#look up the annales cambriae and the historia brittonum
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2024 - 1454 = 571 570 (excuse my previous math, however 571 is 2024 - 1453 so my point still stands, merlin stans don’t get math degrees)
according to wikipedia the historia brittonum is dated to like 828, 300 years before that puts you in the 500s, 571 could be the canon date everything takes place in, ignoring all anachronisms (lol there’s a word i’d never thought i’d use outside of english class)
you know, if i really was a clotpole i’d even say you’re onto something.
Guys. Guys.
Something happened. Something that I'm sure they thought no one would notice, but they don't know they have someone who stalks their page.
They deleted a post. They had 1454 posts yesterday.
At first I was CONVINCED they deleted yesterday's clip because of all the people commenting on the homoerotic undertones... BUT NO. It's still up. So I'll investigate and let you know which one it is.
Either a post or an answer... I have everything documented and cataloged. They can't escape me
#my only source is wikipedia#i sound insane don't i#bbc merlin#merlin#bbc merthur#merlin twitter#camelotgate#merthur#other#merlin bbc#arthur pendragon#look up the annales cambriae and the historia brittonum#we know geoffrey of monmouth liked to play around with his history#so why not his dates#571 or 573 who really knows when arthur lived#arent we all just clowns#in the end
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op i think you should read annales cambriae, the mabinogion, nennius "historia brittonum", geoffrey of monmouth's "historia regum britanniae" and vita merlini robert de boron's "prose merlin", the black book of carmarthen and the vulgate lancelot-grail cycles and then thomas malory's "le morte d'arthur"
there is no balinor, medieval!merlin's father was a either a demon, a succubus or a roman consul that impregnated some local noble or rich merchant's daughter
merlin is uther and his king brother's main advisor and biggest ally and therefore of the same generation as them. therefore he has more experience being an advisor and is more respected in the realm. So if you go ahead and make another story about merlin and arthur of the same age, you'll just end up remaking what uther-merlin have always looked like in the earliest stories.
le morte d'arthur barely deals with merlin's origins. you have to go to the earliest ones if you want better more badass and more nuanced merlin personas
truly yours, a concerned medieval!merlin fan.
yep i know the balinor bit ofc, i was talking about using his character from bbc merlin for plot reasons.
i know that the merlin from bbc show and traditional merlin in the legends have barely anything in common. in the post you likely saw i was talking more about writing a story that would follow a more classic version of events of arthur's life while using characters from the bbc show and their characterisations
also, thank you for your list of recommendations, it has been in my plans for a long time to get some of those texts but it's kinda hard to find them where i live sadly
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I've been thinking about the original folkloric Arthur
Not a king, not a knight, but a great hunter and a humble soldier.
I'm not really an artist but I spent all yesterday filled with the urge to draw this version of the character, so here's a post that's 50/50 doodles and historiographical rambles about him.
I wanted to do scenes depicting the feats this earliest 9th-century Welsh folklore describes him doing, so first I needed a design for the guy.
Notes on my choices and historicity:
-These earliest local Arthur legends are recorded in an appendix to the Historia Brittonum (c. 830), where he is referred to as simply "Arthur miles" ("the soldier"), a protector-figure in south Wales. The name Arthur is thought to derive from the Latin "Artorius", so I've just written it here to create a consistent Latin version of the name and title. That doesn't mean it was his "real name"; there probably wasn't a specific real guy. Some have floated a 2nd-century Roman general named Lucius Artorius Castus as the "real king Arthur", but there's a 600-year gap between his life and any mention of Arthur, so that's extremely unlikely.
-The visuals are a mix of historic (he wears a tunic, a mail shirt and a cloak with an early medieval brooch) and the kind of anime boy that appeals to me personally. I can't tell you why I was so sure he had to be black-haired, it just felt right. I tried to avoid depicting him as too elite a warrior; I imagine the necklace was obtained as plunder from a raid. For his build, I wanted him to have some mass but not to look like a modern gym bro, and that crashed headfirst into my predilection for messy twinks, and I ended up drawing him (and the other characters here) with kinda "curvy anime babe" proportions, I guess, lmao
-The 10th-century Annales Cambriae say that at the battle of Badon, "Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were the victors". This is probably referring to to a shield design, but I thought it'd be fun to interpret it as a back tattoo. The practice is attested as being practiced in the north of Britain from a 786 synod in Northumbria. The English clergy weren't fond of it and actually tattooing a cross isn't attested until the crusading era, plus from a modern perspective the vibes of a guy with just a big Christian tattoo are a bit questionable, so I decided to pair it with something else. Earlier Roman accounts of Briton tattoos mention animal shapes, and Welsh legends often depict people or their souls becoming birds (early modern Cornish folklore even held that Arthur survived in the form of a bird), so I went with a wing-pattern.
-The precursor to Excalibur, Arthur's sword Caledfwlch ("hard-cleaver", Caliburnus in Latin, Calesvol in Cornish) isn't magic yet, and his spear and dagger are given equal prominence, so I depicted it as the kind of straight sword common at the time, derived from the Roman spatha design.
-One of the two prior stories recorded in the HB is Arthur's fighting and killing his son Amr ("fab Arthur", "son of Arthur", is my translation into Welsh); I drew Amr in a half-tunic/half-dress because, again, I just kinda wanted to
The other story involves Arthur hunting the great boar Twrch Trwyth (Troit/Troynt), so that was the next thing to design:
This is very cool to see referred to this early, because the hunt of the Trwyth is the climactic set-piece of Culhwch ac Olwen (c. 1100), the most complete Arthurian tale we have from the period after the Historia Brittonum transformed him from a minor local figure into a magical warrior-hero for all the Britons and centrepiece of Welsh legend, but before Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae further began his transformation into the chivalric king popular in France and across Europe.
In Culhwch, Trwyth is a king who was turned into a boar by God as punishment for his sins, so I came up with a human design as well as a big pig design. The king in question was probably intended as a Briton, but I thought it would be fun to depict him as a Saxon, Arthur's enemies in the HB, especially as Saxon warriors often wore boar-crests on their helmets. I did one take with a mostly historic boar-helmet, and one more fantastical, almost like a boar-themed Kamen Rider helmet, as if rather than becoming an actual boar he became this more fearsome but still humanoid warrior.
I also made his sword slightly asymmetrical, to mirror the seax knives that gave the Saxons their name. Their actual main battle swords were straight, but I thought it was a fun touch for this magical tyrant.
As for the boar-form design, I like depicting monsters with sketchy outlines, like they aren't fully solid creatures of this world.
And that's how we get our first scene proper!
The legend recorded in HB says that when Cabal (Latinisation of Welsh "Cafall"), Arthur's dog, was hunting Troynt (Trwyth), he left a paw-print in a stone, which Arthur then assembled a cairn under, and if the paw-print stone is ever removed, within 24 hours it returns to the mound. (Cafall is also featured in the version of the hunt in Culhwch!)
Anyway, I can't really draw animals that aren't big scary creatures, so I didn't want to draw an actual dog. So since I'd already turned Trwyth into a guy, I figured why not just turn Cafall into a guy too? Plus, I get to draw a guy in a collar with a dog-tail and a little fangy. So win-win, really.
I also wanted to draw a version with the human Trwyth, and I figured I'd combine that with the story of Amr, and just do a page of swordfights:
"...on fatal field / we fended our lives, as the ranks clashed in battle / and the boar-crests rang..." -Beowulf
The Amr (or Amhar) story relates that Arthur built a tomb for his son, and that every time it is measured it comes up as a different length.
The fact this is such an early story is also very interesting, because one of the most famous parts of post-HRB chivalric Arthur is the killing of his son Mordred. Early Welsh references to Mordred (Medraut or Medrawd) portray him entirely positively. I do wonder if when Mordred became the more famous son of Arthur the story of Amr got folded into his, but we don't have evidence to do more than speculate.
I also now realise that my human Trwyth looks a lot like a Ringwraith, and honestly the more medieval lit I delve through the more moments of "oh that's why that bit of Tolkien is like that" I have.
Those were what I originally wanted to depict, but in doing them two more ideas occurred to me. One was depicting the Arthur of the Historia Brittonum itself (not just the pre-existing folklore it recorded), this local hero plucked into a much grander stage, cast as a pseudohistorical general leading his people against the Saxons.
This one came out very "edgy teenager on Deviantart", but fuck it, kill the part of you that cringes and be free, right:
The title comes from one of the medieval Welsh "triad" texts, each one a short line listing the "three great X of the Isle of Britain" to help bards remember. Arthur is referred to in many of them, here as one of the "Three Red Reapers of the Isle of Britain". I thought that was a good fit for his war-hero portrayal here. Also I tried moving the cross-tattoo lower down to make it sluttier.
HB's Arthur is an interesting middle ground. He's leading the Britons as a whole, but he still has one foot in his humble origins. He's named as Dux Bellorum, "battle-leader", and it's specified that the kings of the Britons were under his leadership although he was less noble than them. It's only somewhere between the grander Welsh legends that sprung up after this and the HRB that he would get upgraded to king.
For the final picture, I was inspired by a much more recent piece of Breton verse, a 19th-century gwerz (ballad) telling of Arthur arriving in Brittany (on account of being king of all Britons) to slay a dragon and getting help from Saint Efflam. The core story, though, is remarkably consistently preserved from the Vita Euflami, the original saint's life written around 1100. I was captivated in particular by the verse in the gwerz where Arthur announces himself:
Me zo roué ar Bretonet Artur an terrub lessanvet Deut aman deus a Lannion Evit tistruji ann Dragon.
I am the king of the Britons/Bretons Arthur, known as the terrible Come here from Lannion To destroy the dragon.
For one, the way the lyrics flow in the Breton just kinda goes hard, but the bombastic tone and the length of time the story was transmitted across brought a scene vividly to my mind, inspired by the persistent story of Arthur's prophesised return: Modern travellers in the Breton countryside being set upon by a dragon, only for Arthur to miraculously appear with this declaration, defeat the beast and vanish, his original task as hunter and protector fulfilled once more.
So I drew that! Once again, I like sketchy impressionistic monsters. Also, I think the people in the back are lesbians, but that's less of a conscious decision and more just what happens when you ask me to draw two people.
And that's what's been occupying my mind for the past few days! There's a couple more things I could do. Cai and Gwenhwyfar (precusors to Sir Kay and Guinivere) are characters I'd love to whip up designs for, and there's a bunch of really wild scenes in Culhwch. But that'll only be if I'm still feeling this specific creative energy.
Thanks for reading!
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Arthurian legends are over a thousand years old, originating before 829 CE, when Arthur's name is first mentioned on paper. The earliest stories about Arthur were written in Latin and Welsh. In the twelfth century, French and German writers began writing about Arthur in their vernacular languages. Since then, authors from around the world have written about King Arthur.
The Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century Latin historical compilation attributed in some late manuscripts to a Welsh cleric called Nennius, contains the first datable mention of King Arthur, listing twelve battles that Arthur fought. These culminate in the Battle of Badon, where he is said to have single-handedly killed 960 men (seriously that's a lot of sword swinging!).
The other text that seems to support the case for Arthur's historical existence is the 10th-century Annales Cambriae, which also link Arthur with the Battle of Badon. The Annales date this battle to 516–518, and also mention the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut (Mordred) were both killed, dated to 537–539. These details have often been used to bolster confidence in the Historia's account and to confirm that Arthur really did fight at Badon.
Now Arthur is said to have had three sons Amr (Arthur actually killed him, it's never said why) Gwydre (boer accident) Llacheu (yep slain again!) These three are not guienivere's by the way! (though it is said there was three Guienivere's, isn't that a little strange? The guy had a bit of a fix with the name guienivere)
Loholt is a child of Arthur's and Guienivere but unfortunately, again this one doesn't live Apparently illness too this young prince..
And then there is Mordred, son of Arthur and his half-sister Morgause(this is messed up in so many ways!) The tale is, Morgana took a potion to look like Guienivere then sleep with Arthur and there you go one inbreed child who later kills his own father!
This is where bedwry takes the sword and throws it to the lady of the lake (humhum lady of the lake is Lancelot a mother! Well she raised him anyway)
Phew! That's the nutshell version!
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Hello again! I promise I will not clog up the notes and my followers' dashes with this too many more times. However, I realised on rereading my last response that I hadn't read the last paragraph of the original post properly; I also wasn't aware at the time that "Mabinogion - Anonymous" is now a tag. I'd like to clarify a few things, in light of that, and illustrate why I still think this is a problem.
I'm glad AO3 is aware that texts in which people have seen (traces of) religious material are often written centuries after the practice of that religion died out - although the phrasing here makes me think whoever wrote this wasn't fully aware of the depth of the issue, at least on the Welsh side of things. And I can appreciate that AO3 wants a clear, one-size-fits-all policy which is easy to put in place and enforce. However, to be absolutely clear:
The issue with the Welsh tag is not that characters from an ancient religion also appear in "modern folktales". The issue is that the tag has almost never been used to refer to an (entirely unreconstructable!) ancient Welsh religion. It is most often used as a catchall tag to acknowledge that the author is drawing on sources from medieval and modern Wales which involve the supernatural in some way - usually either because they're using Arthurian works from the Welsh tradition or because their fic involves fairies. Even the works which do draw on texts which have been considered sources for pre-Christian Welsh religion usually are not engaging with them on any kind of religious level (leaving aside the question of whether there is any secure evidence linking these texts with pre-Christian Welsh religion).
These works are all now effectively mis-tagged, and there is no alternative tag for them to use (yet)! I welcome the appearance of the "Mabinogion - Anonymous" tag on the scene - I'm very glad to see it, and think its appearance is long overdue - but it does not solve the problem. For instance, my own fic "rorate coeli" used to be tagged "Welsh Mythology" because it drew on medieval Welsh sources: some of these (Culhwch, Peredur) are included in the Mabinogion, but I also drew on Historia Brittonum, Annales Cambriae, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini, and poetry from the Book of Taliesin and the Black Book of Carmarthen. None of that is covered by "Mabinogion"! And while my own case is somewhat extreme, looking in the first page of the current "Ancient Welsh Religion & Lore" tag brings up fics covering the legend of St Dwynwen, Chwedl Taliesin, and Cantre'r Gwaelod - none of which are covered by "Mabinogion" either.
I would vehemently encourage whoever is wrangling "Ancient Welsh Religion and Lore" to consider synning some of the works which are currently synned to it via "Welsh Mythology" to "Medieval Welsh Literature" instead, and to make "Medieval Welsh Literature" a filterable tag; alternatively, to provide a wider "Welsh Myth and Legend" tag to which various other tags, including "Welsh Mythology" (non-religious) and "Medieval Welsh Literature" could be synned.
I would also like to say, I hope politely, that this situation really makes me doubt the assertion above that AO3 has consulted with experts from all the relevant traditions. I can't imagine an expert on the Welsh tradition would have thought this change (in its current form) a good one.
As I said before, this is not the most urgent problem for AO3 right now. It is, however, a problem, and I'd love to see that acknowledged.
Updates to AO3 "Mythology" Fandoms
Hi AO3 users! You may have noticed that recently, fandoms previously canonized as "Mythology" are being updated to "Religion & Lore". This renaming project is part of a wider ongoing process on AO3 about respectful treatment and naming of various religions, spiritual beliefs, faiths, and collections of folklores belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. This includes both major and minor religions, as well as reconstructionist, ancient, and modern religions.
In the coming months, the term "Mythology" is being phased out of canonical fandom names. This is because of its potential for use as a disparaging term, and the way in which it is used primarily for religions which are already under-represented. Since "mythology" has connotations of being fictional or inferior to the religious beliefs of the speaker or writer, and is unfortunately used in this way by some, the decision has been made to replace this term with something that the Wrangling Committee believes is more inclusive and less derogatory.
After extensive discussion between individuals from varying religious backgrounds and beliefs, including wranglers representing the various fandoms which were being covered, it was felt that "Religion & Lore" was an appropriate and neutral way to describe the bodies of faith, belief, knowledge, and tradition associated with many of these religions which were ancestrally imparted and regional in nature. It is also hoped that this will decrease ambiguous or confused use, allowing people to more accurately describe their works and find works in which they are interested moving forward.
The use of "Ancient" in many of these fandoms' names reflects that these countries still exist but now have different predominant religions or spiritual beliefs. For example, Ancient Greek Religion & Lore (as Greece is now a predominantly Christian country) or Ancient Egyptian Religion (as Egypt is now a predominantly Muslim country). Because "Norse" does not refer to an extant country, region, or culture, it is not necessary to specify that it is historical or ancient in nature.
The names of these fandoms will also have the native language piped, if the English-language demonym is significantly different from the native-language demonym or if there is a culturally specific term based on consultation with individuals who speak these languages as a first language. We hope to give representation to the language of the source culture by doing so.
Each of these changes has been and will continue to be carefully researched and discussed with traditional knowledge keepers and researchers from the cultures represented in the fandoms under discussion.
Many religions face the issue of texts being written long after their events occurred. Unfortunately this is something which is shared across many religious fandoms; AO3 seeks to treat these religious fandoms equally. Care has been taken in researching characters relating to these fandoms, and character tags will be canonized or made a synonym on a case-by-case basis. Fandom tags that are currently synned to the Ancient religious fandoms have been checked as thoroughly as possible to ensure that they are not referring to modern folk tales, and where possible such relatively modern folk tales are canonized as their own fandoms.
(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)
#cicely speaks#...again!#disclaimer to OP reading this: my beef continues not to be with you continue your good work#i'm still concerned by the frankly bad translation of 'ancient welsh religion & lore' into cymraeg#esp since the fix is relatively easy but that's the least of your worries rn#i would also like to point out that the phrase 'ancestrally imparted and regional in nature' is making a FUCKING STATEMENT#when it comes to wales#i'm not gonna get into why because we'd be here all night and i want to focus on actionable problems i.e. the actual tag#but please know that's not a flat plain. that's a hill and some people may die on it
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