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The
Round Table And Beyond
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King
Arthur's Round Table
The earthworks at Eamont Bridge, near Penrith.
Arthur
Reborn
The legend states that Arthur will come again when his nation
is most in need. One man believes he's the reincarnation of
the ancient king.
King
Arthur's Knights
Arthur
didn't work alone. Find out about the other people in the
legends.
Arthurian
Legend at the
Fell Ponies Museum
Why are there no Black Horse Inns in an area where there are
so many black ponies?
Rheged
The
name given to the northern kingdom that became Cumbria during
the Dark Ages - also the visitor's centre near Penrith.
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| FACTS |
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Arthur
is the Anglicised version of the name Arthwyr, which
roughly translated means 'bear man'.
A
Middle Ages historian claimed Arthur was the High King of
Britain, a descendant of the French Bretons' lineage. They
arrived in Britain at the beginning of the 5th Century.
Another version of the historical Arthur was a man known as
Riothamus, a title meaning 'greatest king'. Riothamus was
another Breton, supposedly exiled to Britain after one of
Britanny's many civil wars.
The
Clan Campbell trace their tribal pedigree back to a man known
as 'Arthur ic Uibar', or Arthur, son of Uther.
Excalibur
was a two-for-the-price-of-one gift for the king. The famous
sword came in a scabbard which was also magical, protecting
its owner from injury and illness.
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Before
he pulled that sword out of that stone, the young Arthur would have
been running about in a country looking less like that of First Knight
and more like the one in Monty Python and the Holy Grail - although
the knights would have been more interested in staying alive than
gadding about singing and dancing. The legend goes that Arthur was
kept in the dark about his destiny, although Merlin had foreseen the
young lad’s destiny years before.
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| Did
Arthur attend 'warrior school' on the Roman Wall? |
Young
Arthur
Arthur’s father, Uther, was certainly local but whether young
Wart grew up in Cumbria is another matter. His adoptive father,
Ector, lived to the west of Bala in north Wales. But legend also
claims that Arthur was trained in a warrior school on the Roman
Wall. By 410AD, the Roman grip on Britain was slipping. The empire’s
soldiers were being withdrawn from Britain to help in conflicts
elsewhere and local men had been trained and employed by the Roman
Army for some time, so it’s quite likely that Arthur could
have been trained at one of the Roman forts within Cumbria.
Excalibur
A lot of the Cumbrian claims to Arthur rely in part on the circumstances
of his death. Excalibur, and how it came to be in Arthur’s
care, is one such part of the story. The legend goes that when Arthur
was fatally wounded he asked one of his knights to return Excalibur
to the lake it came from. Bedivere, the knight in question, made
two trips to the lake and back before the dying Arthur was satisfied
and asked to be taken to Avalon. If the lake in question was in
another part of the country, Bedivere’s first round trip would
have taken days, if not weeks or months.
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| Bassenthwaite
looking suitably mysterious |
Lord
Alfred Tennyson was also keen on the idea of Excalibur being found
in and returned to a Cumbrian lake. He was inspired to write the
description of King Arthur’s final journey and the return of
the sword to the water when staying at Mirehouse, overlooking Bassenthwaite.
Directions:
Mirehouse is about 4 miles north of Keswick, on the left of the
road about half a mile north of Little Crossthwaite. There is car
parking at Whinlatter Forest Park and Visitor Centre. Alternatively,
you can catch the X4, 555, 73 or 73A buses to the house.
The
Round Table
What with his legendary round table, Arthur could have taught modern
group psychologists a thing or two. His parliament of knights would
have sat in various locations around the country as and when they
were needed in different places, but the favourite location in Cumbria
is the aptly-named King Arthur's Round Table, an earthworks at Eamont
Bridge, near Penrith. The site is a natural amphitheatre, ideal
for knights to gather and swap their stories of adventure ad romance
- and it's also said that fifty champions of the realm gathered
there to fight for the hand of King Arthur's daughter, Gyneth.
Nearby
is Giant's Cave - a place associated with two giants called
Tarquin and Isir. The pair lived on a diet of human flesh, a practice
which might have lost its appeal when Sir Lancelot slew Tarquin
in battle.
Locations
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