King Arthur - Mythillogical Podcast 

“Some watery Tart distributing swords is no basis for a system of Government....”

It’s a crime that the RU-vid algorithm punishes creators like you who make amazing documentaries like this instead of rewarding you, this channel has a quarter of the subscribers it deserves

When the part about the scabbard was read, I got what the message was: if you carry a scabbard, people will assume you are ready to fight, but willing to talk. If you walk around with a drawn sword, though, everyone will assume you are there to kill them and want to fight you because they feel they must. Maybe in this version of the story, it was literal and magical, but I sense that expression was originally used metaphorically.

The movie "Excalibur" has Mordred portrayed as both Arthur's illegitimate son (by his half-sister, Morgan le Fay) AND his nephew.

Merlin is nuts in the older takes on this tale, wow. A regular Mai'iq the Liar

So, I study a lot of the early Welsh texts (including the Arthurian bits), and every pre-Monmouth text you mentioned I have on my shelf and have read (most of at least, Gildas gets a little too religious for me so it’s a chore even though I find it funny). If you’re interested in talking more about it or delving deeper I’d love to talk about it! There aren’t many people in Southern California who study this... Also, I can definitely help with the welsh pronunciation, I’m quite into linguistics, and welsh is of particular interest to me. And Bede is pronounced like bead.

You guys forgot to mention that time when King Arthur and Merlin meets up with the Transformers......

I took a university class on the history of Arthur a few semesters ago and really appreciated hearing your thoughts on my boys Geoffrey and Chrétien

Interesting talk so far, but you're right - the Welsh pronunciations are awful! ;) In the spirit of giving something back... sounds below in [brackets] are the emphasis syllables in the word, which is almost always the penultimate syllable in a multi-syllabic word.. Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen) = c-aye-r [vuhr]-thin (dd is always pronounced "th" as in "the", not "thanks") Myrddin = [muhr]-thin Y Gododdin = uh god-[o]-thin (the middle o is a short sound that rhymes with the "god", not a long sound like "ode") Mabinogion = mab-ih-[nog]-yon (there isn't a soft "g" in Welsh, it's always a hard "g" sound) Ysbaddaden Pencawr = us-ba-[tha]-den [pen]-cow-r (cow as in the bovine animal!) Cai = K-aye Bedwyr = [bed]-weer (in this circumstance, the "w" is a consonant rather than a vowel so is pronounced as it is in English) Gwalchmei = [gwalkh]-may Gwrhyr = [goor]-heer Taliesin = tal-ee-[ehss]-in That'll do for now! :D

why is everyone obsessed with the “historical” king arthur i can’t even find a video about the ACTUAL mythology

Any idea when we're gonna get a mythillogical on flood stories? I can't wait for it

Sir Balin-the sudden murder gift that keeps on giving.

I am reminded of once being told how the French(Norman) conquerors added cuckoldry to the tale of King Arthur to demoralise/mock the natives, or maybe because that just seems to be a rather common French trope.

I'm so surprised they didn't mention Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the beginning as a large part of arthurian examples in popular works.

I've really loved and appreciated these videos. Thank you for the outstanding work you've put into them and for sharing them with us.

Ah yes, the stories about my most famous namesake. Where the "canon" itself is layers of fanfiction.

He left a lad of honor, but on the battlefield fighting, became our legendary hero, our lord of yore. He destroyed the enemy one by one with blows from Excalibur, his mystical "MIGHTY SWORD!" Fighters with giants came to displace our rightful king, Merlin's fearsome spell casting did intervene. "Victorious!" Was the way of battles, everyone would now bow to their new leader "The Pendragon King!"

People always understimate the Arthurian Legend. Keep up the good work!

Cool episode, I wonder if you guys ever came across any cognates of Arthur from other Celtic speaking areas? I know that the Welsh stories remind me a lot of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Fianna

Caliburn is the sword from the stone, it's a symbol of the king. Excalibur was the sword given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake, it is the war blade.

Also I don't remember if it was mentioned, but since listening to this I've come across the figure of Ambrosius Aurelianus in anglo-british texts, including bede, who waged successful wars against the english in exactly the time referred to as "Arthurian". It looks like this guy is the main inspiration for the legends surrounding the figure and I'm not the first to make the connection. I think the only conflict arises from early stories about King Arthur also including him as Arthur's uncle, ironically cementing him as a separate figure. I have a pretty strong feeling that this was the man.

I like the theory that there was possible two Arthur's. One who fought in some Roman civil war in France (an actual king) and the second one was simply a prince that died in battle with Mordred (both dying). Later, they added the two together.

King Arthur was Welsh. He was the King of Glamorgan and Gwent. He came from a long line of Welsh kings. There are many books out there with the true history of King Arthur. Artorius Rex by Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett is a very informative book on this subject.

How have you not heard of the venerable Bede? I've always heard it pronounced bead.

I love you, Histocrat. Thank u for all of your hard work

Thumbs up at 0:01 for the music alone. ❤️👍🏻 🎼

I just found you this morning and have listened to you all day and into the night as I work, thank you!

Hungover and this is giving me life… cheers lads 🍻

Arcturus is brightest star in the northern hemisphere, in the constellation Bootes, near Ursa Major or 'The Great Bear' ⭐🐾

I believe Geoffrey of Monmouth, should be refereed to as a historical novelist.

Thank you very much for all of the time and effort put in by both of you ! The quality isn’t anything to worry about either !

Your voice sounds fine. Love you guys! Stay safe and keep up the great content for us!

Arthur the bear son of Uther Pendragon (cave dragon), the reborn hero, becoming a god, now and future king/hero. Ther are no death for the hounuruble. The sword in the stone, means onley the best man in the tribe could be a king. Merlin is the sourcerer the Druid helping a young boy become a man a king, a reborn. The story of king Arthur is a mix of our old myths And myths are real in the sence that it is the story of us and reality.

King Arthur is ARTHWYS AP MEURIG AP TEWDRIG and he was the WELSH 6th century KING of GLAMORGAN & GWENT!

How could Joseph of Arimathea have a shield with the cross of Saint George if Saint George was born centuries later?

Been waiting for your next upload!!!!

When are we gonna get the second part to The Druids?

Nice episode ! Only listened to the first half so far, and you do a good job of boiling down an insane amount of stories I think. But a few notes before I forget to send them : 0:51:43 The Round Table appears in Wace, but it already has this idea of equality : "Because of these noble lords about his hall, of whom each knight pained himself to be the hardiest champion, and none would count him the least praiseworthy, Arthur made the Round Table, so reputed of the Britons. This Round Table was ordained of Arthur that when his fair fellowship sat to meat their chairs should be high alike, their service equal, and none before or after his comrade. Thus no man could boast that he was exalted above his fellow, for all alike were gathered round the board, and none was alien at the breaking of Arthur’s bread." (trans. Mason 2007) Layamon, who did an english Brut, translation of Geoffrey, develops the description adding the idea it was instituted after a fight for the best places. 0:52:20 A nuance I'd add to complicate the portait of Robert de Boron's works is there's basically 1) verse works first : - a verse Roman de l'Estoire dou Graal about the Grail - a verse Merlin (from which we only have a very short portion of the beginning, in only one manuscript that is also the only one we have for the verse Roman de l'Estoire dou Graal) And 2) then have a prose cycle - prose Joseph (prose version of the Roman de l'Estoire dou Graal) - prose Merlin (continuing the verse version, ending with the sword in the stone basically) - prose Perceval (concluding the cycle, using Chrétien de Troyes and the "second continuation" of Perceval as well as the ending from Wace, probably a later conclusion and not from the "original" Robert de Boron, if he existed) We can see that the prose Joseph is a faithful, even literal, adaptation from the verse Roman de l'Estoire dou Graal, so it lends creedance to the idea that the beginning of the verse Merlin is a true remnant of the "sequel" about Merlin, as it is contained in the only manuscript with the roman. But, we don't really know if the Prose Merlin is a faithful continuation of this verse poem. (Corinne Füg-Pierreville even suggested after close examination of the texte (2014) that the verse version actually seemed to derive from the prose, and not the contrary, but you can imagine it mangles the chronology even mores) A continuation would be added to the prose Merlin to join it into the Lancelot-Grail as you said, with very minor tweaks to fit either with the "Boron" prose cycle or the Lancelot-Grail. I know it doesn't really add much except if you really want to make the episode like 30 minutes longer with little added value. 1:01:40 You left out the five years of wandering of Perceval, and his meeting with an uncle that explains to him that the fisher king is another one of his mother's brothers. (and Gawain also starts an adventure, trying to fing the bleeding lance, but it strays a bit from the plot even if we could imagine it was going to tie to the conclusion). 1:10:50 The Post-Vulgate is a really confusing work, even to start understanding what it actually consists of, in terms of texte. What we know of it is pieced together from spanish and portuguese works, as well as some versions of the Prose Tristan (itself a nightmare of textual tradition), for which we assume a lost, coherent, old french source: the Post-Vulgate. (even though people might get sceptical sometimes that there actually was a fully redacted work to the extent of a cycle). So I don't hold it against you at all (I don't even think that there is a simple way to "read the Post-Vulgate" for a layman like you or me) but about this cistercian influence. There is already a (probable) cistercian influence in the original Queste del Saint Graal in the Lancelot-Grail -- the knights have to rely on hermits to interpret the weird visions and apparitions along the quest ("wow you mean to tell my this bleeding pelican, feeding his children with his blood is actually a metaphor for Jesus ???"). The white robes of the tonsured hermits imply that they're cistercians. See for example : www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/GCMS/RMS-1995-04_K._Pratt,_The_Cistercians_and_the_Queste_del_Saint_Graal.pdf (Karen Pratt, "The Cistercians and the Queste del Saint Graal") The Post-Vulgate actually de-emphasize a lot of religious elements! For example Galahad is not this perfect saintly knight beyond all mortals anymore but he can be beaten a few times. At the beginning of the quest, a sword is brought to court and bleeds when Gawain takes it, showing he will kill many knights during the quest, which he later does. But he denies the prophecy saying that it might just be magic to deceive them. He then leaves for the Quest in secret despite Arthur's warning, which prompts Arthur to curse his nephew. There is a "skepticism" from the characters about this type of signs that were essential in the Vulgate version of the Quest. It's really the dark and gritty reboot sometimes. As well, Lancelot is not really less adulterous, he gets caught with Guenevere so the Post Vulgate version of the Mort Artu does not differ much, except it's so shortened it's sometimes comical (in a spanish version, Arthur doesn't even kill Mordred, he sees that Blioberis has just killed him and carries his head behind him, and that's it). I've been doing a (french) podcast about arthurian legends for a few years, so I tend to get needlessly nitpicky about this. But I want to insist you did a really good job all round! And now to the second half…

super interesting break down! glad to see more mythology. but the audio is kind of hard to hear on so many of your videos, which i do really enjoy. not referring to the note at the beginning of the episode, but sort of an echo in general on all the recordings. just a note from a fan!

Gram is the oldest sword mentioned in kingship,possibly the serpent sword.

given that the Ancient Britons were pushed to the west I feel like we're missing far too much information to dismiss Arthur as a real historical character, what we have from Cornwall and Wales etc may just be remnants from further east which travelled with the displaced Britons west. I cant rule out him being an old god figure from one of the tribes

Excellent, informative and appreciated. Thank you!🌷

Scythian tales probably based on an Armenian Roman cavalry officer,originally a tree was drawn from a tree in a court yard,probably city of Ur Sumerian origins possibly Mithridates.

Me sitting here waiting for the talk about lady of the lake.

This whole thing makes me wonder if merlin was constructed with Odin as the foundation.

More of these! Love em!!!

Author was a true figure. I just heard this so I'm sketchy on the details..but his name was not Author..one of his TITLE's is AUTHOR for "The Bear" in Anglo saxon,( I think) So the clue is he was a king 👑 that was referred to as 'The Bear' I apologize for not having more information. I was busy when I came across this set of facts. . I cannot even remember the historian connected to the information. I want to say Michael Wood. Perhaps you guys can hunt up the facts and get to the nitty gritty on it. If I do, I'll let you know! Cheers!

The painting on the thumbnail actually looks alot like the dude who played arthur in the show merlin

Mythillogic Ep. 3: Galahad Attains Heaven

I remember watching Arthur of the Britons on TV in the 70s. Quite a grounded version as I recall.

After just finishing the BBC merlin series with family this was a nice round off . tyvm . AA .Attanasio book `The dragon and the unicorn ` is great fantasy take and he is great on old Welsh novels that are so real you live them whilst reading !.

great episode!

Best part about this doc, listening to a dude with a super proper sounding British accent say "stright murdered" a dozen times in a row 😝 rip original gangster sir BALLIN 🙏🏻 ... i mean Balin? 🤔 ... anywho... Heyyyyyy! 🤣 On a more serious note just very excellent work, i really enjoyed hearing about the history of the tale and how it possibly originated and parallels with other lore. and then deep diving the evolution and how the legend was progressively shaped in different eras and kinda how it shaped the various eras as well. Good stuff guys 👏🏻 thanks for sharing!

I know this is an older episode, with less standardized process of research. But I'm shocked that at no point did Charles or Crofty even look up what the Eucharist is and why the Holy Grail was considered so important. A lot of insight probably could have been brought in if they had this info.

Beowulf possibly the same story tellers as Arthur,in Sweden and Gotland you can see Hecate riding a wolf on standing stones,above Hecate can be seen the Armenian wolf banner the same as Scythian wolf banner,possibly Roman cavalry!!

He was king of bernicia at the mouth of the Tyne. On one side you have Tynemouth castle and piory once called PEN bel crag and on the other side of the river south shields arbeia ( land of the Arabs) went the Romans left = camalot. Also watch the film the last legion

Heracles and 12 Labors, Arthur and 12 Knights, Jesus and 12 Apostles, Jacob and 12 Tribes, a theme arises, the Zodiac can be described and discussed within these narratives, they are stories that are meant to preserve and teach astronomical phenomena necessary for time keeping, these are often real heroes catastrophized, constellations.

Lady of the Lake, protector of the world; General Extraordinaire, Lady In THe Lake, LILITH. Best woman EVER.

The "FisherKing" is the loon. The Looney one, Loki.

There were 3 different arthurs. Ambrosius, Arthur of Somerset and Arthur of Rheged. So its not surprising that people get mixed up with the stories. I believe the Britons were a tribe from Wales?

A must see and IMHO the best cinematic telling of the Arthurian legend is the 1980's film Excalibur by John Boorman, actually surprised it was not mentioned in this video, which aside from that is an excellent look at the subject.

So good, id often thought after seeing afew varients of the pop culture shows and films that morgan/morgana was the morrigan. The mention of the lady possibley being an aspect of fhe same woman may work... ive only come across the morrigan in david gemmels sword in the storm series, maybe if content is needed one day...

Balin is a total mad lad

Interesting that Barwick, Capital of the Ancient Kingdom of Elmet is in Arthursdale, So many Brittonic placenames and Welsh Towns (Wealdstone, Walton etc) in West & North Yorkshire fit Sites from Arthurs Legends, If later Norse & Norman adaptations are taken into Account, Eboracum (York) is another Legionary City and the Site of Constantine's Conversion, Regarding the Trojan Connection, I find that curious as the Parisi Tribe were The Easterly Neighbours of the Brigantes (Later Elmet) before the Roman Invasion, Funny Coincidence.

Always good presentation

Thank you for sharing this info

The soureress trapped in a tree after tricking Merlin? Is there any reference to its whereabouts location? As I'm familiar with a location in woodland of such behaviour where there's also seven crusader knights in spirits only now. Which guards the tree. I have more information however curious to its knowledge about the location where abouts.

The venerable Bede (pronounced BEED) who never left his monastery in what is now Jarrow in Northumberland..

A hypnotic investigation has recently suggested that there were in fact two Arthurs belonging to the same royal house in Leeds. One was a king who never fought, the other a brother of a king who fought constantly. See the Hypno-Archaeologist by Philip Ditchfield.

TY! ❤🧡💛💙💞💚🤎🖤🤍

For the record, I liked all the stories and movies about King Arthur, even the 2004 version. Yes, it was an entirely different story/idea/historical fiction, but it was well done. Besides, the fact Mythillogical is making this video, might indicate no one really knows. Why knock interesting ideas, even if far-fetched?

*askeladd wants to know your location*

Arthur meant "bear man" one mighty in battle,the Chieftan who won the battle of Baddon Hill in 519 was Owyen (Owen)

Ah ha, I just found your podcast so I can listen on the move!

Can someone post the timestamp where Gawaine and the Green Knight shows up? Thanks

Could Frollo of Gaul be based on the Viking king Rollo of Normany and not Emperor Leo?

"Go on Bohrs, take it's head off"

Ermine heraldry is the oldest and most interesting heraldry.

Who Arthur was and Arthurian legend are two different animals entirely. Arth means bear in old brythonic and was probably the of a king in post roman Britain. But later Arthurian legend is more closely related to first century Jerusalem then Britain.

I've heard that the Lancelot and Guinevere adultery story is actually stolen from the earlier "Tristan and Isolde" story that was very popular back then and it's kind of tacked on to the Arthurian tales? Geoffrey of Monmouth actually says it was Mordred that takes off with Arthur's wife while he's away fighting. But I guess it's much more Tristen and Isolde-esk to make Arthur's most beloved Knight do the dirty deed?

Not a British emperor per se but Clodius Albinus was a usurper based in Britain who struck coinage. Then he went to Gaul to take over and work from there. He was a really powerful bloke and was in texts being circulated around the time the Arthurian legends were being developed. Wouldn't be that weird if he was an off-stage influence so to speak. Incidentally he went in front of his troops at one point calling Commodus worse than shite and demanding the restoration of the Senate as the leading power, so whatever his failings in life he still lives on in a Ridley Scott fever dream. Again, I don't know if he was a direct influence etc etc...

Robin Hood would be interesting

Hecate is possibly a wet nurse goddess of three aspects based on Innana Nanna.

Did you lads come across the writings of Baram Blackett and Alan Wilson whilst researching this? Dodgy guys, far out theories, but parts of their research was very interesting.

Whats wrong with the 2004 film? First off its just a good movie. And it makes more sense for him to be a pre Christian military leader. His advisor is a wizard, he's called Pendragon, and he goes off into the misty island. I dont know if hes Sarmatian, but definitely more Celtic/Welsh than Anglo.

Mab-ee-nog-yon if that helps. The welsh mispronounciation drinking game nearly killed me

Henry VII mom wasn't a queen but a descendent of John of gaunt

My theory is that it is Christianity. The word and concept of a knight came much later that the legend started and came from the German kneckt "servant". The "round table" where everyone is equal is the table of the Host, the Eucharist. Arthur is a Latin name of a noble family, Arturus, and means "Noble". Guinevere means "white spirit". This is the Holy Spirit that the Noble King is united to. Percival means "One who pierces the valley" and this is the sword in the side. The sword in the stone is the crucifixion as well, the Stone being a name for the Lord Jesus Christ. All the names can be translated and fit into the narrative. But that is my theory, I am not saying it 100% what it is, just that I think what it is.

Arthur uniting all of England, England at this time did not exist it was Britain

Oh they’re tough and able. Quite in-de-fat-i-gable

more videos with crofty please

Do one on "The Beast of Gévaudan"

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The Galahad going to heaven bit was a good laugh.

Weseethecviolence inherent in these stem!🙀😄

If my math is correct Arthur could reach a killrate of 6.25/minute if you assume he killed those 9000 in 24h

The scabbard is a fanny and the sword is a dick. The scabbard is woman, family and home; the sword is war and conflict.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur_(film)

Do one on wrestling in mythology.

I have to push the pram a lot!