The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (30 page)

Southern Frontier

This frontier could have been controlled by a commander based at any of several major forts, not only those we have already discussed, including Caerleon in Gwent, Solsbury Hill
near Bath, or Liddington Castle, near Swindon, but other strengthened hillforts such as South Cadbury, Glastonbury, and Cadbury-
Congresbury near Bristol, the first two with
close Arthurian associations. To this we must add the Wansdyke and other defensive earthworks in the area which are the only firm signs of a genuine frontier. We can, to a degree, place the battle
list along or close to this frontier and with connections to some of the known conflicts with the Saxons.

The first of the battles may well have taken place at Glynde-bourne, near Lewes (Glein), defeating Aelle before moving along the coast to face another Saxon advance (attributed to Cerdic, but
probably one of the other eponymous adventurers, such as Port or Wihtgar) at Blackwater (Dubglas) near the Solent estuary. Several engagements could have happened here allowing for a series of
Saxon landings. The British may then have retrenched at Old Basing (Bassas), which formed the start of a defence across the south as Saxons now advanced from the north. Another battle at White
Hills (Guinnion), Swindon, held the Saxons at bay and this may have ended the first series of assaults.

The second campaign may have started with some daring Saxon or Irish raids up the Severn and into south Wales, leading to battles at Pontardulais, Gellideg (Celidon), Caerleon (City of the
Legion) and the Trwc estuary (Tribruit), before pushing the Saxons back across the Severn to Catbrain (Bristol) and the final engagement at Badon (either Bath or Liddington Castle).

This campaign could have started under Ambrosius, being perhaps the end of a much longer campaign by Ambrosius based at Cadbury. A young Arthur may have been in his ranks. Arthur could have
taken over as commander of the second campaign. If so, this might suggest we would find some mention of Ambrosius rewarding Arthur as he hands over command. Although Pascent received lands from
Ambrosius, as they were probably of the same generation, Pascent is unlikely to have taken over as commander. But Pascent’s son is another matter. This was Riocatus, whom we have encountered
before as Faustus’s nephew.

Riocatus’s name, meaning “king of battles”, might imply that he became Ambrosius’s military successor. Riocatus need not have succeeded his father by then; indeed, that
may not have happened until around the year 500, after Badon.

Riocatus was the cousin of Cadell of Powys, known as “Gleaming Hilt”, a strange cognomen which seems to suggest some
gloriously decked hilt or scabbard to his
sword. This is reminiscent of Arthur’s sword Excalibur, because it was the scabbard, rather than the sword, that had magical qualities and would protect Arthur.

One might expect Ambrosius to be succeeded by his own son rather than Cadell, but although we know from Gildas that he had grandchildren, these may have been via a daughter. Alternatively, if
Ambrosius was Riothamus, then his children may have lived in Armorica and inherited lands there.

Cadell of the Bright Sword and Riocatus, King of Battles, as joint successors to Ambrosius ruling from the one city in Britain that had not fallen into ruin – Viriconium – could well
have become conjoined in later years as a legendary Arthur. If either of these, fighting under the banner of Ambrosius, led an army to Badon, with the final defeat of the Saxons, that would be
enough to imprint that memory indelibly into the folklore of the British.

This is all highly conjectural and based on the flimsiest of evidence, but in the Arthurian world there is little else. This suggestion does fit a pattern of battles, and does provide a locale
for a possible Arthur-like figure.

There are, of course, many other interpretations of these battle sites, both in terms of new locations or how the battle sequence may have run across the country. In
King Arthur, A Military
History,
Michael Holmes discusses the Anglo-British battles and where Arthur’s campaigns might be located. He generally follows the more traditional locations (Glen in Lincolnshire, Bath
for Badon and so on) and allows Arthur free rein across the whole of Britain but in a series of battles spread over several years. He accepts Arthur as the High King successor to Ambrosius, but
does not otherwise identify him beyond recognizing him as a great military commander.

Conclusion

Having explored all of the battles and dozens of sites we have been able to make a potential link between some sites and some individuals. Only one of these, Arthwys of the
Pennines, has a name which may be resonant with Arthur, but we are, after all, looking as much for the victor of the key battle of Badon, whose
memory may have become attached
to a later Arthur. This has helped us identify several individuals, especially Dyfnwal, Cadell and Riocatus, who must have been alive at the time of Badon and probably fought there.

Each of the suggested frontiers has its strengths and weaknesses, though the patterns in North Wales and North Britain are not best placed for sustained campaigns against the Saxons. Neither is
the western frontier, for all that a campaign could have been masterminded from Wroxeter. My own belief is that only the southern or eastern frontiers provide a plausible explanation for a
sustained battle campaign. The eastern frontier has the advantage of linking to a known subsequent “partition” and allows for the likely presence of Arthwys of the Pennines. The
southern frontier presents a better explanation for the hill forts in the south and a focused campaign against Aelle as
Bretwalda.

Before we take this further, though, we need to remember that the battle list does not cover all of Arthur’s exploits. For a more complete picture we must turn to the Welsh tales.

8

THE WELSH TRADITION – THE OTHER ARTHURS

So far, apart from the
Welsh Annals,
all of our information about Arthur has come from writings by English or Continental authors. When we turn to the Welsh record, a
different Arthur emerges. In this section we will explore the relevant stories in the
Mabinogion
and other Welsh texts.

1. The Mabinogion

It may seem strange to include discussion of the
Mabinogion
as part of this “historical” section, and it is true that the stories do cross the divide, being
more legend than fact. But, as we shall see throughout these explorations, there are factual elements, and the divide could be drawn almost anywhere. It is worth reflecting upon a comment by Gwyn
Jones and Thomas Jones in their translation of the
Mabinogion
(Dent, 1949):

The Celtic tales of Arthur incorporated into the
Mabinogion
are amongst the earliest to survive, certainly predating Geoffrey’s
History,
though not all necessarily surviving in written form from an earlier date.

The
Mabinogion
is a collection of Celtic tales, edited by Lady Charlotte Guest, with the help of Ioan Tegis who helped transcribe them into English, in 1846. She incorporated twelve in
her first edition, although technically only the first four belong to the “Mabinogi”, the stories about the hero Pryderi. It was Lady Charlotte who concocted the phrase
“mabinogion” on a misunderstanding of the text. “Mab” means son, and the phrase is generally taken to mean “tales of youth”. It has become a convenient tag for a
collection of early Celtic tales, and so it will remain.

The stories incorporated into the
Mabinogion
come from two ancient collections,
Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch
(
The White Book of Rhydderch
) which was committed to parchment in the
early 1300s, and
Llyfr Coch Hergest
(
The Red Book of Hergest
), which was written down around 1400. Other versions of these stories survive in manuscript form from at least a century
earlier, and were clearly part of an oral tradition long before that. But, as with the sources for Nennius and Geoffrey, since we lack the earliest versions we have no way of knowing how much they
have been corrupted in the seven centuries since Arthur’s day.

The four branches of the Mabinogi proper do not feature Arthur, although some of the characters reappear in the later tales. Here, I intend to discuss only two stories,
Culhwch and Olwen
and
The Dream of Rhonabwy,
which are of historical import. The other three,
The Lady of the Fountain, Peredur, Son of Evrawc
and
Gereint, Son of Erbin,
although they all
feature Arthur, are related to the later romances told by Chrétien de Troyes and are discussed later.

2. Culhwch and Olwen

Culhwch and Olwen
is the oldest of the texts used by Guest in her
Mabinogion.
Scholars believe it was written down in its final form around the year 1100, but the
linguistic evidence suggests it reached a final oral form perhaps a century earlier. It thus predates Geoffrey’s
History,
and is little more than a century later than Nennius. Yet, as
we shall see, it bears no relationship to either.

The basic story can be summarised briefly, and illustrates how Arthur was perceived by the tenth and eleventh centuries. Culhwch, a cousin of Arthur, is born in a pigsty
when his heavily pregnant mother Goleuddyd is frightened by the pigs. She gives birth but flees, and the baby is rescued by the swineherd and taken to the court of his father, Cilydd. After the
death of Culhwch’s mother, his father’s new wife desires that her own daughter from a previous marriage should marry Culhwch. He refuses because he is still young, so his stepmother
curses him and says that he will marry no one but Olwen, the daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden. Despite never meeting Olwen, Culhwch falls in love with her, and seeks the help of Arthur and his
court to find her. The quest lasts a year and when at last Olwen is found, she agrees to marry Culhwch only if he carries out her father’s wishes. She knows her father will refuse because
when she marries, Ysbaddaden will die. Ysbaddaden sets Culhwch forty impossible tasks. These are achieved mostly by heroes from Arthur’s court. Ysbaddaden dies, and Culhwch and Olwen are
married.

It’s a wonderful heroic tale full of adventure and larger-than-life characters. The supernatural elements no doubt grew in the telling, and more and more heroes were doubtless added, but
there is no reason to suspect that the location of the story changed much because part of the story’s strength lies in the knowledge of the locality. Let us therefore work through the people
and places in the story, and see how much can be related to the historical elements we have already covered.

(a)
Amlawdd Wledig

We learn at the outset that Culhwch is Arthur’s first cousin. Culhwch’s mother Goleuddydd was the daughter of Amlawdd Wledig, as was Arthur’s mother Ygraine,
and Rhieinwylydd, the mother of St. Illtud. Amlawdd has been accused of being a genealogical convenience in order to provide family links between individuals (
see
Table 8.1
). If that were
the case, however, someone would have had to invent him first, and why should later kings want descent from a fictional nobody? Amlawdd’s name may have been corrupted, but it must have meant
something at the time.

Peter Bartrum remarks that the name is unique in Welsh and seems to have a Nordic root,
Amlói,
or
Amleth,
the same as Shakespeare’s Hamlet. There
is a whole body of research, going back at least as far as 1880, which proposes that Hamlet/Amlethus was a variant of Anlaf, itself an Anglicisation of Olaf and that all these characters are
represented in legend by Havelok the Dane. In this Anglo-Danish story, which became popular at the same time as the Welsh Arthurian legends, Havelok is a dispossessed Danish king (from the Danish
settlements in England), who is serving as a scullion under the name of Cuaran in the court of King Godric of Lincoln/Lindsey.

Cuaran
was the nickname given to Olaf Sihtricson, who became king of Jorvik (York) in 941, and ruled Danish Mercia (including Lindsey) until expelled by King Edmund of Wessex in 942. Olaf
had been the son of an earlier Danish king of York, Sihtric, but, being a child when his father died, was smuggled out of England to relative safety in Ireland by his uncle Gothfrith (Godric).

There are some remarkable connections here. In the multi
lingual world of tenth century Britain, Olaf >Anlaf >Amlethus>Amlawdd would have been regarded as a hero,
especially by the non-Saxons, and in later years, when his precise
floruit
had become confused, there would have been those who wanted to claim descent from him. In all likelihood,
therefore, the name
Amlawdd
did not exist in the fifth century.