by Tabitha Hergest

Created on: January 18, 2009

Who was the "real" King Arthur?

Some go with Geoffrey of Monmouth in describing a romantic, chivalrous King whose code was one of Utopian delight, whose wisdom was above reproach and whose sense of fairness was without equal, a King whose "round table" was so shaped that nobody who sat around it would feel any less important than anyone else. This Arthur Monmouth got from the French troubadours - as did Malory, whose Arthur was of a similar kidney. It is the most popular version of Arthur - the "people's Arthur" if you will - but for our purposes it just won't do.

Historians point to the probability of the real King Arthur being not so much a King, at all, nor so chivalrous. This Arthur dates from the fifth century, and held his own and that of his people, when the Romans left in 410. After the demise of Roman order, the island of the Briton descended into lawless anarchy, we are told - because the Romans had killed our priestly class, the Druids, who were also our law-makers. When the Romans left to defend their crumbling empire, therefore, they took with them the order of impositional government, and without people keeping order, wildness ensued. Arthur was, therefore, a barrage against the tide, according to this account. Another account puts him post the Anglo-Saxon invasion, in which case was he Angle, Saxon, Jute, Dane? Either way, he was very different from the Malory/Monmouth fabrication, but still not so far off being fabrication by itself.

The third source of information about Arthur is the Mabinogion, that book of Welsh folk tales based on the Red Book of Hergest. In this, Arthur appears as a King several times - including that one time in the story of Culhwch and Olwen, where Culhwch falls in love with Olwen, but to win her hand, he has to cut off the beard of the giant, Ysbyddaden, Olwen's father. Of course, the scholar will immediately point to this Arthur being of Divine origin, for the tales of the Mabinogi are allegories of the Keltic Gods themselves. Therefore, there was no real King Arthur, as such - but there was (and is) a God Arthur, or more precisely Artur, the consort of the Goddess Cerridwen the Wise.

Another theory has it that Arthur comes from Arturus, the great bear. Bears were sacred to the Kelts, and it is fitting that the great bear should be the protector of our lands.

But how does the foregoing differ from Monty Python's creation? Well, given that "you stupid Arthur King, and your dappy English Knnnnnnnigits" were a lampoon on the legend, and that as such he would be played for laughs, he would be a parody on the first definition, the Christian romantic with the wizard and the round table - whose knights didn't dance where e'er they're able if we are to believe Malory, Monmouth et al. This would slot him into the other categories. But which one is a question from which I would like to "run away!"

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