King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

King Arthur is an important figure in the mythology of Great Britain, where he appears as the ideal of kingship in both war and peace. There is disagreement about whether Arthur, or a model for him, ever actually existed.

The Legend
In one version Arthur obtains the throne by pulling a sword, Excalibur, from a stone and anvil. In this account, the act could not be performed except by "the true king", meaning the divinely appointed king or true heir of Uther Pendragon. Another legend tells how Excalibur was taken from a hand rising from a lake and given to Arthur, sometime after his reign began,by a sorceress.

Camelot is the name of the stronghold where Arthur held court and from which he fought many of the battles that made up his life. Its specific location is currently unknown and may be a fictional province of post-Roman Britain. It is described as many days’ journey from Avalon. Stories present Camelot’s court in varying ways – anything from welcoming followers of both the Celtic and the Christian gods, to being exclusively in favour of one or the other. Since the location of Camelot is still a mystery, the truth about it — if there is one — is still unknown.

Possible locations of Camelot include Cadbury Castle (Somerset), Tintagel Castle (Cornwall), Viroconium (now known as Wroxeter, Shropshire), and Caerleon-on-Usk (South Wales).

The Round Table

The Round Table was a mystical table in Camelot around which Arthur and his knights sat to discuss matters crucial to the security of the realm. In some versions of the story, the wizard Merlin also had a seat.

There is no "head of the table" at a round table, and so no one person is in a privileged position; this way the several knights were all peers and there was no "leader" as there were at so many other medieval tables.

Morgan le Fay, alternatively known as Morgaine, Morgain or Morgana and a range of related name variants, is an important female figure and sometime antagonist of Arthur as well as an enemy of his wife and consort, Guinevere.

In the 12th century Latin ‘Life of Merlin’ (Vita Merlini) "Morgen" is said to be the first of nine sisters who ruled Avalon. Geoffrey of Monmouth (who wrote about King Arthur some 600 years after the death of the legend king) referred to Morgana as a healer and even a shapeshifter.

Morgana was the daughter of Arthur’s mother the Lady Igraine, and her first husband, Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall; thus Arthur, the child of Uther Pendragon and Lady Igraine, was her half-brother. As a Celtic woman, Morgana had inherited through her mother a share of the earth magic that Arthur lacked. Morgana had two older sisters, Elaine and Morgause; thus she was a member of a triplet – this is a familiar formula in Celtic myth and has led to many people believing that this story of King Arthur could indeed be just that – a story.

The Round Table and it’s Knights

King Arthur

The sword ‘Excalibur’

In the Arthurian romances which gained popularity in the 12th century,it was written that Arthur’s knights engaged in fabulous quests; the one for the Holy Grail being perhaps the best known.

Arthur became a casualty in the Battle of Camlann, which he fought against the armies of Mordred. Clearly all was not well amongst the Knights of the Round Table as Mordred had been one of these knights prior to this battle.Several reasons for the unrest amongst the Knights have been cited, but it would appear that a battle for power was the most likely explanation for Mordred to become the adversary of Arthur.

The mortally wounded Arthur is said to have been taken by boat to Avalon (sometimes identified with Glastonbury, Somerset) by Morgan le Fay. According to some versions of the legend Arthur did not die but is merely sleeping and he will awaken and return in the future.

The Arthur of history
One school of thought believes Arthur to have lived some time in the late 5th century to early 6th century, to have been of Romano-British origin, and to have fought against the pagan Saxons. His power base was probably in either Wales, Cornwall or the west of what would become England, but controversy over the centre of his power and the extent and kind of power he wielded continues to rage.

Some, most notably Geoffrey Ashe and Leon Fleuriot, have argued for identifying Arthur with a certain Riothamus, "King of the Brettones", who was active during the reign of the Roman Emperor Anthemius. Unfortunately, Riothamus is a shadowy figure of whom we know little, and scholars are not certain whether the "Brettones" he led were Britons or Bretons.

Other writers suggest that Arthur should be identified as one Lucius Artorius Castus, a historical Roman of the 2nd century, whose military exploits in Britain may have been remembered for years afterward.

Another school of thought believes that Arthur is at best a half-forgotten Celtic deity devolved into a personage (citing sometimes a supposed change of the sea-god Lir into King Lear) or a possibly fictional person like Beowulf.

Historical persons may have influenced the later legends, like the Scots king Aedan mac Gabran, who had a son called Artuir and whose life was somewhat similar to the Arthur of this legend.

Whatever the case, the legend of King Arthur, Merlin the wizard, and the brave knights of the Round Table shows no signs of either being proven as fact or fiction or, indeed, of being forgotten.