moonlit

king arthur was welsh. merlin was welsh. camelot was in wales. the lady and the lake she pops out of; welsh. excalibur; magic inanimate welsh object. etc.

on the way to see family, i drive past a lake that in which is welsh legend, is the last resting place of excalibur.

Arthur is a Welsh name. It means ‘bear’. He’s likely derived from a Gaulish bear god

In the form of King Arthur, he is an anti-Saxon mythological WELSH figure, representing the native Brythonic people of Britain against the Anglo-Saxon invaders, dating from the 500s AD

The version appropriated by the English in the 1100s is the shitty boring sanitised version - they did it because they were trying to compete with the romance tradition on the continent at the time but didn’t have anything of their own to romanticise

Merlin is called Myrddin

Percival is Peredur

Kay is Cei, and also was subject to enormous character assassination in the English version - in the Welsh version he’s much closer to Arthur’s right hand man

Guinevere is Gwenhwyfar

There is no Lancelot, no Galahad, no tedious affair story

There is no Camelot. Arthur’s seat was Caerllion - modern Caerleon, putting him into both the region of the Silures (one of the most fearsome and warlike of the British tribes, modern South East Wales) and the old Roman fortress, which would have been an impossibly huge Palace for a warlord at the time.

They all have super powers and get up to wacky hijinks involving hair care, giants, strange giant wildlife, spectral revolving/glass fortresses in the Celtic sea, and a really fucking weird chess match. Also a cloak made out of beards.

What the fuck is the round table

Steve McCurry