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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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Hatty wrote: | I must pick you up on a technical point, Hatty, Gildas doesn't say that Ambrosius is the leader at Badon, but that he led the British forces "up until" the battle of Badon, which could be interpreted either way |
You're right, Tel. Doesn't it strike you as odd though that Gildas omits important data, such as
a) the name of the British leader
b) where the battle was fought
c) when it took place
I don't buy that Arthur was merely invented as I said before, his name was not common anywhere and sounds very un-welsh to me. if I was the inventor, I would have chosen something that sounded altogether more "patriotic". |
I agree but this un-Welshness makes it even more likely that Arthur was imported (from the Continent) and rather less likely that there was a "general" called Arthur at Badon. It also makes it easier for someone with a pronounceable name to be accepted by people who may not necessarily be fluent Welsh-speakers. |
The Wiki page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mons_Badonicus
mentions all the usual suspects, but doesn't mention Baydon.
Baydon is right on Ermin Street, it's also a very short way from Membury Hill Fort, which is even bigger than the nearby Uffington Castle, Liddington Hill, or Alfred's Castle.
http://ashdownhouse.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/king-arthurs-castle.html
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=30302
Anyway, it's all Vortigern's fault. If he hadn't invited a few Saxon merceneries over to start with, we'd never have been in this Anglo-Saxon mess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortigern
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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You need to watch a few more films with Cockney Geezers in them. It's pronounced Lundin. |
Well actually Lun'n. And even that is more usually Lun in everyday speech.
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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Ishmael wrote: | I wonder which landmass has more placenames with evident connections to Greek mythology: Greece or Britain? |
France, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway - Take your pick. Why does everything have to be so Anglocentric?
A little less Brito-vision would help.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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This ought by rights be in the Astrophysics section, but the implications for British history, and especially Arthurian legend, are so profound I'm including it here.
Victor Clube, an astrophysicist, has been looking into the cyclic nature of the Taurid-Arietid meteor showers that arrive in Britain in late June and November.
He hypothethises that these are remnants of a much bigger meteor cluster on an orbit that intercepts with Earth every c.500 years, and have had bigger impacts with Earth in the past.
Like the Tunguska event in Siberia.
Clube says that dendochronology in Britain says there was a major event c.540AD.
Many of the fabled histories of Britain mention a terrible plague that swept through Britain, with years of famine. It was called the Yellow Pestilence. Britons left the country and emigrated to Brittany to escape.
If it was an astronomical event, for the Britons of the time it might have been like being bombed back into the stone age. Leaving a barren and deserted country. Like the wasteland of Arthurian legend..
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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Not to be outdone in the passing-references-to-Arthurian legend, David Keys also cites Our Arfur.
See especially c. 35 minutes. King Arthur’s Wasteland, Ancient Brits emigrating to Brittany, etc.
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