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A review by catherine_t
A Brief History of King Arthur by Mike Ashley
4.0
Who was King Arthur? Did such a person actually exist? Historian Mike Ashley makes the case that no single man was King Arthur; rather, the legends grew up around several heroes of the Dark Ages.
Ashley makes a compelling case, and in the end names Arthwys of the Pennines and Cadell Durnluc (Cadell of the Gleaming Hilt) of Powys as the two he thinks most likely to have sown the seeds of the legends in the 5th and 6th centuries. Both men were battle leaders who fought against invaders, Picts in one case and Saxons in the other, and both were men who could gather armies for such battles.
Ashley has clearly researched the subject in great depth, using not only primary documents (Gildas, Nennius, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, plus several Welsh annals and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles), but drawing on the work of others to give a fairly complete overview of the debates. A Brief History of King Arthur is a must-read for anyone interested in going beyond The Sword in the Stone.
Ashley makes a compelling case, and in the end names Arthwys of the Pennines and Cadell Durnluc (Cadell of the Gleaming Hilt) of Powys as the two he thinks most likely to have sown the seeds of the legends in the 5th and 6th centuries. Both men were battle leaders who fought against invaders, Picts in one case and Saxons in the other, and both were men who could gather armies for such battles.
Ashley has clearly researched the subject in great depth, using not only primary documents (Gildas, Nennius, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, plus several Welsh annals and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles), but drawing on the work of others to give a fairly complete overview of the debates. A Brief History of King Arthur is a must-read for anyone interested in going beyond The Sword in the Stone.