THE STORY OF ARTHUR IS SO WELL KNOWN THAT IT IS NOT NECESSARY to signal it with Arthur’s name—the names Merlin, Lancelot, or Guinevere will do. Even the name of Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, will do, or the name of the place where he lived, Camelot. Excalibur is, without a doubt, the most famous sword there has ever been, and Camelot is, if not the most famous place there has ever been, certainly up there in the reckoning. The legendary Arthur had two swords: the sword he took from the stone and Excalibur, the sword given to him by the Lady of the Lake. This is counterintuitive. One warrior, one sword makes more sense. Rodrigo Diaz, El Cid, had two swords, Colada, a Spanish sword and Tizona, a Moorish sword, but then he led Spaniards and Moors and so this makes sense.
Perhaps there is some good reason why the legendary Arthur had two swords, but one reason is obvious. Malory had two good stories: the sword and the stone story and the Lady of the Lake story in which Arthur is given the magical sword Excalibur. These two stories required two different swords, and Malory was not prepared to leave either story untold. Of course Arthur could not take a sword from a stone and the same sword from a lady in a lake, and so two swords were necessary.
To begin with I dismissed both of these stories because they both involve the supernatural. There is no such thing as the divine right of kings and even if there was, it would be preposterous to suppose that the choice of a king would be left to the whim of a supposedly magical stone. Neither are there such things as a magical swords and even if there were, to believe that one might appear out of a lake in the hands of a woman who lived under the water, would be absurd.
Malory’s stories are counterintuitive in one other way. It would make more sense if the sword used in the king-picking event was the most valued sword. Swords used at coronations and inaugurations are usually especially highly prized. Common sense dictates that this sword should be Excalibur. Common sense also dictates that this ceremonial sword would not be a fighting sword used day-to-day in battle.
Malory had a problem: how was he to keep both of his wonderful stories and still have the right sword in the right place at the right time? Unfortunately he did not have a wonderful solution. Malory’s solution was to make the sword Arthur took from a stone an ordinary sword and have it broken in battle soon thereafter, and to make the sword taken from the lake a special sword, indeed a magical sword, Excalibur. This had to be so because Bedevere would not have hesitated before throwing a workaday sword into the lake. The sword Bedevere threw into the lake had to be Excalibur. Only the return of Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake could have provided the Big Finish Malory wanted to end his fabulous tale.
Malory had to write his story the way he did because he wanted to end Le Morte d’Arthur with the famous scene in which, in the aftermath of the Battle of Camlann, the mortally wounded Arthur instructs Bedevere to return Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake. Arthur had come straight from the battlefield and so this sword had to be the sword Arthur had been using in the battle, that is, his fighting sword. This sword also had to be the sword given to him by the Lady of the Lake, because the Lady of the Lake would not have been happy if she was fobbed off with some other sword. This means Excalibur had to be Arthur’s fighting sword.
All that is necessary to work out what really happened is to delete the magic and look at the history that is left. Arthur is said to have taken a sword from a stone. This is usually taken to be a purely magical and so fictional event but, if Arthur was Arthur Mac Aedan, Arthur taking a sword from a stone has a non-supernatural explanation. Arthur Mac Aedan took a sword from a stone when he stepped from the stone of Dunadd.
Arthur is said to have been given a sword by the Lady of the Lake and to have returned this sword to the Lady of the Lake, but, if Arthur was Arthur Mac Aedan, this too has a non-supernatural explanation. Throwing valuables such as swords into lochs, marshes, and rivers as tribute to the spirits some people thought lived in such waters, was a common Celtic custom that still echoes in the modern practice of throwing coins into fountains and wishing wells. It was probably this Celtic custom that inspired Malory to write the wonderful ending of Le Morte d’Arthur.
The only part of the two sword-stories that defies sensible explanation is the part where Arthur is given a sword by an underwater female armorer, the Lady of the Lake. This is purely magical and so just did not happen. It seems likely that Malory, having decided to write about Arthur’s sword being thrown into water, went too far and invented the wonderful passage that has Arthur’s sword coming out of water.
Arthur Mac Aedan took a sword from a stone at Dunadd in 574 without any supernatural input. This does not mean that this sword was not a special sword. Indeed, given that it was the sword used in inauguration ceremonies, it would be reasonable to believe that it was a very special sword. It is unlikely that this ceremonial sword was the fighting sword Arthur used in his last battle. This ceremonial sword was probably too important to be used in battle, and, in any event, it is impossible to believe that any one sword would have survived more than one or two, far less a dozen battles. It is more likely that the ceremonial sword Arthur took from a stone was kept safe to be used in the next ceremony.
Given that it is quite possible that the sword Arthur used in his last battle was thrown into water after his death, the question arises, Which sword was this? Of course, if there is no need to believe the fanciful nonsense that has Arthur being given a sword by the Lady of the Lake, there is no reason to believe this sword was a particularly special sword. The sword used by Arthur in his last battle and thrown into water after his death may simply have been one of many fighting swords he used in battle.
According to the legend, Arthur was recognized as the rightful king only after he took a sword from a stone. In history Arthur Mac Aedan’s right to be his father’s tanist was not recognized because he took a magical sword from a magical stone. There was nothing supernatural about Arthur taking a sword from a stone on the summit of Dunadd; on the contrary, Arthur took a sword from a stone only after it was decided that he should be his father’s tanist.
The inauguration ceremony in which Arthur took a sword from a stone also involved the Stone of Destiny that Arthur Mac Aedan’s great-great-grandfather, Fergus Mor Mac Erc, had brought to Scotland from Ireland. Although there is no record to the effect, it would be reasonable to suppose that the sword used in inauguration ceremonies had also been brought to Scotland from Ireland at the same time. If so, the sword used to inaugurate the kings of the Scots of Scottish-Dalriada could properly be described as a sword of Scotland and of Ireland.
Over six centuries, any description of this sword is likely to have become garbled as it was passed from mouth to mouth by people unfamiliar with the culture from which it sprang. It is possible that after six centuries this sword could have been forgotten or, if remembered at all, remembered by some bland name such as “the inauguration sword,” but it is also possible that it was given another name.
Geoffrey’s name for the legendary Arthur’s sword is Caliburn. The sword Arthur Mac Aedan took from a stone was a sword of both Scotland and Ireland—that is, in Latin, a sword of Caledonia and of Hibernia, two names that can be clearly seen to form part of Geoffrey’s composite name, Caliburn. It may be that the name Caliburn sprang fully formed from Geoffrey’s head, but if it did, it would be an incredible coincidence.
All that is necessary to create Excalibur is to take Caledonia and add Hibernia after deducting the aspirate. Dropping or not sounding the aspirate is common in Gaelic: the island of Iona, for example, had various alternative names, including, with an aspirate, the name Hi, and, without an aspirate, the single letter name “I.” The aspirate is missing in Iberia, which includes Spain, a part-Celtic land, especially in the west, where lie Galicia and Portugal, names which hark of their Celtic Gaelic connections. Iberia has the same root as Hibernia. One euphonic end result of all this is Cal-ibernia, from which it is not far to Geoffrey’s Caliburn.
It may be that Geoffrey had a description of “Arthur’s sword” that included the names Caledonia and Hibernia, and it may be that this inspired him to invent the name Caliburn, alternatively it may be that the names Caledonia and Hibernia were already confused by the time they came to Geoffrey’s notice. Who knows?
What we do know is that Geoffrey wrote within a century of the Norman-French conquest of England and was subject to Norman-French influences, and so was bound to use names that would please his Norman-French audience. Arthur Mac Aedan’s special sword may have been properly described as a sword of both Scotland and Ireland, but it would not have been in Geoffrey’s interest to emphasize this. Caliburn would have suited his purposes much better.
Wace sat down with Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain to write his Roman de Brut a generation after Geoffrey. Wace was Norman-French and writing in France, and so he was untrammeled by British ties and free to give Arthur’s sword whatever name he chose. Wace could have built on Geoffrey’s Caliburn by making Arthur’s sword extra big, powerful, sharp, or frightening—Supercalibur, perhaps—but no, Wace, who seems to have had some idea of the origins of the name Caliburn, called Arthur’s sword Excalibur. Ex, that is, “out of” or “from,” plus Caliburn, gives us Ex Calibur, the sword that came out of or was from Scotland and Ireland. Geoffrey was a man of Wales and Wace a man of France, but Arthur Mac Aedan’s special sword was, quite literally, a sword of Scotland and Ireland. If Arthur was Arthur Mac Aedan, then the sword name Excalibur makes sense.
The name Excalibur may have an explanation, but what about the name Arthur? In 574, the year he took Excalibur from the stone of Dunadd, Arthur would still have been viewed as an outsider in Argyll. Although many members of the house of Gabhran supported Arthur’s father Aedan when he fought to win the kingship of the Scots, many others of the house of Gabhran, and almost the entire house of Comgall, favored Aedan’s rival Éoganán. To most of the people of Dalriada, therefore, Arthur was not only an outsider but an unwelcome outsider and, worse, an outsider who had been party to the use of force to take control of Dalriada. It would not have boosted Arthur’s popularity among the natives of Dalriada that he was made tanist, given his first independent command, and told to crush all opposition to his father’s rule, and that he did exactly that.
In these circumstances it would not be surprising if Arthur had been given an uncomplimentary nickname. Nicknames were common in the sixth century. The prefix Mor was particularly popular among warriors. Merlin-Lailoken’s father was called Morken, Mor Ceann, literally, Big Chief. It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that Arthur too was a nickname.
There is another, simpler, explanation for the name Arthur: one that not only applies to Arthur Mac Aedan especially but also explains why the name Arthur became more popular about the time of Arthur Mac Aedan (although I accept this explanation is somewhat speculative).
I was picturing Arthur standing with his foot in the footprint in the stone on the summit of Dunadd, holding Excalibur high and turning to the four points of the compass, north, south, east, … and then it struck me: although Arthur’s Scots family had come to Argyll from the west, from Ireland, Arthur as an individual had come to Argyll from the east, from Manau.
In Q-Celtic-Gaelic east is ear. Ear is derived from the Old Irish Gaelic an-air, which is derived from words that meant something akin to “from before,” that is, facing the sun. When Arthur stood on the summit of Dunadd, with his foot in the footprint, holding Excalibur, Arthur was facing the land of the rising sun and his home in Manau.
What if the people who had been born and brought up in Argyll saw Arthur for what he was, an eastern newcomer?
Air added to the Gaelic word for land, tir, a word which has the same root as the English words terrain and territory, gives, in Old Irish Gaelic, Airthir, which roughly means east land: although MacBain, in his Etymological Dictionary, says Oirthir (a variant spelling) simply means east. However, the meanings of words are always difficult things to determine at a remove of 1,500 years, and so it is impossible to be certain of the exact provenance of any one word or formulation.
What if, just as Gary Cooper was the “Westerner” in the eponymous film, Arthur was called something like Oirthir or Airthir, because to the people of Dalriada he was an easterner, and what if a variation on this theme produced the name Arthur? (It is worth noting that in some Irish accents Arthur is pronounced as Oirthir.)
Arthur came to Dalriada when he was about fifteen years old and was almost immediately inaugurated as tanist and made a warlord. Given that he had been born and brought up in the east, in Manau, the native Scots of Dalriada must have viewed him as something of an outsider at this time. It is easy to see that they may have called him, somewhat disparagingly, something like, The Easterner, and that this name may have stuck.
Alternatively, given that so many Scots had crossed from Dalriada-Ireland in the west to Dalriada-Scotland in the east, it may be that increasing numbers of boys were called something like child of the eastlands, that is, something like Oirthir and Airthir, and that Arthur was one such child.
Arthur Mac Aedan was doubly a child of the east, because his people had gone east to Argyll and then his family had gone further east to Manau. If the name Arthur is rooted in the Gaelic for east, it would explain the increase in the frequency of the use of the name Arthur at the time of Arthur Mac Aedan, because at this time the Irish-Scots were increasingly raiding and settling along the west coast of Britain, that is, from the Irish point of view, the east.
It is more likely however that the name Arthur became famous and consequently more frequently used as the fame of Arthur Mac Aedan spread and later, when the historical Arthur Mac Aedan was cut out of the picture, when the fame of the legendary Arthur took off. This eastern connection would also explain why the MacArthur family originates in Argyll. It has been supposed that the MacArthurs took their name in honor of the legendary Arthur (which, of course, only works if the legendary Arthur was Arthur Mac Aedan). It may be however that they gained the name MacArthur simply because they were sons of the East Land of the Gaels, that is, Argyll.
That Arthur might also have had some “bear” connections does not detract from the above speculation, indeed, it adds to it. The resentful locals, if they were anything like us, and they were, would have enjoyed the double-edged nature of the nickname Arthur, because it would have afforded them some protection if he took umbrage.
I emphasize that my above speculations are just that, speculations. It is not a subject I am comfortable with because, if Arthur is a nickname, the question arises—what was his real name? According to Adamnan, Aedan had four sons; Arthur, Domangart, Eochaid Find, and Eochaid Buide, which is all right by me, but according to the Annals of Tigernach Aedan’s sons had other names: “The violent deaths of the sons of Aedan, Bran and Domangart and Eochaid Find and Arthur, at the Battle of Chirchind in which Aedan was the victor and at the Battle of Coraind.”1
I am probably safe because Arthur is mentioned here alongside Bran, that is, Brian, and so they are probably different people. But what if they were not? What if Arthur was a nickname and Bran-Brian was his real name? It was too awful to contemplate. I would be writing The Life of Brian.
IT IS SAID that “whether [Camelot] actually existed and its location are still the subject of much scholarly disagreement.”2 How can this disagreement be settled? What evidence can there be?
Camelot was the legendary Arthur’s capital. If Arthur Mac Aedan was the legendary Arthur, it follows that Arthur Mac Aedan’s capital may be Camelot, but where was Arthur Mac Aedan’s or, more to the point, his father Aedan’s capital? Aedan was king in Manau and king of the Scots of Dalriada, and so there are several possibilities. The capital of Manau was probably Stirling Castle Rock, although some sources say Aedan’s capital was at Aberfoyle. In Argyll there was one obvious capital fort, Dunadd, although there is reason to believe Dunadd was the ceremonial capital and Dunardry the administrative capital. In any event, I knew of no evidence that suggested either Dunadd or Dunardry was Camelot. I had stood on the summit of Dunadd and on the slopes of Dunardry, and I had looked all about me, but I had seen nothing and I could think of nothing that suggested Camelot. As it turned out, I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
Claudius Ptolemy, the second-century Alexandrian cartographer, called the River Add, Longus Flavium, the Long River, although the Add is not a particularly long river. It may be that in the second century the local people called their river something like the marshy river because that is exactly what it was, and indeed, to a lesser extent, still is. If so, and if they used the especially early Argyll-rooted word lòn, which means marsh, it is easy to see how Ptolemy could mistakenly have called the marshy river the long river, Longus Flavium. In Gaelic this is Abhon Fhlada, from which it is said the river name Add is derived. Different languages, the passage of time, mishearings, carelessness, mischief, and stupidity: all of these things can and have led to such confusion.
Although not particularly long, the River Add is particularly twisted. For its last few miles, from the village of Kilmichael Glassary west to the Sound of Jura, it meanders through the vast Moine Mhor, Great Moss. This wide expanse of low lying, marshy land (now a bird sanctuary) causes the river to twist and turn in large loops on its way to the sea.
At first I did not think Ptolemy was relevant to the matter of Arthur, but then I reconsidered the early Argyll-rooted word lòn, “marsh,” with reference to the Irish-rooted Q-Celtic of Arthur Mac Aedan’s Scots. Arthur Mac Aedan’s Q-Celtic-speaking Scots would have rendered marsh or marshy not as the early lòn but as the later loth. I saw a possibility—one that was relevant to Arthur.
Cam means “twisted” or “crooked” and loth means “marsh.” Put the two together and we have Cam-Loth, twisted or crooked marsh: a perfect description of the land about Dunardry-Dunadd.3
Camelot was neither Dunadd nor Dunardry, far less Stirling Castle Rock, Cadbury, Colchester, or Carlisle. Camelot was a corrupted description of the land that lay about and between Dunadd and Dunardry, the twin hillforts of Dalriada.
Even today, after centuries of drainage, the River Add still runs a crooked path through the Great Moss to the Sound of Jura. It is easy to picture the way this area would have looked in the sixth century, when the marsh was wider and deeper. In the sixth century it would have been even more likely that someone would describe the marsh as twisted by the river, or as the crooked marsh, Cam Loth.
My name Ardrey is written in the fourteenth-century land titles, the Poltalloch Writs, as Ardarie and Ardare before becoming Ardarike and even Dare, all in the space of one hundred years, and these variations were in important legal records written in the place to which these place-names referred. How much easier would it have been for Cam Loth to become Camelot over six centuries, during which descriptions of the place where Arthur Mac Aedan had lived were passed on orally from Q-Celtic speakers to P-Celtic speakers to English speakers to French speakers, with, no doubt, innumerable Latin speakers also being involved along the way? Some corroboration for this idea can be found in Maxwell’s Scottish Place-Names. Maxwell’s camlodain, the bend of the swamp, is close to my cam loth, crooked marsh.
It is unlikely that Chrétien simply invented the name Camelot—why would he? Stories of Arthur were plentiful in the vast oral tradition, and his patron Marie de Champagne had provided him with an abundance of source material, although what these sources were, whether they were “Celtic, Classical or contemporary,” no one knows exactly.4 It was quite open to Chrétien to take what he wanted from what he had, and use it to name Arthur’s capital, albeit in a corrupt form.
It is very possible that some of Chrétien’s source material originated hundreds of years before his time, in the form of oral accounts by people who had actually seen where Arthur Mac Aedan lived. Someone would have said something like, “Arthur’s base was a fort surrounded by a marsh through which a crooked or twisted river ran.” Picture this informant describing the place where Arthur lived using the words cam (twisted, crooked) and the Q-Celtic loth (marsh). Picture these words, cam and loth, being conflated by non-Gaelic speakers as Cam-Loth and ending up with a name that was more euphonic to a French speaker’s ear—Camelot.
If Chrétien had no source material and just invented the name Camelot, it would be quite a coincidence if he simply hit upon a name with Gaelic roots that describes the place where Arthur Mac Aedan lived and where Arthur’s father the king of the Scots had his capital. It may be this evidence is too slight to stand alone but, of course, it does not stand alone. Even today the ideals that are exemplified by the name Camelot are inextricably linked with Arthur, but Arthur did not make his name because of idealism. Arthur made his name, and made it a legend, by war. Before he took the sword from the stone, Arthur had always fought under another’s command. Soon after he took the sword from the stone he was leading his first fighting force. From then on, Arthur was in always in command, not only of armies but on occasion of kings.