The Oracle

First of all... Tintagel as camelot. There is no evidence for this it's just another case of people trying to claim a link to Arthur, like at Glastonbury, Camelford, Numerous place in Wales, Northern England and Southern Scotland.
Second... Arthur's surname wasn't Pendragon. Pendragon was a title given to Uther (the translation was right though ). Arthur is also a title, we don't know his real name. It comes, as far as I know, from both Welsh and Latin, Arth being Wlsh for bear and Ur being short for Ursa - Latin For bear. So Arthur was known as The Bear.

a meer peasent. al though my french ancesor rose to the rank of lord of the manor. a gift from wiliam

as a fluent welsh speaker and welsh being my first language, with a name like mine you almost have to be, i was confident Gwain the Head = Pen!

and the translation of Arth = bear is correct too

but just beacuse the the start of the name means something in welsh doesnt mean thats meaning of the word. like brad in welsh is treachery that doesnt mean that the name Bradley the name means treachery!

yer but my original surname 640 ce was translated directly as man servant, common ancester to all my family was the man servant to a norse kingof the time. no matter what the current spelling.
my ancestors enigrated through europe, ending in france and into russia, st petersburg i think.

Fantastic stuff, cheers to everyone!!!

As for the origin of your surname Odin's Raven, thankyou so much for sharing. Honestly things like that are really of interest of me, another person on this forum has an interesting name aswel. I think we need a board to cover such things.

See you've all got my brain working again lol

another possible translation of Arthur in terms of title is that the old irish gaelic Ard-Ri (arth-ri) means High King. I read a piece a while ago about gwenivere (welsh gwynwhyfar sometimes gwynwhyfach) being a pictish princess (a very interesting and obviously controversial piece!). At around the 'correct' time in history, the Irish Scots (who went on to form Scotland) had a stronghold in Scotland and may have bought the term over with them. So it could have been gwenivere who gave Arthur the title, as Arthur as a name was not in common usage until after the logical date for arthur suggesting people were naming their children after a famous figure.


On another interesting note, Arthur could be connected to many parts of england and wales. Arthur was said to have fought 12 battles against the saxons, culminating in the battle of badon, which bought in a generation of peace. there are so many locations put forward for where these battle took place and they range all over the country, even to Armorica (modern day Brittany. many native britons fled there when the saxons invaded).

has any one read about the latin translation artorus. as in the general?

Can't say as I have OR but it's not really my field. It does seem as if everyone wants to claim a piece of the Legend for themselves though.

Don't you think in some cases that some of the facts are massaged to fit the myths in order to gain credibility?

X

That seems to be the way of things, I think over the years every single little village has tried to tie itself to these legends. Out of interest and slightly off topic, there was a burial uncovered in Glastonbury. It was believed to be Authers grave but the monks who uncovered it did such a rush job that no archaeological data was ever retrieved from it.

Now part of me was annoyed that they did that, the other part is pleased. Sometimes its better that a mystery remains a mystery, after all life would be pretty boring otherwise.

I used to study in a little town called Caerleon in South Wales.

It also claimed to be the seat of Arthur - does anyone know anything more about there?

little like bodica . you living in suffolk should know about the stories of where her capital was supposed to be. namely Exning. for those who dont live round this area its a little village on the suffolk cambridge border. bit of a dump lol.

i think tony robinson (time team) done some follow up to the stories of both to no avaiil.

odins raven, do you mean Lucius Artorius Castus from the 2nd century?

Odins Raven. It's more the inland of East Anglia that carry on about Boudicca I think, even though the Iccini tribe were closer to where I am.

To my shame I don't know an awful lot about her but I did used to work at the Sutton Hoo site so Cadno I can identify with what you say about excavation against the clock. Sutton Hoo has a pretty good argument for the managed archeological dig though as two out of the three burial mounds were grave robbed and thier treasures, undocumented as they are, will never be able to tell us anything of the time.

To a certain extent I wish there wasn't anything like archeology invented because I feel that sites such as the Archer at Avesbury, are being desecrated to satisfy our curiosity and frankly I don't think that's a good enough reason.

I think, when I've got some time on my hands, I'll do some research into the Celtic history of my part of the country. Thanks for inspiring me Odins Raven.

X

Cadno ap annwn wrote:That seems to be the way of things, I think over the years every single little village has tried to tie itself to these legends. Out of interest and slightly off topic, there was a burial uncovered in Glastonbury. It was believed to be Authers grave but the monks who uncovered it did such a rush job that no archaeological data was ever retrieved from it.

Now part of me was annoyed that they did that, the other part is pleased. Sometimes its better that a mystery remains a mystery, after all life would be pretty boring otherwise.

I love that the inscription read "Here lies Arthur, Buried in Avalon".
How many gravestones have you seen that say where you are? It says he's buried here, why would you need to know where here is? You're already here!!!

So you're with the lets have a mystery and keep it gang then Gawain