Stuff You Should KnowThe legend of King Arthur is very old and very established. By the time the king who saved Britain and united it was first written about, his story was already hundreds of years old. And while many of the details of his life and adventures, from the Lady of the Lake to Merlin the Magician, seem fictional some archaeologists believe that Arthur -- and much of his life -- was real.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
M Hey everybody, this is Chuck. Welcome to Saturday Celex. I hope you had your pop tarts and your breakfast cereal and you watched your your morning cartoons. Because now it's time to learn a little something. I'm gonna pick was There a Real King Arthur? From January fourteen, two thousand and fourteen, as my select pick this week. You know, I love my history podcasts and all the episodes we do about history, and one of my favorite things is is to take a look at, uh, these these figures from literature and and lore and think, wow, were they real people? Is there a basis in reality? In fact? And that's what we did with King Arthur? So, uh, I hope you dig it. I certainly did, and here we go. Was there a Real King Arthur? Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, Jerry Waved, everybody quiet. Jack. That's stuff you should know. Yeah, that's us. That is us still legend. You know, it was impossible for me to research this without only thinking of two things. Two movies. Clive Owe, Nope, Uh, I didn't see that one. It was it was good? Was that the one called King Arthur? Okay, it was a good I thought, So I'll check it out because I dig this character. And I've seen a lot of the movies that that tackle Camelot. But Excalibur and uh Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Of course, I I surely I've seen ex Caliber because I had showed time when I was a kid. It was a big hot movie when you were twelve in the early eighties. Yeah. Yeah, And then of course the Holy Crail. I mean, how do you not see that? It's the Holy Grail of comedies. Some say, yeah, I can see that. You should check out the Cowler. It actually holds up pretty well, does it. Yeah, And it's um Has is somewhat notable for having a couple of early appearances by actors that went on to be uh much bigger movies like that. Yeah. Gabriel byrne is in it and just barely and um Liam Neeson and I think both of them it was there first roles and they're like hardly in the movie. Who was who played King Arthur? Um? Was it anybody like I've heard of? Or they had to have been big at the time, right, Who was it Richard Burton? You know when I was uh like thirteen, I saw Richard Harris do Camelot the Fox Seater in Atlanta. So is that, like, is that based on the Arthurian legend? What the musical Camelot? Yeah? Sure, okay, but I mean you know it's a musical. Yeah, and it's from the sixties, so you can never tell like it had just been named Camelot. That's what I was asking. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it's about the Arthurian legend. But out of all of them, I would say, hands down, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the best of the Arthurian Legend movie adaptations. Yeah. I haven't seen it in years, but it's like one of those that I saw so many times I can still quote most of it, you know. I mean it has it all. It has the killer rabbits, the killer bunnies. Yeah, it has the coconut carrying swallows. It has the nice you say knee, It has the Black Knight who merely has a flesh wound. Yeah, has everything, has singing dancing yeah, um, I mean the great Graham Chapman as uh Arthur. Yeah, and um, bring out your Dead. Yeah. So many things that are in the lexicon from that. Yeah. Uh. Nigel Terry played Arthur in the Excalibur movie. I don't I don't know who he is. Probably recognize him. Helen Mirren was morgana though, oh wow? Um, but yeah, small roles. Oh. Patrick Stewart was the other guy, got you he played? Was he bald? Has he always like? He always been bald? One of those? I'm sure he had hair at some point. Oh, I'll bet he looked weird with hair. I can't imagine him with hair. What if he was born with like a full head of hair and that was it. He started losing it after that, right for two days and then it all came out all right. So anyway started to disrupt this early on. But those two movies, I just every time I saw it with a pen dragon. This is a cool name, that's a great name. I couldn't help but just kind of say those lines in my head. So I mean, you you make a good or you raise a good point. Um, there's so many Arthur movies out there, Arthur books. Sword in the Stone was pretty good too. Um that everybody has a kind of a basic idea of um. The King Arthur legend, the Arthurian myth or romance it's sometimes called to but UM. What I think probably a lot of people don't know is that it is a syncretized meaning. The Catholics got their myths on it and through a bunch of Christianity on top of something that was already extant, and in this case Um what was excellent was a group of myths that arose from the Celts, the Celtic people, which is pretty substantial that we have this because the Celts never wrote anything down, mainly on account of the fact that they didn't have a written language. Their tradition was entirely oral, which is why we have very little of an understanding of the Celts. Most of our understanding of the Celts comes from outside observers like Pliny the Elder. Thank God for Pliny, or else we might not even know the Celts ever existed. Um, but the Arthurian legend is very clearly based on Celtic mythology. But even more enticing to me is the idea that it's possibly, or it's possible that that um Celtic legend, that Celtic mythology is rooted somewhat in fact, Like Arthur may have been a real person. That's sort of the Agel question. Yeah, but I mean I find that in astoundingly fascinating. Like there's places that are part of the Arthurian legend that do exist in real life. But whether or not they actually were a part of Arthur's life, if there was a real Arthur. I mean, each spot um generates awesome debate, you know. So for the anthropologist, the history major in me, I just I'm fascinated by the whole thing. Agreed, sir. So let's go over the basic legend of of Arthur. Uh killer king, legendary hero saved Britain when Britain needed saving, Yeah, because the Roman Empire had crumbled, um, and the Saxons were all over Britain, the Germanic tribes. Yeah, and he defeated them and brought great peace to the land and built a castle called it Camelot, gathered up nights together around around a round table which we'll get into, and to help bring peace to to the land. And and he did, and he did so very successfully. In in fact, in two thousand two, the BBC voted King Arthur as number fifty one and the poll of one greatest Britons, even though he might not even be a real dude, And the Britons are smart folks and they still voted him that they're pretty sharp. Yeah. So, um, those are the broad strokes. But depending on which version you're reading, it's going to be different. Did he pull a sword from a stone? Was it Excalibur? Did he get it from the lady in the water? Was his undoing, uh, Mordred or was it Guinevere and Lancelot? Yeah, it depends on which version you're reading. And we'll go over those versions, right, and we can you can kind of trace these back to you know, you can see layer after layer being added. So when you look at the Arthurian legend as we understand it now, you can kind of peel back layer by layer and get to the original stuff, um, which is pretty old. Indeed, like they think that, Um, we we'll get to that. Let's let's talk about the Arthur's story. Um, so you've got Arthur. He comes along at a time when Britain is in its greatest need. There were some great kings, possibly relatives of Arthur, like Uther Pendragon, his father supposedly would have been one of the rulers. Right, what you're smiling because you like that name. All I can think of is I am off a son of Pendragon. Okay, so you just say that anytime you want, man um so. But he arrives at a time when Britain is being overrun by the Saxons. It's being um ruled by the Saxon's. Like there's no British king on the throne. And there's a legend that comes up that there is a sword in a stone and only the rightful king, meaning only the line of Luther pen Dragon. I'm not gonna say again. Uh, We'll be able to remove the sword from the stone, and when that person comes, he will be dubbed the King of Kings and will restore um the the rightful um lineage to the British throne. Yeah and uh. In some stories, like I said, a young man, a young Arthur pulls the sword stored it's a sword from the Swan and uh, and other legends it does come from the lady in the lake. He rides out on a barge and the hand stretches up with the sword in it. All you sees the arm coming from the water, and he gets the sword that a way well, and and then I think a third a third way. He pulls the sword from the stone, proclaiming himself Arthur. Yeah, and everyone goes no, one's like he's the dude, right, Like we got one of our own back in power now. And then that sword breaks and that's when he gets ex caliber from the Lady of the Lake. It's right, the most powerful magic sword and all the land. Uh, it's a it's what you call a bitch and swords his pitch and sword Merlin and some stories comes around, uh, right about this time, and he appears on Arthur's a teen. Generally um associated with the Lady of the Lake. There and Avalon, they're both from the same neck of the woods. Avalon is a magical mystery place even outside of the Arthurian legend. As far as the Celts go, it was a it means apple land, yeah, um, and I guess apples were super magical to the Celts. But the Avalon itself is um almost in otherworldly afterlife. The kind of area, even though it's a physical place you can go to in Britain, still interesting. Uh. It's interesting that the apple is always been a uh strange fruit. Yeah, like I know it was probably wasn't an apple and eating but it's all in. I wonder Southern Baptists called it an apple? Yeah, And I wonder when what it was originally in like air Maic and when it was converted to apple. Where's the apple indigenous? I don't know or the or the apple and the what was the children's was it not snow white? Was snow white? Yeah? Yeah? With the poison apple? Poison apple again. I saw a video today that we've been eating apples wrong? Did you know that? I've seen that. I can't bring myself to eat an apple like that. There's a there's a middle spindle, a k A. The core that is not to be consumed. That it's not true. I won't do it. It's just too weird. But you can eat the core. There is no core. There is a core. I make it. Every I create the core, every I I show it. Just like a sculptor reveals the sculpture within a slab of stone, so too, do I reveal the core in an apple. Let me ask you this. If you cut the apple up into the eight pieces and get the seeds out you can just eat that's the whole apple. You have to shave off like inner part the core. For those of you don't know, there's a video of a dude eating an apple from the bottom end forward and he just eats the whole thing because he's a psychopath. Um. Okay, sorry to get sidetracked by the history of the apple. Well, no, I think you do raise a really really interesting point, Chuck. I wonder you know when the apple started getting a bad rep, when the apple stood in for other fruit. Yeah. I think that's an excellent thing to look up. Okay, so let me know what you find. Alright. So Arthur, like I said, he builds Camelot, that's his castle once he restores peace. Yeah. Well, no, no, no, I think that was he went out and got all the nights to help him restore peace. Okay, So he built Camelot and into patient of restoring exactly and recruited nights. Uh for the round table. And we might as well go ahead and leak that the round table was supposedly round because we're all equals and there's no head of a round table. Makes sense, yeah, um, And it was either fashioned by Merlin yeah, or it was a gift from Guenevere, who we haven't gotten to yet, A wedding present from Guenevere's father, even though he got it from Arthur's father, Luther pen Dragon. Yeah, and her father was King Leo de Grants who I think that was. Patrick Stewart, got you an excalibur. Um. So the nights go out, they defeat all the outsiders there, peace reigns, and that it's why Camelot to this day has the connotation of and especially with the Kennedys, like this, you know, peaceful, idyllic situation. Right, that's Camelot. Although it was a place, you know what I'm saying, it sort of represents more than a place, right, represents the piece that he brought with these knights. Um. Then he meets Gwenevere, falls in love with this little hottie, and then depending on what story you read, there might have been an affair with Lancelot or Mordred, who was either his nephew or depending on what you read, or his son, uh, which technically he could be both because supposedly he had Mordred with his half sister. Morgan. Yeah, that makes sense, who is translated into Morgan le Fay who's like this kind of enchanting temptress, evil woman um who helps Mordred Um try to take over Camelot tries to take over the throne, and Arthur says, nay to you, we will do battle at a place called Camlan, That's right, and then dies. That's where Mordred is killed and Arthur is um wounded, and depending on the version of the story, Arthur's either mortally wounded or just kind of wounded, but either way, he gives his his sword ex Caliber to Bedevere and says, you need to return this to the lady in the lake. After kind of waffling because Bedevere is like, I could use ex Caliber. Uh, he finally gives he throws ex Caliber to the lake and this arm comes up and goes ching and like catches it and then goes back down and he's like, there was a lady of the lake. Yeah, that's the ex Caliber movie version. They followed that version, because I remember distinctly him chunking the sword out there in the arm coming up. That's cool. I think I have some vague mental memory of that as well. Um. And then Arthur's taken to Avalon to either die and be buried, which is um or he recuperates and hangs out there to come back to reign over Britain and it's next time of greatest need, which is why Arthur is frequently referred to. And there was a book titled the Once and Future King because he will return again when Britain needs him, which makes him like kind of the British superman. Yeah, before we go any further, my friend, I think it's a good time for a message break. Hey, now we're back. So that's the Uh, that's the basic legend. I mean, like we just basically condensed thousands of pages of different books and thousands, well not thousands, but hundreds of years of um folklore into a few minutes. But you get the gist of it. Sure you know the story. And if this, if this ignited your fancy and you're like, I want to know more, man, you've got a you could dedicate the rest of your life to researching and reading Arthurian legend because there's tons of it and and it's all like we said, um, it's a literary tradition, but it's rooted in an oral tradition among the Celts, the pagan Celts um but this literary tradition itself is really really old that they they first mention of Arthur is um from I think the fifth century, right, the fifth century Welsh poem, six sixth century Welsh poem. When you're off hundred years back then, um, especially with a man who may or may not have existed, but Arthur pops up in one line in this Welsh poem called the Gododin god Odin good Odin. Yeah, it's a great word, and this poem eulogizes the Welsh warriors, maybe Britain's oldest poem. Yeah, because the Celts would have started to have become Christianized around this time, hence things would have started to have been written down, so this poem would have popped up really right around that cusp between the end of purely Celtic take culture. Because the British Isles were the last stronghold of the Celts, which swept all the way to Asia, like they covered Europe, parts of North Africa. The Celts were everywhere, but um, it was the um the British Isles that were the last holdouts until about like the fifth, six, seven eighth centuries UM, when they became Christianized. Alright, so they're Christianized at this point. Yeah. By the time this poem came out, the very fact that there's a written poem, it shows you that the me their way in this area and the Celts are off just telling stories, looking their wounds and telling stories, still not writing stuff down there like you have you are you familiar with Missileton? Yeah? Do you know about knocking on wood? Look at you utilizing all your information? Uh so. Uh. Some other references in literature, um, the Historia Brittonum History of Britain eight hundred and the Analysis Cambria the Animals of Whales a few hundred years after that. They were they were basically history books, the main history books of Brittain and Wales and um. But they themselves were just compilations of of other books and can't be like factually verified. Yeah, but nevertheless they were used and Arthur was mentioned in both. Um the Arthur we know and love today. Uh. You can trace back to Jeffrey of Monmouth. He was a priest who wrote Historia Regum britagn The History of British Kings and the eleven hundreds. But he based his stuff on the history of Britton. Um, but it just became really popular, right, So like he kind of based it on the other thing. Well, I mean most some people even say you plagiarized, but it became so popular. He was kind of golden, right, and I think great. I think also he Um, I mean most histories are based on previous histories. Um, so that's that in and of itself, isn't a add thing. But yeah, I don't know what this article is implying that like he was that he stole work or he fabricated it. Well, he was accused of fabricating some of it, so so well either way. He gave the world the Arthurian legend. That's right, Like Arthur existed before this, like as we've seen. But he was the one that said, like, there's a great story here, and I'm gonna bulk this up. Yeah, And so he started naming places, he started contemporizing things, like he took um this legend and put it into a context that the people who lived in his time would understand and be fascinated by. Yeah, and he introduced Christianity for the first time to the story. Um, the French got ahold of it, and then they're all about a good romance novel. So they sort of introduced the love elements or not introduced, but UH emphasize the love elements a little bit more. Yeah. About fifty years after Geoffrey of Monmouth UM made his history um Chrestian Detroit UH came up with some stories that added that romantic part and a lot like the I think the Grail stuff too. Oh yeah, yeah, he was the one who who came up with the romance between Lancelot and Grenevere and the Grail of search for the Grail, which wasn't a part of the story up until the twelfth century, and most of the stuff had been like history books and poems UM starting with the Vulgate cycle or pros lancelot as when you started getting these great prose stories and Christianity is woven in even more. And this is between twelve ten and twelve thirty, right, just to give you an idea of where we are. And they don't know if these stories were like maybe part of a popular literary trend at the time where a bunch of people writing them like chivalry was a big thing to write about, or if it was one author writing a series of stuff and they were not they're not attributed to any single author, but they're they're collected to get there was a body of work, the Vulgate cycle. Yeah, and those ones focus a little more on like Lancelot in the Chivalrous Nights and all that we have in the Grail to Um. Yeah with Galahad, Yeah, they said that, Um, Joseph of Arimathea, who was in the Bible, he was the one who gave Jesus his tomb after Jesus was crucified and brought back. And uh he said no, well he didn't say that, but they they said Joseph Mathea brought the Grail to Britain. Um. But then Galahad, Sir Lancelot's illegitimate son, was said in the Vulgate cycle that he discovered the Grail because he was pure, of course, yes, until he went to the castle Anthrax. Remember that scene and the pure and chased goes to the castle and there's all the ladies that are like tempting him that it's uh, Michael Palin is just like wide eyed man. Uh. And then the big one um that most of our modern stories are based on is Thomas Mallory's Le Morte Darthur The Death of Arthur, And I read this in college. Oh yeah, and it was tough. It was sort of like a bit of a modernized Middle English. Yeah, it wasn't quite Chaucer, wasn't that tough, Um. But it was still a tough read. And I remember thinking at the time, can I just watch Excalibur? And it turns out it could, because that was that movie was specifically based on the Death of Arthur. Yeah. And so as you're you're kind of seeing like each UM, each new century, each new um, authors adding their own thing to it. Yeah, he didn't actually write it. I should say that he compiled the stories together. Okay, surely he cleaned them up and well, yeah, but he didn't he didn't create a new work, because he's known as it's known as a compilation. Well, he did add some new stories about some other nights, Sir Gareth and Sir Tris. Then UM and he he he also kind of took the um the focus off of the Celtic pagan mythology and really focused it onto the Christian mythology. UM and and at this point, the idea that this whole thing is based on Celtic ideals and and myths is lost largely to history. I mean, at the very least, it doesn't become nearly as a parent. Um. Was he the one that added the Lady in the Lake though? Oh no, that was the Vulgate cycle, um, which is supposing to me because I would think that would be ancient Celtic mythology. But that wasn't added until the thirteenth century. Oh yeah, yeah. The Lady in the Lake and the idea of Mordred as Arthur's son by his sister. You think those two would be real old No, no, no, it was a part of the preoccupation of the weirdos in the thirteenth century. Well, I think Mallory did add the after Guinevere and Lancelot are busted, they go their separate ways to become a nun and a monk, yeah, respectively. Right. Um. So after Mallory you have Alfred Lord Tennyson, um, who wrote the Idols of the King. Yeah, that creepy looking dude and uh great poet. Oh yeah, but scary looking and I love his name too, yeah. Um. And then T. H. White wrote the Ones in Future King and that was the basis of the Sword in the Stone. Yeah, little Disney Action. That was a good movie if I remember correctly, And Merlin was kind of like a cookie. I mean, it was weird right in that story. Yeah, And in the Sword and the Stone. I don't remember that one that much. Was it was that the animated huh Okay, yeah, where he's like a young king Arthur pulls the sword from the stone. And I didn't see that. I must have seen it, but I was all about the Jungle Book. This is what came out about the same time. I know, but I was exact animators and everything. Yeah, you're like, I can't pay attention to this alright, to lend my fascination to all right, so we we should talk a little bit about the real um ties to real history and whether these people were real or these places are real. So let's get to that after this message break. Okay, buddy, So what's the deal? Was there a Camelot? Was there an Arthur? Were these nights real? Dudes? Um? Probably? Alright? So send it so well, So take Marlin for example, Okay, he seems probably the least likely to have existed because he is a magician, sorcerer, a magical wizard. Yeah, yeah, a wizard that's that's a great word. Actually, is he a wizard or is he just a magician? So well, I mean, come on, the two are fairly interchangeable. You just wait, my friend, there will be some larger emailing. It is not nearly the same series. Let me explain to you the difference between a cleric and the major um so uh. He was apparently based on one or two people that really did exist, and both of them were holy men. They would have been druids, at least one of them would have been druids. Um he was. One was named Merdin wilt and another one was named Emirus Ldig. That's a tough one, w L E d I G. There's two vowels and both of those names combined, right, you know, it's just yeah, it's almost like Russian. It's tough to read. Um. And both of them lived in the late sixth century, and one was the first one, Merdin. He was this wild man who went into war and saw too much and like went cray easy and fled into the jungle. I've seen too much. Yeah, apparently suffered from some some sort of PTSD and went and fled into the jungle. While not the jungle because this is British Isles, but the woods will call them uh and lived as a wild man for many years um, and he was apparently a famous local like magic wild man. The other one, Emriss, was like a full on, straight up druid. He was like a prophet and advisor and he definitely lived. So they think that possibly um, one of them was Merlin or uh folklore combined the two together and made him Merlin. I think that's what most of the stuff is. Yeah, possibly based on real people. A dash of this and a dash of that, mix it up and you come up with a literary figure. That's just my take. Camelot Supposedly, if you read the Historia Regum Britannia UM, he wrote that it was Cornwall at Tintingel Castle, and they've actually found a stone there in the eighties nineteen eighties that an inscription that said a descendant of Arthur, father of a descendant of cole Um in Monmouth. Actually the writer of that history book UH names King cole As in Mary Old Soul. Was he that same King cole Um as one of Arthur's ancestors. But there's a little bit of a rub because that castle was built in the early eleven hundreds, so many hundreds of years later after Arthur was supposedly living. Right, and the author of this article accuses uh Geoffrey of basically using Tinto Jail Castle as a way to please his patron who had a cousin that lived there at the time. Um. But the some archaeological excavations have found that this tinted jail area was settled from at least three D and was definitely in full swing, was a trading post basically and a fortified castle around the time when Arthur would have been conceived. So it actually is archeologically possible that this was a place where he was born, at the very least, if there was a real Arthur and he was born in the time frame that we're talking about, Tinnanjiel Castle was settled and in full operation in that area. Really, yeah, so it wasn't built hundreds of years later there. The castle as it stands now was settlement, was settlement upon settlement, And as they've excavated down where they found that at that time, Yes, there's plenty of so that stone could in fact be real. Wow, all right, busted? Uh. Thomas Mallory said Camelot was Winchester Castle. Uh, And for many hundreds of years there was a wooden round table that hung on the wall with all the little names of the knights of the round table there. Um. But Winchester Castle was built in the eleventh century, and they carbon dated the table tot and said it was probably painted during the fift hundreds under King Henry the eight because everyone was way into chivalry in medieval history at that point. Are you're gonna bust that one? That one, No, that one makes sense, but that is busted. Unbust. I mean they the Cadbury Castle, the fort that's in Somerset's mentioned in here too, that one. If anything was Camelot, it would have been that place. Yeah, but it wouldn't have been Arthur's. It would have been a one of the rulers that basically handed over Britain to the Saxons, that Arthur had to come in and whose mess he had to unmake. Um. It would have been that rulers. And there's a sixteen ft thick um fort fortress made of timber and stone um that is apparently unique to this castle. That's from the fifth century um that was written about from that time frame from that period of time, was supposedly built around that period of time. So you have um documentary evidence in the literature, and then you also have the actual physical evidence of this castle that's built in the way that's just unique to it. Um that supposedly belonged to this guy that Arthur may or may not have come in and taken over if he if he were ruling in this area at the time, that would have been the castle that he would have taken over because there was heavily fortified and it was just like a prime castle in the area that he would have been in. UM. So if there was a camelot a castle that he ruled from, that probably would have been it. All right. So you're going, Josh Boates for Cadbury Castle in Somerset. Yes, okay, um avalon is supposedly Glastonbury where they have the music festival. Now, oh yeah, I think they have a big music festival there. My TV tells me, um, and uh, here's the deal there. That was the Glastonbury Tour, which is a sort of it I guess for England. For that area is a mountain. It's like a hill. It's a little hill like the Englishman who went up the hill and came down a mountain. Um the Glastonbury Tour was had the ruins of St Michael's, which was an abbey built in the twelfth century which replaced an earlier abbey that was burned down. And while they were building the newer abbey, these monks said, you know what, we found graves containing bones. Look at the bones man and a woman and this is King Arthur because there's a cross there and it's subscribed in Latin and it says it's King Arthur and Guinevere. So there's your proof. Even though the cross doesn't exist anymore, the bones don't exist anymore. They did read the inscription that was supposedly copied verbatim from the monks, and they said some smart dudes said, no, that's twelveth century Latin, my friend, not sixth century Latin. Silly people, So I guess there's a difference than they knew. So that was quashed. Are you about to deebust that deep busting that sweet So Glastonbury Tour, This conical hill um used to be an island, and at the top of it is Glastonbury Abbey, which was built in the twelfth century, but was built on the ruins of an early one, so that thing actually did happen, It did burn down. Apparently in the nineteen eighties they excavated and found a pair of sixth century graves, stone line graves. The bones are gone, there's no markers or anything like that, but they would have been the kind of graves and they were dated to Arthur's era. Furthermore, yes, furthermore, the there was evidence that these graves were disturbed in the thirteenth century, in the twelve hundreds or is it the twelfth century, sorry that they were disturbed in the twelfth century. So there's evidence that these graves are from the sixth century and that these twelfth century monks did find them and open them up. So whether or not they were Arthur and Gwenevere, or if this cross ever existed and what it said is still remains to be proven. But I mean, it's very possible that these monks were just trying to drum up patronage to rebuild their abbey, so like, hey, we found Arthur, so they may have forged the cross, but it's still entirely possible that that was Arthur and Guenevere. Just because they beefed up the story with the story of a cross doesn't mean it wasn't truly their final resting place. Yeah, at the very least, they were a pair of sixth century graves there with bones. No bones. Oh well, where the bones go? I don't know if they moved him in the twelfth century or if they just dissolved. We were talking a while. Yeah, alright, so is that your vote? Yeah? All right? Or uh the Glastonbury tour all right? Which I want to go to? This all this makes me want to go to the English country so and just like find all this stuff. Yeah, it's pretty neat. Yeah. I like old things, and it's hard to get anything super old in this country, you know. Yeah, hundreds. Maybe if you go down to St. Augustine. Let's go to Roma, let's see some old stuff to have. Yeah, I have to eat. It is neat. It's kind of neat to stand there in the Colosseum and think, holy cow, Yeah, this is the oldest thing I've ever seen. That was the one that got me and Yumi was the Colosseum. Yeah, I mean were everywhere else We're like, yeah, this is pretty cool for something about the Colosseum. It was that was that was yeah, I was. I was pretty blown away to Yeah. And boy the people man good looking. The Romans they just all over Italy. The dudes, the chicks, they were all like models. Yeah, very stylish, very stylish. And cats everywhere where there. Yeah, street cats in Rome, they're known for it. I don't remember seeing too many kids. Oh you saw some cats. Oh don't they live in like all of the ruins and everything. Um, they're they're everywhere. Yeah. I like the Trevy Fountain there. That was something else that one kind of took my breath away. We should start a travel show. I think we just did. Uh And finally, um, maybe some of these nights were real dudes. Sir bedevere Um he was one of the earliest knights to appear in the Arthurian legends and one of his right hand dudes Um. He has appeared in other writings, historical writings that have nothing to do with the Artherian legend exactly, and he was known as uh bed were Bedroo Dant member of the Royal House of Findhu, which rose to power in Wales in the sixth century, and then Sir Kay was also possibly a real dude. Yeah. Both of them appear in a Welsh collection of warrior poems called the Mabinogion Mabinah John take your pick. Yeah, I'm not Welsh, You're not Welsh, so either one we get craped for not pronouncing things right. But this this stuff is tough. Oh yeah, I mean you've got like thirteen letters in one vowel. It's like, what do you do with that? You know? And I mean I'm looking at the alphabet that I recognize. My brain just won't put it together. Uh huh agreed, and finally Arthur himself, Um, my vote is on a compilation of real people. Like I said earlier, Some folks say he might have been a Roman leader named Lucius Artorius Castus, or maybe a Roman name Aurelius Ambrosius. See I saw that Aurelius Ambrotius was His uncle was Luther Pendragon's brother, and Uther and Aurelius had to seize power to start to restore um their lineage, and Arthur followed after that. Okay, see, well, I guess it depends on who you're reading, you know. Yeah. Some folks say he was a British historian named Allen wins Wilson says he was a Welsh king uh arthwist in the seventh century. I think everyone wants to claim a piece of it. I think that's what's going on here, you know. I think there's a no he was this Welsh king, or no he was this Roman king, when I think he might have been all of them. Well, the idea that he was sent by the pope to basically restore order or take the British Isles back from the Saxons, definitely, um is like credence. By the idea that he kind of comes out of nowhere and like pulls the sword from the stone is like I'm arrived, I'm the king of kings now um. So the idea that he came from somewhere else is I mean that that would suggest that he could have possibly been some Roman commander. And there were Roman commanders who did come to Britain and fight the sex and successfully was one name Arthur. Yeah, one was named notorious. Well there you have it. Uh And then some people say that Arthur wasn't a name but a title art and which in Latin means bear. And if that's the case, it could just be like you know, could be anybody, could be short for Arthur, could be bear. So why does the story persist? Because it's got romance, it's got chivalry, it's got all the classic elements of drama, uh in literature and fiction. So there you have it, and plus Monty Python's take on it doesn't hurt in perpetuating everything? What kind of a man can summon fire without flint or tinder man? You know that movie Inside now Atten. I watched it a lot at one point in my life. I think that's my favorite part of the movie. The um none shall pass when they have to pass the the guy that spits tells them about the rabbit. I remember the nun shall I don't remember the spinning. Yeah, when he when he when he's talking, he's got a lisp and he's he's spitting all over everybody. You got anything else? I got nothing else? All right? If you want to learn more about King Arthur, you can type in king Arthur in the search bar. We also recommend you go just look up stuff about King Arthur. There's plenty of stuff out there. It's fascinating. Um you let's see, I said search bar, right, you did, sir? Okay, well, then that means it's time for listening now. I'm gonna call this tribute to my father for Megan, Josh, Chuck, and Jerry wanted to write to tell you thank you mentally for the show. My dad, Howard passed away nearly a year ago, and while I don't think he listened before he passed, I think he would have really enjoyed it. He was a tinkerer and loved learning new things. In fact, when I was younger and visited him during the summers, i'd be alone most days at his apartment while he worked, and he would encourage me to search random things on the Internet and read about them to learn something new. He would even leave me lists like the planet Jupiter, the state of Wyoming, or the year eight. I thought at the time it was pretty silly and only did it a few times, But now, as an adult, I've since found your podcast a few months ago, and I find it really fascinating and it reminds me of my dad and has been really helpful to me when I get down about him being gone. Makes me happy to know that he would probably think it's awesome that I spend my days learning about things now, so Megan from Plano, Texas, thank you for that, and uh, in memory of your father, Howard. I think he would like the show too. That's pretty cool. I'm sorry he's not around to hear it. No, but I mean we're carrying on his legacy exactly. Nice. So I guess we need to do a show on the year or the state of Wyoming. Um, never not Wyoming. Uh. If you thanks a lot for that, Megan, that was nice of you to share that. Um. If you want to get in touch with me and Chuck to tell us anything you like, you can tweet to us at s y SK podcast you can do and us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our super dope home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how Stuff Works dot com
