April 1913 - Chronicles Of The Year Before The Great War

Vienna State Opera House by A. Hitler

The Woolworth building, the tallest building in the world (and will remain so for nearly 20 years), is finally completed after three years of construction. "At exactly half-past seven in the evening of 24 April, the American President, Woodrow Wilson, presses a button on his desk in the White House and sends a telegraphic signal to New York. This triggers the simultaneous illumination of 80,000 light bulbs in the newly finished building. ... Thousands of onlookers are waiting in the New York darkness for the moment of illumination. The tallest lighthouse in the world can be seen from far inland, and by great ships up to a hundred miles at sea."

In contrast to this moment, across the Atlantic ocean, Adolf Hitler's seen his 24th birthday come and go in the dingy, dark insides of his small bedroom. He's been rejected by the art academy, his dream demolished. "But when the talk turns to politics, a spark rushes through him. He throws his paintbrush aside, his eyes flash and he holds blazing speeches about the immoral state of the world in general, and of Vienna in particular. It can't go on, he screams, there are more Czechs living in Vienna than there are in Prague, more Jews than in Jerusalem and more Croats than in Zagreb. He flings back his strand of black hair. He sweats. Then, all of a sudden, he breaks off from his diatribe, sits back down and turns his attention to his watercolors."

Source: Florian Illies's 1913 - The Year Before The Storm

A Historical King Arthur

Sword in the Stone
Image by Matt Rogers 

I don't know how popular or not King Arthur mythologies are in the US, but they are rather prevalent here in Europe.

Of course, Europe is the seat of the medieval knight, and chivalric tales have been sung by troubadours, poets, and writers in every part of the old continent (and still are, as I saw that the British TV series Merlin is now available on Netflix* or Amazon). And I know that they've found a certain echo in America too (with a bunch of Hollywood (or similar) films such as First Knight, King Arthur, Kingdom of Heaven, cartoons such as The Sword in the Stone and Quest for Camelot, and literature such as Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court).

Yet, even then, I still get a lot of blank faces when talking about Arthurian mythology to many of my compatriots. I wonder, would this be different if King Arthur had been a real person?

Morgana Pendragon vs. Luther in Merlin

I've recently cracked open The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts by Rodney Castleden which I found tucked away in my library** so here are some portions of the author's explanations as to why Arthur may have existed after all:

• King Arthur as Great King. This title (or rather that of dux bellorum) might have been conferred to him (despite his questionable parentage, his prowess was renowned) so he could lead a joint war force against the Saxons.
• There are two dated references of our hero in the Exeter Annals:
• 516 - Battle of Badon, "in which Arthur carried the cross of our lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders for three days and three nights, and the British were victors."
• 537 - Strife of Camlann, "in which Arthur and Medraut perished [or fell]."
• Gildas, a 6th c. monk who wrote, among other things The Ruin of Britain doesn't mention him by name directly (which some deem to mean Arthur couldn't have existed), but he also had a tendency to use nicknames to talk about people already famous in his era. And one of these nicknames was "the Bear" which, in Welsh, is "Arth."
• The Easter Annals imply that King Arthur fought most of his wars against the Saxons in the 6th c. between the two battles mentioned above. Possibly as the King of Dumnonia (which covered territory now covered by Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset).
• Killibury as Arthur's main castle:
• Welsh tradition holds that Arthur's primary court was at Kelliwic (aka Killibury) (mentioned in Three Tribal Thrones of the Island of Britain, and the poem Culhwch and Olwen).



King Arthur by
Charles Ernest Butler

• An old name for Castle Killibury is Kelly Rounds, and an Anglo-Saxon charter mentiones a place called "Caellwic."
• Tintagel Island - it was not a permanent settlement, but rather a place for special occasions: "The footprint carved into the living rock at the island's summit marks it as the coronation place ... This was where Arthur drew his power from the stone."
• King Arthur had to travel a lot around his kingdoms to defend them against the Saxon invaders, to keep the peace, and to grow his subjects' loyalty toward him.
• What about Camelot? The name might be derived from the Celtic war god's name, "Camulos." So perhaps Camelot was the name for a war gathering, and therefore moved whenever Arthur and his knights moved.
• Arthur's final battle:
• Likely place was Pont ar Gamlan (a place at the confluence of two rivers in northern Wales). The Gamlan river flows into one of these not too far from there too, and its name is very similar to the final battle's name (Camlann).
• In Welsh, cadgamlan means "a complete massacre.
• This place is far from the Saxons to the east of Arthur's territory, but all the tales point to Arthur's demise coming instead from internecine wars: Arthur was betrayed by someone close to him (some say his nephew Modred or Medraut).
• This location implies Arthur was on his way north to the territory of king Maelgwn in Anglesey who might be the one who betrayed Arthur. Maelgwyn is actually one of those people that Gildas condemns in his writings for murdering his own uncle to become king.
• King Maelgwyn won the High Kingship after this battle, and King Arthur disappears from history ever since.
• "If Maelgwn was indeed responsible for the death of Arthur and for bringing the Arthurian peaceto an end, Gildas's extraordinary hatred and condemnation of Maelgwn's many-sided wickedness becomes understandable. Arthur was behnid the golden years of relative stability and justice between the Battles of Badon and Camlann, and those years came to an end with his final defeat."
• What become of Arthur's body?
• Welsh tradition: He was mortally wounded at the last battle and carried elsewhere to die. And the people close to him didn't want to spread panic amongst his kingdoms until a successor was found.
• Cornish/Breton tradition: He survived the battle and was taken elsewhere (Avalon?) to be treated. This could also be likely, as "it was common for Dark Age kings to retire when they became physically incapable of fighting through age or infirmity. They withdrew from public life completely by entering monasteries." (After all, Avalon is supposed to be a Holy Place.)
• If Arthur's reign ended the day he lost his final battle, but he still survived a few more years in secret confinement, it would explain why there are some inconsistencies for Arthur's death (537, the date of the Battle of Camlann, or 539 as mentioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth).

The Last Sleep of King Arthur by Edward Burne-Jones

But perhaps people's lack of enthusiasm these days with regards to King Arthur versus, say, Robin Hood, has nothing to do with how historical or not he was, but with the fact that his mythology has a rather sad ending?

After all, according to Rodney Castleden, "a distinctive feature of the Celts is dwelling on defeats; there is wailing, keening, lamentation, and nostalgia. A. L. Rouse commented, "It was the hero of the losing side, King Arthur, who imposed himself on the imagination." Arthur became a symbol of the glory of Britain as it once was and might yet have been, but for its destruction by the Saxon invaders. He was the perfect symbol of a kingdom and a culture lost."

And this attitude is, however poetic, not a very American trait...

What about you? What is it about Arthurian mythology that you like?

*I have yet to watch it...
**That's the trouble with purchasing LOTS of books all the time, you kind of lose track of what you do, or don't, have in your own library. Still, considering I am still within the Morgana Trilogy world which was inspired by such tales (in fact, I am currently working on a prequel at the behest of some awesome readers), thought I'd read it from cover to cover :)

(Re)Sources:

1. The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts is a very handy little book with tons of different types of entries on items that touch on the Celts. From historical characters, to mythological creatures and people, and religious, political, societal items and facts. It is very well-researched, and sometimes includes some particular views and theses of the author which I find make this work even more interesting!
   It's separated into six parts:


1. Celtic People and Lifestyle
2. Celtic Places
3. Celtic Religion
4. Myths, Legends, and Stories
5. Symbols, Ideas, and Archetypes
6. Celtic Twilight and Revival
   
2. Chivalric romance tales mostly centered around Ancient Greece (Trojan War, Alexander the Great), France (Charlemagne and his knight Roland), and British (King Arthur, the Holy Grail epics): Wiki

March 1913 - Chronicles Of The Year Before The Great War

Reclining Nude by Gustav Klimt

March 1913. Last few days of the Winter Season. The Fed (aka Federal Reserve Bank) is founded. Funnily enough, this is a private venture, independent of Congress despite Congress having created it, and some of its biggest shareholders and members of this new system are "the banking houses Rothschild, Lazard, Warburg, Lehmann, Rockefellers Chase Manhattan and Goldman Sachs."

On the old continent, Gustav Klimt still paints in his studio. He likes to do so naked under his apron, "so that he can take it off quickly when desire overwhelms him and the pose of one of his models becomes too seductive for the man inside the painter." Virginia Woolf sends her first book, The Voyage Out, to her publisher (it will not be very successful when it comes out).

It is in March 1913, also, that Harry Graff Kessler meets the English queen at a big dinner hosted at the German Embassy in London. Queen Consort Mary, according to Kessler, "'looked reasonably good, in silver brocade with a crown of diamonds and big turquoise stones.'  Otherwise she was rather a trial: 'I couldn't leave her standing on her own, and she couldn't find a way out of the conversation, and you have to keep winding the poor thing up like a run-down watch, but that only works for thirty seconds at a time.' Incidentally, as he confides to his diary, there is no threat of war, or so he has heard: 'The European situation  has been completely reversed for a year and a half. The Russians and the French are forced to be peaceful, as they can no longer rely on England's support.'"

Source: Florian Illies's 1913 - The Year Before The Storm