Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, Jerry Waved. Everybody quiet, Jay,
Speaker 1: that's stuff you should know. Yeah, that's us. That is
Speaker 1: us still legend. You know. It was impossible for me
Speaker 1: to research this without only thinking of two things. Two
Speaker 1: movies Clive own Nope, Uh, I didn't see that one
Speaker 1: was it's good? Was that the one called King Arthur? Okay,
Speaker 1: it was a good I thought, so I'll check it
Speaker 1: out because I dig this character. And I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of the movies that that tackle Camelot, but Excalibur
Speaker 1: and uh Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Of course,
Speaker 1: I I surely I've seen ex caliber because I had
Speaker 1: showed time when I was a kid. It was a
Speaker 1: big hot movie when you were twelve in the early Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then of course the Holy Grail. I mean, how
Speaker 1: do you not see that it's the Holy Grail of comedies?
Speaker 1: Some say, yeah, I can see that. You should check
Speaker 1: out the Cowler. It actually holds up pretty well, does it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's um has its somewhat notable for having a
Speaker 1: couple of early appearances by actors that went on to
Speaker 1: be uh much bigger. Oh yeah, I love movies like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Gabriel Byrne is in it and just barely and um
Speaker 1: Liam Neeson and I think both of them, it was,
Speaker 1: were first roles and they're like hardly in the movie.
Speaker 1: Who was who played King Arthur? Um? Was it anybody
Speaker 1: like I've heard of? Or they had to have been
Speaker 1: big at the time, right, Who was it? Richard Burton?
Speaker 1: You know? When I was uh like thirteen, I saw
Speaker 1: Richard Harris do Camelot the Fox Seater in Atlanta. So
Speaker 1: is that, like, is that based on the Arthurian legend?
Speaker 1: What the musical Camelot? You sure? Okay, but I mean
Speaker 1: you know it's a musical, yeah, and it's from the sixties,
Speaker 1: so you can never tell, like it could have just
Speaker 1: been named Camelot, That's what I was asking. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's about the Arthurian legend. But out of all of them,
Speaker 1: I would say, hands down, Monty Python and the Holy
Speaker 1: Grail is the best of the Arthurian Legend movie adaptations. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it in years, but it's like one
Speaker 1: of those that I saw so many times I can
Speaker 1: still quote most of it, you know, I mean it
Speaker 1: has it all. It has the killer rabbits, the killer bunnies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has the coconut carrying swallows. It has the nice
Speaker 1: say knee, It has the Black Knight who merely has
Speaker 1: a flesh wound. Has everything. It has singing dancing yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean the great Graham Chapman as uh Arthur. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um bring out Your Dead Yeah. So many things
Speaker 1: that are in the lexicon all from that movie. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nigel Terry played Arthur in the Excalibur movie. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know who he is. He'd probably recognize him.
Speaker 1: Helen Maren was morgana though, oh wow? Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: small roles. Oh. Patrick Stewart was the other guy he played.
Speaker 1: Was he bald? Has he always like? He always been bald? One?
Speaker 1: I'm sure he had hair at some point. Oh, I'll
Speaker 1: bet he looked weird with hair. I can't imagine him
Speaker 1: with hair. What if he was born with like a
Speaker 1: full head of hair and that was it. He started
Speaker 1: losing it after that, right for two days, and then
Speaker 1: it all came out all right. So anyway, I started
Speaker 1: to disrupt this early on. But those two movies, I
Speaker 1: just every time I saw it with a pen dragon.
Speaker 1: This is a cool name, that's a great name. I
Speaker 1: couldn't help but just kind of say those lines in
Speaker 1: my head. So I mean you you make a good
Speaker 1: or you raise a good point. Um, there's so many
Speaker 1: Arthur movies out there, Arthur books. Sword in the Stone
Speaker 1: was pretty good too. Um that everybody has a kind
Speaker 1: of a basic idea of um, the King Arthur legend,
Speaker 1: the Arthurian myth or romance it's sometimes called to But UM,
Speaker 1: what I think probably a lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: is that it is a syncretized meaning. The Catholics got
Speaker 1: their myths on it and through a bunch of Christianity
Speaker 1: on top of something that was already extant. And in
Speaker 1: this case, um, what was excellent was a group of
Speaker 1: myths that arose from the Celts, the Celtic people, which
Speaker 1: is pretty substantial that we have this because the Celts
Speaker 1: never wrote anything down, mainly on account of the fact
Speaker 1: that they didn't have a written language. Their tradition was
Speaker 1: entirely oral, which is why we have very little of
Speaker 1: an understanding of the Celts. Most of our understanding of
Speaker 1: the Celts comes from outside observers like Pliny the Elder.
Speaker 1: Thank God for Pliny, or else we might not even
Speaker 1: know the Celts ever existed. Um, but the Arthurian legend
Speaker 1: is very clearly based on Celtic mythology. But even more
Speaker 1: enticing to me is the idea that it's possibly there.
Speaker 1: It's possible that that um Celtic legend, that Celtic mythology
Speaker 1: is rooted somewhat in fact, like Arthur may have been
Speaker 1: a real person. That's sort of the age question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean I find that in astoundingly fascinating. Like
Speaker 1: there's places that are part of the Arthurian legend that
Speaker 1: do exist in real life, but whether or not they
Speaker 1: actually were a part of Arthur's life if there wasn't
Speaker 1: real Arthur, I mean, each spot um generates awesome debate,
Speaker 1: you know. So for the anthropologist, the history major in me,
Speaker 1: I just I'm fascinated by the whole thing. So let's
Speaker 1: go over the basic legend of of Arthur, uh killer king,
Speaker 1: legendary hero saved Britain when Britain needed saving. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire crumbled, um, and the Saxons were all
Speaker 1: over Britain, the Germanic tribes, and he defeated them and
Speaker 1: brought great peace to the land and built a castle
Speaker 1: called it Camelot, gathered up nights together around around a
Speaker 1: round table, which we'll get into, and to help bring
Speaker 1: peace to to the land, and and he did, and
Speaker 1: he did so very successfully. In In fact, in two
Speaker 1: thousand two, the BBC voted King Arthur as number fifty
Speaker 1: one and the poll of one greatest Britons, even though
Speaker 1: he might not even be a real dude, and the
Speaker 1: Britons are smart folks, and they still voted him that
Speaker 1: they're pretty sharp. Yeah. So, um, those are the broad strokes.
Speaker 1: But depending on which version you're reading, it's gonna be different.
Speaker 1: Did he pull a sword from a stone? Was it Excalibur?
Speaker 1: Did he get it from the lady in the water?
Speaker 1: Was his undoing, uh, Mordred or was it Gwen of
Speaker 1: the Air and Lancelot? Yeah, it depends on which version
Speaker 1: you're reading. And we'll go over those versions, right, and
Speaker 1: we can you can kind of trace these back to
Speaker 1: you know, you can see layer after layer being added.
Speaker 1: So when you look at the Arthurian legend as we
Speaker 1: understand it now, you can kind of peel back layer
Speaker 1: by layer and get to the original stuff, um, which
Speaker 1: is pretty old indeed, like they think that, Um, well
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. Let's let's talk about the Arthur's story. Um,
Speaker 1: so you've got Arthur. He comes along at a time
Speaker 1: when Britain is in its greatest need. There were some
Speaker 1: great kings, possibly relatives of Arthur, like Uther Pendragon, his
Speaker 1: father supposedly would have been one of the rulers. Right,
Speaker 1: what you're smiling because you like that name. All I
Speaker 1: can think of is I am off a son Pendragon. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you just say that anytime you want, man um So,
Speaker 1: but he arrives at a time when Britain is being
Speaker 1: overrun by the Saxons. It's being um ruled by the Saxons,
Speaker 1: Like there's no British king on the throne. And there's
Speaker 1: a legend that comes up that there is a sword
Speaker 1: in a stone and only the rightful king, meaning only
Speaker 1: the line of Luther pen Dragon. I'm not gonna say again. Uh,
Speaker 1: we'll be able to remove the sword from the stone,
Speaker 1: and when that person comes, he will be dubbed the
Speaker 1: King of Kings and will restore um, the the rightful
Speaker 1: um lineage to the British throne. Yeah, and uh. In
Speaker 1: some stories, like I said, a young man, a young
Speaker 1: Arthur pulls the sword stored it's a sword on the
Speaker 1: swan and uh, and other legends it does come from
Speaker 1: the lady in the lake. He rides out on a
Speaker 1: barge and the hand stretches up with the sword in it.
Speaker 1: All you sees the arm coming from the water and
Speaker 1: he gets the sword that a way well, and and
Speaker 1: then I think a third a third way. He holds
Speaker 1: the sword from the stone, proclaiming himself Arthur, and every
Speaker 1: one was like, he's the dude, right, like we got
Speaker 1: one of our own back in power now. And then
Speaker 1: that sword breaks and that's when he gets ex caliber
Speaker 1: from the Lady of the lake. It's right, the most
Speaker 1: powerful magic sword in all the land. Uh, it's a
Speaker 1: it's what you call a bitchen swords pitch and sword
Speaker 1: Merlin and some stories comes around, uh, right about this time,
Speaker 1: and he appears on Arthur's a teen generally Um associated
Speaker 1: with the Lady of the lake. There and Avalon, they're
Speaker 1: both from the same neck of the woods. Avalon is
Speaker 1: a magical mystery place even outside of the Arthurian legend.
Speaker 1: As far as the Celts go, it was a it
Speaker 1: means apple land, yeah, um, and I guess apples were
Speaker 1: super magical to the Celts. But Avalon itself is um
Speaker 1: almost in other worldly afterlife. He kind of area, even
Speaker 1: though it's a physical place you can go two in Britain.
Speaker 1: Still interesting. Uh, it's interesting that the apple is always
Speaker 1: then a uh strange fruit. Yeah, like I know it
Speaker 1: was probably wasn't an apple and eating but it's all in.
Speaker 1: I wonder Southern Baptists called it an apple, yeah, and
Speaker 1: when what it was originally in like air Maic and
Speaker 1: when it was converted to apple, because where's the apple indigenous?
Speaker 1: I don't know, or the or the apple and the
Speaker 1: what was the children's was it not snow white? Snow white? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: with the poison apple? Poison apple again. I saw a
Speaker 1: video today that we've been eating apples wrong. Did you
Speaker 1: know that I've seen that I can't bring myself to
Speaker 1: eat an apple like that. There's a there's a middle
Speaker 1: spindle a k a. The core that is not to
Speaker 1: be consumed that I won't do it. It's just too weird.
Speaker 1: But you can eat the core. There is no core.
Speaker 1: There is a core. I make it. Every I create
Speaker 1: the core everything I I show it. Just like a
Speaker 1: sculptor reveals the sculpture within a slab of stone, So too,
Speaker 1: do I reveal the core in an apple. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you this. If you cut the apple up into
Speaker 1: the eight pieces and get the seeds out, you can
Speaker 1: just eat. That's the whole apple you have to shave off,
Speaker 1: like the inner part the core. For those of you
Speaker 1: who don't know, there's a video of a dude eating
Speaker 1: an apple from the bottom end forward and he just
Speaker 1: eats the whole thing because he's a psychopath. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: sorry to get sidetracked by the history of the apple. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I think you do raise a really really interesting point, Chuck.
Speaker 1: I wonder you know when the apple started getting a
Speaker 1: bad rep, when the apple stood in for other fruit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's an excellent thing to look up. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let me know what you find, all right. So, Arthur,
Speaker 1: like I said, he builds Camelot. That's his castle once
Speaker 1: he restores peace. Yeah, well, now I know. No, I
Speaker 1: think that was he went out and got all the
Speaker 1: knights to help him restore peace. So he built Camelot
Speaker 1: an anticipation of restoring exactly, and recruited nights, uh for
Speaker 1: the round table. And we might as well go ahead
Speaker 1: and leak that the round table was supposedly round, because
Speaker 1: we're all equals and there's no head of a round table,
Speaker 1: makes sense, yeah, Um. And it was either fashioned by Merlin, yeah,
Speaker 1: or it was a gift from Guenevere, who we haven't
Speaker 1: gotten to yet, a wedding present from Guenevere's father, even
Speaker 1: though he got it from Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and her father was King Leo de Grants who I
Speaker 1: think that was Patrick Stewart an excalibur. Um. So the
Speaker 1: nights go out, they defeat all the outsiders there, peace reigns,
Speaker 1: and that it's why Camelot to this day has the
Speaker 1: connotation of and especially with the Kennedy's like this, you know,
Speaker 1: peaceful idyllic situation. Right, that's Camelot. Although it was a place,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, it sort of represents more
Speaker 1: than a place, right, it represents the piece that he
Speaker 1: brought with these knights. Okay. Um. Then he meets Gwenevere,
Speaker 1: falls in love with this little hottie and uh. Then
Speaker 1: depending on what story you read, there might have been
Speaker 1: an affair with Lancelot or Mordred, who was either his
Speaker 1: nephew or depending on what you read, or his son, uh,
Speaker 1: which technically he could be both because supposedly he had
Speaker 1: Mordred with his half sister Morgan. Yeah, that makes sense,
Speaker 1: who is translated into Morgan le Fay, who's like this
Speaker 1: kind of enchanting temptress, evil woman um who helps Mordred
Speaker 1: Um try to take over Camelot tries to take over
Speaker 1: the throne, and Arthur says, nay to you, we will
Speaker 1: do battle at a place called came Law. That's right,
Speaker 1: and that's where Mordar is killed and Arthur is um wounded,
Speaker 1: and depending on the version of the story, Arthur's either
Speaker 1: mortally wounded or just kind of wounded, but either way.
Speaker 1: He gives his his sword ex Caliber to Bedevere and says,
Speaker 1: you need to return this to the lady in the lake.
Speaker 1: After kind of waffling because Bedevere is like, I could
Speaker 1: use ex Caliber, uh, he finally gives he throws ex
Speaker 1: Caliber to the lake and this arm comes up and
Speaker 1: goes ching and like catches it and then goes back
Speaker 1: down and he's like, there was a Lady of the Lake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the ex Caliber movie version. They followed that version
Speaker 1: because I remember distinctly him chunking the sword out there
Speaker 1: in the arm coming up. That's cool. I think I
Speaker 1: have some vague mental memory of that as well. Um.
Speaker 1: And then Arthur has taken to Avalon to either die
Speaker 1: and be buried, which is um, or he recouper eight
Speaker 1: and hangs out there to come back to reign over Britain.
Speaker 1: And it's next time of greatest need, which is why
Speaker 1: Arthur is frequently referred to. And there was a book
Speaker 1: titled The Once and Future King, because he will return
Speaker 1: again when Britain needs him, which makes him like kind
Speaker 1: of the British Superman. Yeah, before we go any further,
Speaker 1: my friend, I think it's a good time for a
Speaker 1: message break. Hey, now we're back. So that's the uh,
Speaker 1: that's the basic legend. I mean, like we just basically
Speaker 1: condensed thousands of pages of different books and thousands, well
Speaker 1: not thousands, but hundreds of years of um folklore into
Speaker 1: a few minutes. But to get the gist of it,
Speaker 1: Sure you know the story, and if this, if this
Speaker 1: ignited your fancy and you're like, I want to know more. Man,
Speaker 1: You've got a you could dedicate the rest of your
Speaker 1: life to researching and reading our Thurian legends because there's
Speaker 1: tons of it and and it's all like we said, Um,
Speaker 1: it's a literary tradition, but it's rooted in an oral
Speaker 1: tradition among the Celts, the pagan Celts. Um. But this
Speaker 1: literary tradition itself is really really old. They they first
Speaker 1: mention of Arthur is um from I think the fifth century, right,
Speaker 1: the fifth century Welsh poem, six sixth century Welsh poem
Speaker 1: years back then. Um, especially with a man who may
Speaker 1: or may not have existed. But Arthur pops up in
Speaker 1: one line in this Welsh poem called the Goddin good Odin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great word, and this poem eulogizes the Welsh warriors,
Speaker 1: maybe Britain's oldest poem. Yeah. Because the Celts would have
Speaker 1: started to have become Christianized around this time, hence things
Speaker 1: would have started to have been written down, So this
Speaker 1: poem would have popped up really right around that cusp
Speaker 1: between the end of purely Celtic culture. Because the British
Speaker 1: Isles were the last stronghold of the Celts, which swept
Speaker 1: all the way to Asia, like they covered Europe, parts
Speaker 1: of North Africa. The Celts were everywhere, but um, it
Speaker 1: was the Um, the British Isles that were the last
Speaker 1: holdouts until about like the fifth, six, seven eighth centuries UM,
Speaker 1: when they became Christianized. All right, so they're Christianized at
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah, by the time this poem came out,
Speaker 1: the very fact that there's a written poem, it shows
Speaker 1: you that made their way in this area, and the
Speaker 1: Celts are all just telling stories, looking their wounds and
Speaker 1: telling stories, still not writing stuff down there like have
Speaker 1: you are you familiar with Missileton? Yeah? Do you know
Speaker 1: about knocking on wood? Look at you utilizing all your information?
Speaker 1: Uh so. Uh. Some other references in literature, um, the
Speaker 1: Historia Brittonum, History of Britain eight hundred and the Analysis Cambria,
Speaker 1: the Annals of Wales a few hundred years after that.
Speaker 1: They were they were basically history books, the main history
Speaker 1: books of Britain and Wales and UM. But they themselves
Speaker 1: were just compilations of of other books and can't be
Speaker 1: like factually verified. Yeah, but nevertheless they were used and
Speaker 1: Arthur was mentioned in both um. The Arthur we Know
Speaker 1: and love today you can trace back to Jeffrey of Monmouth.
Speaker 1: He was a priest who wrote Historia regum Britagnia, The
Speaker 1: History of British Kings and the eleven hundreds. But he
Speaker 1: based his stuff on the history of Britton. Um. But
Speaker 1: it just became really popular, right, So like he kind
Speaker 1: of based it on the other thing. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: most some people even say he plagiarized, but it became
Speaker 1: so popular. He was kind of golden, right, and I
Speaker 1: think great. I think also he um. I mean, most
Speaker 1: histories are based on previous histories. Um, So that's that
Speaker 1: in and of itself isn't a bad thing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what this article is implying, like he
Speaker 1: was that he stole work or he fabricated it. Well,
Speaker 1: he was accused of fabricating some of it, so so
Speaker 1: well either way, he gave the world the Arthurian legend.
Speaker 1: That's right, Like Arthur existed before this, like as we've seen.
Speaker 1: But he was the one that said, like, there's a
Speaker 1: great story here and I'm gonna bulk this up, and
Speaker 1: so he started naming places. He started contemporizing things like
Speaker 1: he took um this legend and put it into a
Speaker 1: context that the people who lived in his time would
Speaker 1: understand and be fascinated by. Yeah, and he introduced Christianity
Speaker 1: for the first time to the story. Um, the French
Speaker 1: got ahold of it. And then they're all about a
Speaker 1: good romance novel, so they sort of introduced the love
Speaker 1: elements or not introduced, but uh emphasize the love elements
Speaker 1: a little bit more. Yeah. About fifty years after Geoffrey
Speaker 1: of Monmouth made his history, um, Chrestian Detroit uh came
Speaker 1: up with some stories that added that romantic part and
Speaker 1: a lot like the I think the Grail stuff too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Yeah, he was the one who who came
Speaker 1: up with the romance between Lancelot and Glenevere and the
Speaker 1: Grail of search for the Grail, which wasn't a part
Speaker 1: of the story up until the twelfth century, and most
Speaker 1: of the stuff had been like history books and poems. Um.
Speaker 1: Starting with the Vulgate cycle or pros lancelot as when
Speaker 1: you started getting these great prose stories and Christianity is
Speaker 1: woven in even more. And this is between twelve ten
Speaker 1: and twelve thirty, right, just to give you an idea
Speaker 1: of where we are. And they don't know if these
Speaker 1: stories were like maybe part of a popular literary trend
Speaker 1: at the time where a bunch of people were writing them,
Speaker 1: like Chilvary was a big thing to write about, or
Speaker 1: if it was one author writing a series of stuff
Speaker 1: and they were not they're not attributed to any single author,
Speaker 1: but they're they're collected together as a body of work,
Speaker 1: the Vulgate cycle and those ones for because a little
Speaker 1: more on like Lancelot and the chivalrous nights and all
Speaker 1: that we had in the Grail to Uma. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: said that um, Joseph of Arimathea, who was in the Bible,
Speaker 1: he was the one who gave Jesus his tomb after
Speaker 1: Jesus was crucified and brought back. And uh he said no,
Speaker 1: well he didn't say that, but they they said Joseph
Speaker 1: Mathea brought the Grail to britain Um. But then Galahad,
Speaker 1: Sir Lancelot's illegitimate son, was said in the Vulgate cycle
Speaker 1: that he discovered the Grail because he was pure of course,
Speaker 1: until he went to the Castle Anthrax. Remember that scene
Speaker 1: and the pure and chased goes to the castle and
Speaker 1: there's all there's all the ladies that are like tempting him.
Speaker 1: It's uh, Michael Palin is just like wide eyed. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the big one UM that most of our
Speaker 1: modern stories are based on is Thomas Mallory's Le Morte
Speaker 1: Darthur The Death of Arthur. And I read this in college.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and it was tough. It was. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like a bit of a modernized Middle English. It
Speaker 1: wasn't quite Chaucer, wasn't that tough um. But it was
Speaker 1: still a tough read. And I remember thinking at the time,
Speaker 1: can I just watch Excalibur? And it turns out it could,
Speaker 1: because that was that movie was specifically based on the
Speaker 1: Death of Arthur. Yeah. And so as you're you're kind
Speaker 1: of seeing like each um, each new century, each new um,
Speaker 1: authors adding their own thing to it. Yeah, he didn't
Speaker 1: actually write it. I should say that he compiled the
Speaker 1: stories together. Surely he cleaned him up and well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but he didn't he didn't create a new work, because
Speaker 1: he's known as it's known as a compilation. Well, he
Speaker 1: did add some new stories about some other nights, Sir
Speaker 1: Gareth and Sir Tristan Um and he he he also
Speaker 1: kind of took the um the focus off of the
Speaker 1: Celtic pagan mythology and really focused it onto the Christian mythology. Um.
Speaker 1: And and at this point the idea that this whole
Speaker 1: thing is based on Celtic ideals and and myths is
Speaker 1: lost largely to history. I mean, at the very least
Speaker 1: it doesn't become nearly as a parent. Um. It was
Speaker 1: he the one that added the Lady in the Lake though,
Speaker 1: Oh no, that was the Vulgate cycle um, which is
Speaker 1: supposing to me because I would think that would be
Speaker 1: ancient Celtic mythology, but that wasn't added until the thirteenth century. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Lady in the Lake and the idea of Mordred
Speaker 1: is Arthur's son by his sister. You think those two
Speaker 1: would be real old No, no, no, it was a
Speaker 1: part of the preoccupation of the weirdos in the thirteenth century. Well,
Speaker 1: I think Mallory did add them. After Gwenevere and Lancelater busted.
Speaker 1: They go their separate ways to become a nun and
Speaker 1: a monk. Oh yeah, respectively. Right. Um, So after Mallory
Speaker 1: you have Alfred Lord Tennyson UM. Who wrote the idols
Speaker 1: of the King that creepy looking dude, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: but scary looking and I love his name too, yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And then th H. White wrote the ones in Future
Speaker 1: King and that was the basis of the Sword in
Speaker 1: the Stone. Yeah. Well, Disney Action. That was a good
Speaker 1: movie if I remember correctly. And Merlin was kind of
Speaker 1: like a cookie. I mean it was weird right in
Speaker 1: that story. Yeah. And in the Sword and the Stone.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that one that much. Was was that
Speaker 1: the animated okay? Yeah, where he's like a young king
Speaker 1: Arthur pulls the sword from stone And I didn't see that.
Speaker 1: I must have seen it, but I was all about
Speaker 1: the Jungle Book. This sword came out about the same time,
Speaker 1: exact animators and everything. Yeah, you're like, I can't pay
Speaker 1: attention to this. Lend my fascination too, all right, So
Speaker 1: we we should talk a little bit about the real
Speaker 1: um ties to real history and whether these people were
Speaker 1: real or these places are real. So let's get to
Speaker 1: that after this message break. Okay, buddy, So what's the deal?
Speaker 1: Was there a camelot? Was there an Arthur? Were these
Speaker 1: nights real? Dudes? Um? Probably right? Send it so well,
Speaker 1: So take Merlin for example. Okay, he seems probably the
Speaker 1: least likely to have existed because he is a magician
Speaker 1: source for a magical wizard. Yeah, yeah, a wizard. That's
Speaker 1: that's a great word. So is he a wizard or
Speaker 1: is he just a magician? So well, I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: the two are fairly interchangeable. You just wait, my friend,
Speaker 1: there will be some larger emailing. It is not nearly
Speaker 1: the same series. Let me explain to you the difference
Speaker 1: between a cleric and me um. So uh. He was
Speaker 1: apparently based on one or two people that really did exist,
Speaker 1: and both of them were holy men. They would have
Speaker 1: been druids. At least one of them would have been druids.
Speaker 1: Um he was. One was named Merdin Wilt and another
Speaker 1: one was named Emirus Wladig. That's a tough one, w
Speaker 1: L E d I G. There's two vowels and both
Speaker 1: of those names combined, right, you know, it's just yeah,
Speaker 1: it's almost like Russian. It's um. And both of them
Speaker 1: lived in the late sixth century, and one was Um.
Speaker 1: The first one, Merdin. He was this wild man who
Speaker 1: went into war and saw too much and like went
Speaker 1: crazy and fled into the jungle. I've seen too much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Apparently he suffered from some sort of PTSD and went
Speaker 1: and fled into the jungle while not the jungle because
Speaker 1: this is a British isles, but the woods will call
Speaker 1: them uh, and lived as a wild man for many years. Um.
Speaker 1: And he was apparently a famous local like magic wild man.
Speaker 1: The other one, Emriss, was like a full on, straight
Speaker 1: up druid. He was like a prophet and advisor and
Speaker 1: he definitely lived. So they think that possibly, um, one
Speaker 1: of them was Merlin or uh, folklore combined the two
Speaker 1: together and made him Merlin. I think that's what most
Speaker 1: of the stuff is possibly based on real people. A
Speaker 1: dash of this and a dash of that, and mix
Speaker 1: it up and you come up with a literary figure.
Speaker 1: That's just my take. Camelot Supposedly, if you read the
Speaker 1: Historia Regum britagner Um, he wrote that it was Cornwall
Speaker 1: at Tintengel Castle, and they've actually found a stone there
Speaker 1: in the eighties nineteen eighties with an inscription that said
Speaker 1: a descendant of Arthur, father of a descendant of cole
Speaker 1: Um in Monmouth. Actually, the writer of that history book
Speaker 1: UH names King Cole as in Mary old soul. Was
Speaker 1: he that same king cole Um as one of Arthur's ancestors.
Speaker 1: But there's a little bit of a rub because that
Speaker 1: castle was built in the early eleven hundreds, so many
Speaker 1: hundreds of years later after Arthur was supposedly living. Right,
Speaker 1: and the author of this article accuses uh Geoffrey of
Speaker 1: basically using tinto Jail Castle as a way to please
Speaker 1: his patron who had a cousin that lived there at
Speaker 1: the time. Um. But the some archaeological excavations have found
Speaker 1: that this tinted jail area was settled from at least
Speaker 1: three D and was definitely in full swing, was a
Speaker 1: trading post basically and a fortified castle around the time
Speaker 1: when Arthur would have been conceived. So it actually is
Speaker 1: archaeologically possible that this was a place where he was born,
Speaker 1: at the very least, if there was a real Arthur
Speaker 1: and he was born in the time frame that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, Tinnanjiel Castle was settled and in full operation
Speaker 1: in that area. Yeah, so it wasn't built hundreds of
Speaker 1: years later there. The castle as it stands now was
Speaker 1: settlement settlement upon settlement, and as they've excavated down where
Speaker 1: they found that at that time. Yes, there's plenty of
Speaker 1: so that stone could in fact be real. Wow, all right, busted. Uh.
Speaker 1: Thomas Mallory said Camelot was Winchester Castle. Uh, And for
Speaker 1: many hundreds of years there was a wooden round table
Speaker 1: that hung on the wall with all the little names
Speaker 1: of the knights of the round table there. Um. But
Speaker 1: Winchester Castle was built in the eleventh century and they
Speaker 1: carbon dated the table tot and said it was probably
Speaker 1: painted during the fifteen hundreds under King Henry the eighth,
Speaker 1: because everyone was way into chivalry in medieval history at
Speaker 1: that point. Are you gonna bust that one? That one? No,
Speaker 1: that one makes sense, that is busted. Unbust. I mean
Speaker 1: they the Cadbury Castle, for that's in Somerset. That's mentioned
Speaker 1: in here too, that one. If anything was Camelot, it
Speaker 1: would have been that place. Yeah, but it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been Arthur's. It would have been a one of the
Speaker 1: rulers that basically handed over Britain to the Saxons that
Speaker 1: Arthur had to come in and whose mess he had
Speaker 1: to unmake. Um. It would have been that rulers. And
Speaker 1: there's a sixteen ft thick um fort fortress made of
Speaker 1: timber and stone. UM that is apparently unique to this
Speaker 1: castle that's from the fifth century. Um that was written
Speaker 1: about from that time frame, from that period of time,
Speaker 1: was supposedly built around that period of time. So you
Speaker 1: have um documentary evidence in the literature, and then you
Speaker 1: also have the actual physical evidence of this castle that's
Speaker 1: built in the way that's just unique to it. UM
Speaker 1: that supposedly belonged to this guy that Arthur may or
Speaker 1: may not have come in and taken over if he
Speaker 1: if he were ruling in this area at the time,
Speaker 1: that would have been the castle that he would have
Speaker 1: taken over because they were both heavily fortified and it
Speaker 1: was just like a prime castle in the area that
Speaker 1: he would have been in. UM. So if there was
Speaker 1: a camelot a castle that he ruled from, that probably
Speaker 1: would have been it. All right, So you're going, Josh
Speaker 1: Voates for Cadbury Castle in Somerset. Okay, um avalon is
Speaker 1: supposedly Glastonbury where they have the music festival. Now, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they have a big music castival there. My
Speaker 1: TV tells me, um, and uh, here's the deal there.
Speaker 1: That was the Glastonbury tour, which is a sort of
Speaker 1: I guess for England for that area that's a mountain.
Speaker 1: It's like a hill. It's a little hill. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: the Englishman who went up the hill and came down
Speaker 1: a mountain. Um the Glastonbury Tour was had the ruins
Speaker 1: of St Michael's, which was an abbey built in the
Speaker 1: twelfth century which replayed Sast, an earlier abbey that was
Speaker 1: burned down. And while they were building the newer abbey,
Speaker 1: these monks said, you know what, we found graves containing bones.
Speaker 1: Look at the bones man and a woman, and this
Speaker 1: is King Arthur because there's a cross there. It's described
Speaker 1: in Latin and it says it's King Arthur and Guinevere.
Speaker 1: So there's your proof. Even though the cross doesn't exist anymore,
Speaker 1: the bones don't exist anymore. They did read the inscription
Speaker 1: that was supposedly copied verbatim from the monks, and they said,
Speaker 1: some smart dudes said, no, that's twelveth century Latin, my friend,
Speaker 1: not sixth century Latin. The silly people, so I guess
Speaker 1: there's a difference, and they knew. So that was quashed.
Speaker 1: Are you about to deebust that deebusting that sweet. So
Speaker 1: Glastonbury tour, This conical hill um used to be an island,
Speaker 1: and at the top of it is Glastonbury Abbey, which
Speaker 1: was built in the twelfth century, but was built on
Speaker 1: the ruins of an early one. So that thing actually
Speaker 1: did happen, It did burn down. Apparently in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties they excavated and found a pair of sixth century graves,
Speaker 1: stone line graves. The bones are gone, there's no markers
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but they would have been the
Speaker 1: kind of graves and they were dated to Arthur's era. Furthermore, yes, furthermore,
Speaker 1: the there was evidence that these graves were disturbed in
Speaker 1: the thirteenth century, in the twelve hundreds or is it
Speaker 1: the twelfth century, sorry that they were disturbed in the
Speaker 1: twelfth century. So there's evidence that these graves are from
Speaker 1: the sixth century and that these twelfth century monks did
Speaker 1: find them and open them up. So whether or not
Speaker 1: they were Arthur and Guenevere, or if this cross ever
Speaker 1: existed and what it said, it still remains to be proven.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's very possible that these monks were
Speaker 1: just trying to drum up patronage to rebuild their Abbey,
Speaker 1: So like, hey, we found Arthur. So they may have
Speaker 1: forged cross, but it's still entirely possible that that was
Speaker 1: Arthur and Guenevere. Just because they beefed up the story
Speaker 1: with the story of a cross doesn't mean it wasn't
Speaker 1: truly their final resting place. Yeah, at the very least,
Speaker 1: there were a pair of sixth century graves there with bones.
Speaker 1: No bones. Oh well where the bones go? Did I
Speaker 1: I don't know if they moved him in the twelfth
Speaker 1: century or if they just dissolved we were talking a while. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: so is that your vote? Yeah? All right for uh
Speaker 1: the Glastonbury tour, all right, which I want to go to.
Speaker 1: This all this makes me want to go to the
Speaker 1: English countryside and just like find all this stuff. Yeah
Speaker 1: that's pretty neat. Yeah. I like old things, and it's
Speaker 1: hard to get anything super old in this country, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds, maybe hundreds if you go down to Saint Augustine.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Roma, let's see some old stuff go
Speaker 1: round I have, Yeah, I have to eat. It is neat.
Speaker 1: It's kind of neat to stand there in the Colosseum
Speaker 1: and think, holy cow, Yeah, this is the oldest thing
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. That was the one that got me
Speaker 1: and Umi was the Colosseum. I mean were everywhere else
Speaker 1: We're like, yeah, this is pretty cool for something about
Speaker 1: the Colosseum it was that was that was Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: I was pretty blown away too. Yeah. Em boy, the
Speaker 1: people man good looking, the Romans, they just all over Italy.
Speaker 1: The dudes, the chicks, they were all like models. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very stylish, very stylish. And cats everywhere where there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: street cats in Rome, They're known for it. I don't
Speaker 1: remember seeing too many. Oh you saw some cats. Oh
Speaker 1: don't they live in like all of the ruins and everything. Um,
Speaker 1: they're they're everywhere. Yeah, I like the Trevy Fountain there.
Speaker 1: That was something else. That one kind of took my
Speaker 1: breath away. We should start a travel show. I think
Speaker 1: we just did. Uh. And finally, um, maybe some of
Speaker 1: these knights were real dudes. Sir bedevere Um. He was
Speaker 1: one of the earliest knights to appear in the Arthurian
Speaker 1: legends and one of his right hand dudes. Um. He
Speaker 1: has appeared in other writings, historical writings that have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the Artherian legend exactly, and he was
Speaker 1: known as uh bed were Bedroo dant member of the
Speaker 1: Royal House of Findhu, which rose to power in Wales
Speaker 1: in the sixth century, and then Sir Kay was also
Speaker 1: possibly a real dude. Yeah. Both of them appear in
Speaker 1: a Wealsh collection of warrior poems called the Mabinogion Mabinah
Speaker 1: John take your pick. Yeah, I'm not Welsh, You're not Welsh.
Speaker 1: So either one we get craped for not pronouncing things right.
Speaker 1: But this is this stuff is tough. Oh yeah, You've
Speaker 1: got like thirteen letters in one vowel. It's like, what
Speaker 1: do you do with that? You know? And I mean
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the alphabet that I recognize. My brain
Speaker 1: just won't put it together. Uh huh agreed, And finally
Speaker 1: Arthur himself, Um, my vote is on a compilation of
Speaker 1: real people. Like I said earlier. Some folks say he
Speaker 1: might have been a Roman leader named Lucius Artorius Castus,
Speaker 1: or maybe a Roman name Aurelius Ambrosius. See I saw
Speaker 1: that Aurelius Ambrotius was his uncle was Luthar Pendragon's brother,
Speaker 1: and Uther and Aurelius had to seize power to start
Speaker 1: to restore um their lineage and Arthur followed after that. Okay, see, well,
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on who you're reading. You know,
Speaker 1: some folks say he was a British historian named Alan
Speaker 1: wins Wilson says he was a Welsh king uh Arthwist
Speaker 1: in the seventh century. I think everyone wants to claim
Speaker 1: a piece of it. I think that's what's going on here,
Speaker 1: you know. I think they're saying, no, he was this
Speaker 1: Welsh king, or no he was this Roman king, when
Speaker 1: I think he might have been all of them. Well,
Speaker 1: the idea that he was sent by the pope to
Speaker 1: basically restore order or take the British Isles back from
Speaker 1: the Saxons, definitely, um is like credence. By the idea
Speaker 1: that he kind of comes out of nowhere and like
Speaker 1: pulls the sword from the stone is like I'm arrived,
Speaker 1: I'm the king of kings now um. So the idea
Speaker 1: that he came from somewhere else is I mean that
Speaker 1: that would suggest that he could have possibly been some
Speaker 1: Roman commander. And there were Roman commanders who did come
Speaker 1: to Britain and fight the Sex and successfully was one
Speaker 1: name Arthur, yea one was named notorious. Well, there you
Speaker 1: have it. Uh. And then some people say that Arthur
Speaker 1: wasn't a name but a title art and which in
Speaker 1: Latin means bear. And if that's the case, it could
Speaker 1: just be, like you know, it could be anybody could
Speaker 1: be sure for Arthur could be bear. So why does
Speaker 1: the story persist? Because it's got romance, it's got chivalry,
Speaker 1: it's got all the classic elements of drama, uh in
Speaker 1: literature and fiction. So there you have it, and plus
Speaker 1: Monty Python's take on it doesn't hurt and perpetuating everything?
Speaker 1: What kind of a man can summon fire without flint
Speaker 1: or tinder man? You know that movie inside now attention.
Speaker 1: I watched it a lot at one point in my life.
Speaker 1: I think that's my favorite part of the movie. The
Speaker 1: um non shall pass when they have to pass the
Speaker 1: the guy that spits tells him about the rabbit. I
Speaker 1: remember the nunshell path. I don't remember the spinning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when he when he when he's talking, he's got a
Speaker 1: list spitting all over everybody. You got anything else? I
Speaker 1: got nothing else? All right? If you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about King Arthur, you can type in King Arthur
Speaker 1: in the search bar. We also recommend you go just
Speaker 1: look up stuff about King Arthur. There's plenty of stuff
Speaker 1: out there. It's fascinating. Um you let's see, I said
Speaker 1: search bar right, you did, sir, Okay, Well, then that
Speaker 1: means it's time for listening. Man. I'm gonna call this
Speaker 1: tribute to my father. For Megan, Josh, Chuck, and Jerry
Speaker 1: wanted to write to tell you thank you mentally for
Speaker 1: the show. My dad, Howard passed away nearly a year ago,
Speaker 1: and while I don't think he listened before he passed,
Speaker 1: I think he would have really enjoyed it. He was
Speaker 1: a tinkerer and loved learning new things. In fact, when
Speaker 1: I was younger and visited him during the summers, i'd
Speaker 1: be alone most days at his apartment while he worked,
Speaker 1: and he would encourage me to search random things on
Speaker 1: the Internet and read about them to learn something new.
Speaker 1: He would even leave me lists like the planet Jupiter,
Speaker 1: the state of Wyoming, or the year. I thought at
Speaker 1: the time it was pretty silly and only did it
Speaker 1: a few times. But now as an adult, I've since
Speaker 1: found your podcast a few months ago, and I find
Speaker 1: it really fascinating and it reminds me of my dad
Speaker 1: and has been really helpful to me when I get
Speaker 1: down about him being gone, makes me happy to know
Speaker 1: that he would probably think it's awesome that I spend
Speaker 1: my days learning about things now. So, Megan from plain Oh, Texas,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. Uh in memory of your father Howard.
Speaker 1: I think he would like the show too. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry he's not around to hear it. No, but
Speaker 1: I mean we're carrying on his legacy exactly. Nice. So
Speaker 1: I guess we need to do a show on the
Speaker 1: year or the state of Wyoming. Um, never not Wyoming. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you thanks a lot for that, Megan, that was
Speaker 1: nice of you to share that. Um. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with me and Chuck to tell
Speaker 1: us anything you like, you can tweet to us at
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Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can
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