Forgotten History of Britain 4: Sir William Flinders Petrie and Britain's forgotten past 

I am really enjoying this series. Thanks so much.

Very well presented again, the time and effort you are putting into Welsh/British history is very much appreciated. Thanks!

Another fascinating talk Adrian, thank you! Interesting that the early Brits/Welsh passed on information with the rhythm of songs and poetry and still do today with Esteddfords.

1:04:30 …guessing that part of chariot use would have been a lightweight wicker shield facing the wall of fire to take out the force of arrows and sling shot while ‘wheel-mowing’ - same as today canopies are appearing above personnel-carriers and lighter motorised artillery being used in Ukraine to defend against drone-fire…..also 1:14:42 the idea of cleft/cleaving put against the physical iron-ore makes good suggestion for an origin of ‘the sword in the stone’..

Great presentation, Adrian. Thank you! You will probably enjoy "Britain’s Forgotten Church - The Hidden Christianity of the Isles" on the "Matter of Britain" YT channel.

I wonder if the sum raised for a rare manuscript actually paid for the education of the students? Selling your heritage for knowledge/advantages/survival? Only half way through and loving it, by the way. Seen previous lectures already. Great reference point for research my wife and I are currently working on. Thank you.

Great triangulation. But as an additional thought, Is it possible that Geoffrey's original Brythonic text was actually a 'bardic' version; in verse, with the 'embellishment' already embedded? The detail therein of the characters may well have substance, as the success of transmission down the generations would be far greater with (originally accurate) personification. The bonus of the nemonic tricks of association are powerful aids, but also the bards were blockbuster entertainment, telling (real) (his)stories, where crowds would hang on the high drama unfolding. If so, it may explain why there are (phonetic?) discrepancies to the dry bruts. It may also make more sense of Geoffrey's claim not to be painting gordy pictures, yet the received position seems to be that he was 'merely embellishing dry bruts' . There's an inherent contradiction if we accept his Brythonic original text was real and he was clearly diligent. In fact, his superior may well have had basic Brythonic and selected such a 'verse transcription' poetic text specifically, if the motivation was to poke the ancestral brythonic fire for Robert. Were this the case, Geoffrey may have actually been 'toning things down' into prose from verse, and his opening comments then make sense as a dig against his contemporaries' creative tendencies AND give context for the apparently 'romanticised' resultant script. As you said at the start Adrian, this would have to pass muster with a very powerful supervisor and the most powerful man in the country, who would probably have spoken early Welsh/ Brythonic as his mother's tongue. The text may have been more of a lingua franca propaganda tool for dissemination to the non Brythonic speakers i.e. the French and Anglo Saxon elites whom Robert would need to ally. Possibly even much further afield. Brythonic was likely vernacular throughout (the modern area of mainland) Britain, decreasingly in pockets surviving well into the 16th/17th century. Some old farmers are STILL aware of the tradition of counting in Brythonic, and not just in my native Cumbria, which is chock full of (undiluted) Brythonic place names. I've seen reports of 'yan, tan , tethera, methera, bimp' etc up into very recent times from Lincs and the southwest. Anglo Saxon/English was likely another elite language and the common folk spoke Brythonic widely anyway. Even in 'Saxon' and 'Danish' areas. The genetics from the big dig in E Yorks confirms a sizeable 'brit' presence in some 'Anglo Saxon' areas. Quite a few have isotopes from childhoods in Cumbria /Rhegged. Which was still very much Brythonic. They were found alongside someAnglo Saxons from the continent and people brought up locally, not in 'slave' burials. We might extrapolate this to be common across Britain combined with the language survival evidence. We also now know the brythonic genetic characteristics are common throughout Britain now, and academics are head scratching as to why Anglo Saxon and Viking genes are nowhere near as common in most areas as had been presumed. So the Brits didn't go away.