Sutcliffe's The Sword at Sunset? I thought she was pretty convincing about why the church wouldn't have wanted to write about him, why his own people would have wanted to keep his death and burial place secret, and that he really lived.
And what about that skeleton they found in the treetrunk at Glastonbury sometime in the Middle Ages?
As you can see, I absolutely believe in a historical Arthur (mine is a Celtic-Roman war leader fighting the Saxons) -- but I agree about your trip. And in writing your book, what YOU believe and find inspiring is what counts.
Good luck!
Libby
Libby, as near as I can tell Geoffrey Ashe relies on accounts written by Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose accounts are suspect because he wrote about Arthur 600 years later. Ashe also backs Riothamus as the real Arthur, which, in the book I read, is given as a distinct *possibility* -- but not provable. Of course, this is one author's opinion, but he made some good logical arguments. (I was really disappointed. I wanted him to be real!)
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