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St. Petersburg State University of Informational Technologies, Mechanics and Optics

King Arthur

Merlin

Gonchar Anna

Group 1145

Faculty of Computer Technologies

and Management

The earliest reference to a historic Arthur - the name is Roman - is contained in a Welsh poem of c. 600, which states that another named warrior was 'no Arthur'. An early 7th-century text lists 12 battles that Arthur is supposed to have won as leader of the native British. In the 10th-century Annales Cambriae, two of these battles are assigned dates in the first half of the 6th-century. The earliest evidence of the development of the idea of a legendary British champion on which subsequent stories were constructed is found in the early 9th-century history attributed to Nennius. There have been interesting excavations designed to discover Arthur's court. Ultimately, the only thing that can be said of the historic Arthur is that there may have existed a great soldier who temporarily halted Anglo-Saxon assault, but it is doubtful whether he was able to unite the British against the invaders. The graphic shows Arthur with his legendary sword Excalibur

In subsequent history there are two very different legendary King Arthurs. One is the warrior champion who led Britons in numerous battles against the invading Saxons - a distinctly Celtic hero. The other presided over a magnificent court, Camelot, and his deeds tended to be over shone by those of his followers, the Knights of the Round Table. This Arthur is the ideal king, a model for any monarch of Britain, not necessarily one who was a Briton or a Celt. Any king who claimed lordship over the British Isles would be perfectly happy to look upon him as his predecessor.

By the early 12th-century, Arthur's story was clearly well known in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany, and one of its salient features was already established: the oppressed Britons dreamed of the day when King Arthur (like Cynan and Cadwaladr before him) would return and restore to his people their rightful dominion over the island of Briton.

This was the figure of Celtic legend whom Geoffrey of Monmouth transformed in the 1130s into the dominating personality of his historical fantasy, the History of the Kings of Britain. In Geoffrey's hands, Arthur remained the British champion, but he also became much more. A conqueror of Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Gaul, he was the equal of Alexander and Charlemagne, and his court was a spectacular centre of international CHIVALRY, love, courtliness and high fashion. When Geoffrey was translated into Anglo-Norman by Wace, these new elements rapidly became more prominent.

On the one hand, this provided a courtly setting for the Arthurian romances of authors from Chrétien de Troyes onwards. On the other hand, it made it easier to overlook the specifically Celtic Arthur. The politically inspired 'discovery' of Arthur's body at Glastonbury still bearing terrible wounds, in c. 1190 may also have helped to push into the background the image of a king being healed at Avalon so that he might return and drive out the English.

This cleared the way for the reconstruction of Arthur as an English king, a process that was aided by the habit, common already in the 12th-century, of treating 'Britain' and 'England' as virtually interchangeable terms. Thus it seems that the earliest king of England to identify himself with King Arthur was Richard I, a ruler who set off on crusade brandishing Excalibur; by the 14th-century, Edward III was described as 'unmatched since the days of Arthur, onetime king of England'.

Through Sir Thomas Malory, the cult of King Arthur survived into modern times, to be taken up and reworked in an extraordinary multiplicity of ways. Doubtless the Welsh blood of the Tudors allowed Edmund Spenser to tell Elizabeth I that her name, realm and race were all derived from 'this renowned prince'. But without any such association, Sir Richard Blackmore could make his Arthur represent William of Orange (the future William III), while Alfred Tennyson could equally well imagine Albert, Victoria's Prince Consort, finding in King Arthur 'some image of himself'. As for the British champion who would return to liberate his oppressed people, the Welsh found in Owain Glyn Dwr some compensation for the loss of their Arthur to the international world of Art and Letters.

Family of Arthur

Arthur was the great legendary British king. Arthur was the son of Uther Pendragon and Igraine. Igraine was the wife to Duke Gorlois of Cornwall (or Hoel of Tintagel), at the time she had conceived Arthur. Through Merlin's magic, Uther was transformed to look exactly like her husband. Uther made love to Igraine, when Gorlois was absence. When Gorlois was killed, Uther immediately married Igraine.

In the Welsh legend, his mother was named Eigr (Igraine), daughter of Anlawdd Wledig, and his father was Uthr Bendragon (Uther Pendragon). Arthur had a sister named Gwyar, who was the mother of Gwalchmai or Gwalchmei, which means the Hawk of May, and of Gwalhaved. Gwalchmai was better known in English and French legend as Gawain or Gauvain. But there is frequent confusion of who were Arthur's sisters and who was mother of Gawain in the mainstream Arthurian legend.

According to Geoffrey, Wace and Layamon, Uther and Igraine were parents of Arthur and a daughter named Anna, who married King Lot of Orkney. Morgan le Fay was also considered to be Arthur's sister, but I am not certain that if she was Arthur's sister or half-sister. Geoffrey never mention Morgan in his History, but in his later work, (Vita Merlini, c. 1151) Morgan was one of the sisters and sorceresses who lived in Avalon. In Gerald of Wales' work called Tour of Wales (1188), the scholar wrote that Morgan was Arthur's cousin. Some had identified Morgan with the Welsh mother goddess Modron, the mother of Mabon, the Welsh god of youth. Modron had also being identified as being the wife of Uryen Rheged (Urien) and the mother of Owain (Yvain).

Later legends say that Arthur had three half-sisters: Morgawse, Elaine (Blasine) and Morgan le Fay. Morgawse had married King Lot of Orkney, Elaine (Blasine) was married to King Nentres of Garlot, while Morgan was wife of King Urien of Gorre, brother of Lot.

Different versions of Arthur’s House

The House of Arthur by Thomas Malory

The House of Arthur by Chretien de Troyes

The House of Arthur by Geoffrey

Life of Arthur

The figure of Arthur begins as a war hero, the praises of whom are sung in war poems by the Celts and the Welsh. Y Gododdin celebrates one particularly brave warrior, then says he "was no Arthur." The Triads are full of wonderful, courageous things Arthur did.

The most important early source for Arthur's deeds is Historia Brittonum, written by the monk Nennius in the 9th century. Nennius calls Arthur dux bellorum and tells us of 12 great battles Arthur fought. Although Nennius tells us the location of each battle, those locations are hard to come by these days. Scholars are still arguing over the locations. Even the agreed-on locations suggest that Arthur got around--literally--from Scotland to the lowlands of Wessex to Wales.

He fought everywhere. He won great victories. A strong tradition has him a Roman held over who uses his knowledge of cavalry to rout the Saxons time and again, counting on their inexperience in fighting mounted men.

And even though the authors likely have exaggerated his deeds (killing 960 men single-handedly, for example), Arthur is likely to have been a bona fide war hero, a man who led his countrymen to victory time and again. It is certain that the Battle of Badon Hill, wherever and whenever it was, set the Saxon occupation back for a good many years. Whether Arthur fought at the battle is still not proved, but is generally believed.

Arthur was conceived amidst a war and was mortally wounded in a particularly bloody battle. His life was full of battle; it was the word of the times.

But was he a king in the traditional sense? The legends name him High King of Britain, a title held by his father, Uther Pendragon, and his uncle, Ambrosius Aurelianus. Noted historian Geoffrey Ashe identifies Arthur with Riothamus, who was called the King of the Britons even though he operated mostly in Gaul (Breton territory). A recent book by Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman identifies Arthur as the King of Powys and Gwynedd, two powerful kingdoms in Wales. The northern tradition has Arthur king of some or all of Scotland.

But these identifications would seem to point toward a man who held regional sway but not national advantage.

Beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth, we see authors embellishing the tales to fit their own purposes. In Geoffrey, Arthur has a magical sword, Caliburn, and a powerful fortune-teller on his side, Merlin. Geoffrey tells us that Arthur conquers half the known world, including defeating a Roman emperor along the way. Much of Geoffrey has been proven to have been made up; is the rest fiction as well?

A conclusion can probably not be made on this subject because the evidence is just too sketchy. Arthur's being a battle commander is somewhat easier to prove, but again we suffer from too little reliable information.

The legends tell us that Arthur was a wise and powerful king, who ruled from a giant and glorious castle and who commanded the loyalty of hundreds of men.

First and foremost of these followers were the Knights of the Round Table. That the greatest knight in skill of arms, Lancelot, pledged his loyalty to Arthur is testament to the fact that the king was worthy of such admiration, both as a king and as a warrior.

For war was a way of life in Arthur's day. Just after he pulled the Sword from the Stone, he hurried to Bedegraine and defeated a rogue band of 11 powerful men who had rebelled against his leadership.

He faced constant pressure from the Saxons and the Picts and the Irish and (according to Malory, who got it from Geoffrey) the Romans; in the end, he faced a mortal threat from his own men.

He was also the backdrop against which many other adventures took place. Beginning with Chretien de Troyes, writers wrote adventures of Arthur's knights, telling us of their wonderful adventures and of courtly love. The court, of course, was Arthur's. In a sense, Arthur was moved above the day-to-day adventures his knights was having and put on a pedestal as the symbol of what a knight could hope to achieve.

He was also the one whom everyone looked up to and whom everyone trusted to pass judgment if they had a dispute. Important men bowed to his authority and his wisdom He held court and was the arbiter of justice. He made his own laws and enforced them himself, with the respect of his subjects. He fought in battles and sent his knights out to do battle. As such, he was both king and battle commander.

As the legend writers searched for deeper meanings, they found the Holy Grail; with it, they found it sin. Arthur was said to have conceived a son out of wedlock; Guinevere was said to have consummated her affair with Lancelot. Both of these acts were sins. With the Holy Grail the symbol of true knightly goodness, the picture of Arthur as all that is good and right was weakened; so, too, with Arthur's failure to eradicate the adultery in his midst. The idea, which had been building for a while, that his rule was intertwined with the fate of the country was shaken to its core.

As the legend writers tied a knight's goodness to piety, they tied Arthur's fate inextricably to a bad end. The king who was the symbol of the prosperity of the nation and the land was sick in his heart and his soul and had sinned against his God; the nation and the land would surely suffer as well.

And so Arthur died or was mortally wounded (take your pick) in a battle as a battle commander who was king of all the land.

Round Table:

First mentioned in Wace's Roman de Brut. The idea was that the table, being round, would have no head, or place of prominence. Arthur's strategy was to reinforce the idea that none of the barons or dukes or other nobles who sat there would be seen to occupy places of importance greater than any other. Robert de Boron's poem "Joseph dArimathie" talks of a table that Joseph was commanded to make in commemoration of the Last Supper; further, Joseph was to leave a place vacant, symbolizing the seat of Judas. This was the Siege Perilous, which could not be occupied except by the Grail hero. Anyone else who sat there, legend had it, would die. (Galahad, being the Grail hero of later legends, sat there and was unharmed.) Since the Vulgate cycle and certainly in the Malory tradition, the Round Table has been said to have been a dowry from King Leodegrance for his daughter Guinevere's wedding to Arthur. The city of Winchester still sports a Round Table, although it has been dated to the 13th century. Siege Perilous: seat at the Round Table where only the Grail hero could sit without dying. Merlin named it. Galahad sat in it and survived; Brumart, a nephew of King Claudas, sat in it and died. Robert de Boron says Perceval sat in it.

Merlin first appears in extant records (Armes Prydein, Y Gododdin) from the early 10th century as a mere prophet, but his role gradually evolved into that of magician, prophet and advisor, active in all phases of the administration of King Arthur's kingdom. He was apparently given the name Emrys (or Ambrosius) at his birth in Caer-Fyrddin (Carmarthen). He only later became known as Merlin, a Latinized version of the Welsh word, Myrddin, taken from the place of his birth. Geoffrey of Monmouth is thought to have invented this form (as he did so much else), since he did not want his character to be associated with the French word, merde, meaning "excrement".

Merlin was the illegitimate son of a monastic Royal Princess of Dyfed. The lady's father, however, King Meurig ap Maredydd ap Rhain, is not found in the traditional pedigrees of this kingdom and was probably a sub-King of the region bordering on Ceredigion. Merlin's father, it is said, was an angel who had visited the Royal nun and left her with child. Merlin's enemies claimed his father was really an incubus, an evil spirit that has intercourse with sleeping women. The evil child was supposed to provide a counterweight to the good influence of Jesus Christ on earth. Merlin, fortunately, was baptized early on in his life, an event which is said to have negated the evil in his nature, but left his powers intact. The original story was presumably invented to save his mother from the scandal which would have occurred had her liaison with one Morfyn Frych (the Freckled), a minor Prince of the House of Coel, been made public knowledge.

Legend then tells us that after the Roman withdrawal from Britain and the usurpation of the throne from the rightful heirs, Vortigern was in flight from the Saxon breakout and went to Snowdonia, in Wales, in hopes of constructing a mountain fortress at Dinas Emrys where he might be safe. Unfortunately, the building kept collapsing and Vortigern's house wizards told him that a human sacrifice of a fatherless child would solve the problem. One small difficulty was that such children are rather hard to find. Fortunately for Vortigern's fortress, Merlin was known to have no human father and happened to be available.

Before the sacrifice could take place, Merlin used his great visionary powers and attributed the structural problem to a subterranean pool in which lived a red and a white dragon. The meaning of this, according to Merlin, was that the red dragon represented the Britons, and the white dragon, the Saxons. The dragons fought, with the white dragon having the best of it, at first, but then the red dragon drove the white one back. The meaning was clear. Merlin prophesied that Vortigern would be slain and followed on the throne by Ambrosius Aurelianus, then Uther, then a greater leader, Arthur. It would fall to him to push the Saxons back.

True to the prophecy, Vortigern was slain and Ambrosius took the throne. Later, Merlin appears to have inherited his grandfather's little kingdom, but abandoned his lands in favour of the more mysterious life for which he has become so well known. After 460 British nobles were massacred at a peace conference, as a result of Saxon trickery, Ambrosius consulted Merlin about erecting a suitable memorial to them. Merlin, along with Uther, led an expedition to Ireland to procure the stones of the Chorea Gigantum, the Giant's Ring. Merlin, by the use of his extraordinary powers, brought the stones back to a site, just west of Amesbury, and re-erected them around the mass grave of the British nobles. We now call this place Stonehenge.

After his death, Ambrosius was succeeded by his brother, Uther, who, during his pursuit of Gorlois and his irresistible wife, Ygerna (Igraine or Eigr in some texts), back to their lands in Cornwall, was aided by Merlin. As a result of a deception made possible by Merlin's powers, Uther was transformed into the image of Gorlois. He entered their castle, managed to fool Ygraine into thinking he was her husband, had his way with her and in the course of things, conceived a child, Arthur. Poor Gorlois, not knowing what was going on, went out to meet Uther in combat, but instead, was slain by Uther's troops.

After Arthur's birth, Merlin became the young boy's tutor, while he grew up with his foster-father, Sir Ector (alias Cynyr Ceinfarfog (the Fair Bearded)). In the defining moment of Arthur's career, Merlin arranged for the sword-in-the-stone contest by which the lad became king. Later, the magician met the mystic Lady of the Lake at the Fountain of Barenton (in Brittany) and persuaded her to present the King with the magical sword, Excalibur. In the romances, Merlin is the creator of the Round Table, and is closely involved in aiding and directing the events of the king and kingdom of Camelot. He is pictured by Geoffrey of Monmouth, at the end of Arthur's life, accompanying the wounded Arthur to the Isle of Avalon for the healing of his wounds. Others tell how having fallen deeply in love with the Lady of the Lake, he agreed to teach her all his mystical powers. She became so powerful that her magical skills outshone even Merlin's. Determined not to be enslaved by him, she imprisoned the old man in a glass tower, a cave or similarly suitable prison. Thus his absence from the Battle of Camlann was ultimately responsible for Arthur's demise.

According to Geoffrey's "Vita Merlini" (c. 1151), Merlin/Myrddin was a sixth century prophet living in the north of Britain where his career extended beyond Arthur. Merlin traveled north, after Camlann, to the court of King Gwendoleu of Caer-Guenoleu (north of the Salway) where the locals called him Lailoken (or Llallogan). Shortly afterward, a war broke out between Merlin's Royal master and the three allies, King Riderch Hael (the Generous) of Strathclyde and Kings Peredyr & Gwrgi of Ebrauc (York). Gwendoleu was killed in the ensuing Battle of Ardderyd (Arthuret) and Merlin, sent mad with grief at the death of his nephew and four brothers, fled into the Caledonian Forest. He lived there in a mad frenzy for over a year, becoming known as Myrddin Wylt (the Wild), before Riderch, who was his brother-in-law, found him and brought him to safety in the Strathclyde Court.

Some scholars believe there were two Merlins: Myrddin Emrys and Myrddin Wylt. The fact that Merlin apparently lived from the reign of Vortigern (c.420) to the reign of Riderch Hael (c.580) would certainly support this view. The stretch from Vortigern to Arthur is itself unlikely and early versions of the "Vortigern at Dinas Emrys" story give the fatherless boy as Emrys Wledig (Ambrosius Aurelianus) who was living in Campus Elleti in Glywysing. Despite Myrddin Wylt's story indicating he may have had a conceptual origin in one of the wild-man-in-the-woods motifs common to the ancient folklore of the British Isles, this man's historicity is quite well established. His real name, however, may have been Lailoken. Was this man misplaced in time, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, to become King Arthur's mentor, some memory of a similar character from Caer-Fyrddin giving rise to his new name? PC Bartrum thinks not and points out that "fundamentally there is only one Merlin/Myrddin, and some of the later legends cannot be consistently classified as appropriate to one rather than the other."

His prison and/or burial place is said to be beneath Merlin's Mound at Marlborough College in Marlborough (Wiltshire), at Drumelzier in Tweeddale (Scotland), Bryn Myrddin (Merlin's Hill) near Carmarthen (Wales), Le Tombeau de Merlin (Merlin's Tomb) near Paimpont (Brittany) and Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) off the Lleyn Peninsula

Literature:

• John Burke “Look Back on England”

• Norma Lorre Goodrich “King Arthur”

Internet-resources:

• http://www.referatero.com/

• http://www.legends.co uk

• http://www.Britannia.com