King Arthur documentary presented by Richard Harris

I am Arthur king of the Britons well okay I'm Richard Sallis but I did play Arthur over 30 years ago in the Hollywood musical Camelot what a great hero he was for his knights of the round table and his beautiful wife Guinevere he ruled from Camelot for the sword from a stone and scored a host of great victories at battle by the end of medieval times the legend of King Arthur was famous across Europe but more recently he's been dismissed as pure fantasy it's 21st century it's time to look again now using the tools of Technology in history we can is not unravel the true story of this legendary king [Music] when I played Arthur in Camelot I often wondered whether this amazing story had any basis in history but this is my journey back in time in search of a flesh-and-blood hero behind the myth the author of stage and screen lived in the Middle Ages the age of chivalry which began in the 12th century and lasted 300 years he was an English King through and through but that's not what the original story actually says the legend of King Arthur was first popularized in a twelfth century book called the history of the kings of Britain written by Geoffrey of Monmouth a Welsh cleric others built on the original story and it became a huge medieval fantasy but in fact Geoffrey was writing about a legend that had been handed down from a much earlier time 700 years earlier in fact in the 5th century AD in the Dark Ages [Music] if Geoffrey of Monmouth was writing about a real-life 5th century King then our whole picture of a medieval Arthur is wrong we need to start again it won't be easy these weren't called the dark ages for nothing few people could write so almost no 5th century documents exist if Geoffrey of Monmouth did base his story on fact most of his evidence would have been from word-of-mouth so where should we begin first we must leave the world with medieval castles behind and arrive in the much more mysterious Dark Ages for one thing this was the 5th century and there was as yet no England therefore Arthur could not have been an English King this was a battalion and the only people living here were the Britons the Dark Age Britons were a Celtic people newly converted to Christianity the English or anglo-saxons they were then called was still pagans and hadn't yet conquered Britain Geoffrey of Monmouth's Arthur must have been a Briton and as a Dark Age King would have been far less refined and probably far less good-looking than the medieval king I played in Camelot of course he wouldn't do that shining armor there wasn't any shining armor in fifth century AD he'd probably looked pretty grubby and I think it's a good idea to try and see King Arthur if he ever existed for what he was British warlord who rallied people against a threat from our side and he was probably I suspect pretty unpleasant bit of work like most warlords are but can we trust Geoffrey of Monmouth did he be seized story on a real Dark Age King [Music] fifth century britannia was a land in turmoil the Roman Empire was collapsing and its legions had abandoned this remote outpost after 300 years of occupation with the Romans gone the Britons came under threat from barbarian tribes pagans from Germany in general these were the anglo-saxons the ancestors of the English they rode their long boats towards Britannia shores probing vulnerable estuaries on the eastern and southern coasts progress was slow but they battled their way inland seizing control from the native Britons as they pushed further west then eventually a something or someone stop them dead in their tracks could it have been a real 5th century warrior king [Music] there is evidence for this on a hill on the outskirts of Salisbury in will.shaw in the South of England here a major anglo-saxon cemetery was unearthed according to John Heinz and archaeologists from Cardiff University graves of the best way of plotting how far the anglo-saxons advanced because their burial practices were so different from those of the Britons [Music] the line of graves keeps moving westward until it suddenly stops we know this because for decades the anglo-saxons used and reused at the same burial sites it comes up to a line which runs just outside Salisbury which suggests that at this point the anglo-saxons really had come to some sort of boundary some sort of geographical line which they weren't able to cross at that point so someone somehow brought those invaders for their knees but who inspired and led the resistance who saved the British you think that such a remarkable feat would be reported in some way despite the shortage of documents at the time well it was a sixth century book called on the ruin and conquest of Britain written by a British monk called Gilda's mentions a battle in which the Britons crushed the Saxons but infuriatingly Gilda's does not named the person who must have led them to victory there's an Arthur shaped hole at the heart of 5th century Britain if the legend has not been written you will have to invent him to make sense of the period so the question is not did a warrior leader exist but could this Dark Age heroes life be the true story upon which the fabulous legend of King Arthur was based [Music] [Applause] [Music] on the north coast of Cornwall lies tinted jewel according to Geoffrey of Monmouth Arthur came into the world on this wild and solitary headland his tale begins nearby in the castle of the Duke of Cornwall and his beautiful wife Egret Egret had a passion for another nobleman who thought Pendragon the feeling was clearly mutual the Duke felt he had to act to save his marriage so he banished he grain to his summer residence the jealous Duke sent his wife away to the safety of the fortress of jilted Joe hoping that that would stop them consummated their love or Luthor Pendragon says Geoffrey's tale asked a sorcerer to make him look like the Duke so he could enter the fortress unchallenged that sorcerer was the wizard Merlin Merlin agreed to earth upon dragon's request on condition that any child born of the Union be handed over to him Luthor did his dastardly deal with Merlin one night disguised at the Duke of Cornwall who the Pendragon entered Tintagel and seduced Ygritte Arthur was Julie Bullard clearly it's a fantasy but could it setting possibly point to the birth of a real king on the face of it the legend has no basis in history the ruins here belonged to a medieval castle built after Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the legend why then would Geoffrey locate arthur's workplace here perhaps he knew that tin tangent was a real settlement in the Dark Ages and remarkably there are clues that it was in 1998 archeologists were digging near to the main ruins Chris Snyder archaeologist at Marymount University followed the excavations closely during the recent excavations they uncovered a slate that was being used as a drain cover it was originally part of another structure when they turned it over they found this wonderful inscription which is very exciting news for historians and archeologists of the 5th and 6th they were excited because the inscription was written in 5th century Latin it meant that Tintagel was occupied in the Dark Ages the time when Geoffrey of Monmouth says Arthur lived but could a future warrior king really have been brought here the Latin slate is a revealing clue in the dark ages very few people could write those who could usually lived in a monastery or a palace initially the remoteness of cinta Jules suggested a monastery I cannot think of a more unlikely place for Arthur to be conceived than a monastery but it wasn't a monastery the archaeologists found evidence of a palace in heaps of pottery most of it dating from the 5th century [Music] [Music] [Music] the broken pieces came from expensive jaws and glasses like these and we used to enjoy exotic luxuries such as wine from the Mediterranean [Music] someone with a taste for the finer things in life lived here only someone wealthy and powerful could have afforded to buy such luxuries a king perhaps [Music] [Music] the full extent of tintal joe's role as a trading hub was revealed but excavations uncovered the remains of a fifth-century harbor [Music] the number of pottery found at Tintagel suggests that this may have been a ports where goods were transported in large scale from the Mediterranean and from France and such large-scale suggests a king is exercising control over this trait and redistributing these goods then they found a moat defended by the state in tangen must have been a royal fortress used for part of the year [Music] British kings of the 5th and 6th centuries appear to be itinerant kings they didn't have permanent courts but they moved from court to court sometimes holding court at sites like this remotes exposed to the weather maybe they were only here seasonally maybe only summer occupation at Tintagel a 5th century royal stronghold liked intention it's just the kind of place where a future warrior King might be conceived I'm sure many more [Music] Geoffrey's tale of how Merlin conjured Arthur into life is a classic piece of medieval Quincy but he was right about two integer being the 5th century royal residence so are there any hard facts behind Merlin himself there's some historical evidence that Geoffrey of Monmouth's based his sorcerer on a real character from the dark ages he was called Lyle oaken and lived about 70 years after the Arthurian legend has said he actually went mad and wanted the country handing out wild prophecies but whoever provided the inspiration behind Merlin he was a useful literary device guiding the young trends through a dangerous and itinerant childhood and shaping his destiny as a king [Music] [Music] a real future king of the Dark Ages would have grown up in several different fortresses of cross Britain every Dark Age prince would have been taught to ride and hunt most importantly he would have learned to use a sword Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us that swords loom large in Arthur's life [Music] in fact earlier British and Continental poets revealed that during the Dark Ages lords and princes were inseparable from their swords from the moment that a young prince was given a sword he would carry it everywhere until the moment of his death sudden attacks often came at night and the trusty sword was always close at hand when poets and other writers elaborated on Geoffrey's legend they told of swords with astonishing magical powers [Music] the medieval version of the legend says a mighty gleaming sword was thrust into a huge stone and only one man could ever pull it out that man would become the rightful king of Britain the fiercest warlords and the strongest soldiers tried in vain to free the blade but then young Arthur stepped forward [Music] [Music] legends like these seem too fabulous to be true but for all its magic this story tells us more about the real life and times of Arthur than we might think archaeologist Francis Pryor doesn't think the tale is a complete fantasy he believed that the story is the memory of a very real craft practiced in ancient times [Music] long before arthur's time swords were cast in bronze according to Francis Pryor it's this process that lies at the root of the legend a bronze sword was made in a two-piece mold vat of stone closely fitted together and the stone of the mold has to be heated up to very nearly the same temperature as the molten bronze going into it so you pour the molten bronze into the mold and then you wait for a few minutes let it to cool down and you remove some pins which hold the two halves of the mold together [Music] and it's that withdrawing from the center of the mold which I think lies in the root of Arthur and the sword understand making a sword in ancient times was an extraordinary achievement no wonder they became linked to magic and to the supernatural but the sword in the stone is only one of two great swords in the story one day when he was fully grown into a man Arthur needed a new sword [Music] Merlin told him where he could find a magical blade fit for a king in a secret Lake lived an underwater enchantress the lady of the lake she held the most powerful sword war Excalibur [Music] now there is a wonderful little fantasy but there may be an element of truth in it archeologists in Britain have unearthed countless ancient sword blades guess where at the bottom of lakes but why throw a good weapon into a lake well many Dark Age Britain's still saw Lakes as an underworld of spirits and nymphs this was their idea of the afterlife I think actually placing swords in water is part of a rite of passage when somebody died that say a powerful warrior the sword was placed in the water as perhaps a symbol of that warriors journey into the next world so if the throwing of swords into lakes mark the end of a reign then perhaps the recovery of a sword from the lake marked the dawn of a new one [Music] [Music] with his lucky sword in his hand how would a young prince in the Dark Ages get to become king of the Britons the story says Arthur's glory was won on the battlefield [Music] so it's here we must look for further evidence of a real 5th century king the archaeological record confirms that the anglo-saxon encampments were advancing west that first that conquered the eastern half of the country but for more than 50 years they were unable to advance further now Geoffrey of Monmouth writes that it was Arthur who crushed the advancing sections in a series of heroic battles all along the front line the mystery is how could a single warrior king like Arthur really have mobilized sufficient support to halt the Saxon invasion one theory is that the Britons had a big advantage over their enemies it's taught that the anglo-saxons hadn't yet started to use horses in battle the Britons on the other hand had been skilled horseman for centuries before all the advantages of cavalry the Britons would still have faced a difficult challenge the big problem facing an arthur like warrior was this how to move his troops swiftly across the country well the Romans had left something behind the would have helped the Britons the infrastructure of Britain was nothing to boast about was it ever but a warrior king could at least take advantage of one key legacy of the Roman occupation [Music] the Romans had built a vast network of straight roads linking every corner of Britain for the very purpose of moving their legions around and although the Romans had left Britain a hundred years earlier the roads were still in working order the combination of horses and a good knowledge of the Roman roads meant that a warrior king could keep a step ahead and ambush the anglo-saxon settlers [Music] [Music] here on the battlefields of Britain fact and fantasy begin to converge many experts believe the Arthurian legend is a clear indicator that one great king called Arthur was responsible for these military successes a great problem with Arthur is that there must have been a lot of other warriors around at his time little very nervous we need to know why it is that he got picked out as the Braves here everyone remembers I think that because he's associated a list of battles which we can't credit to other leaders and because he's remembered first and foremost as a war leader he probably was a real human being in Jeffries medieval account of Arthur's story the reward for his victories is to be crowned king of the Britons [Music] and in later medieval versions of the legend we are told that Arthur rule from Camelot but is there any evidence for such a place this is the classic image of Camelot the romantic castle city at the heart of the Arthurian legend where the bloody but victorious Arthur rules the land with his beloved Queen Guinevere and his fateful night set aside but councils like these Jade from the Middle Ages they're a far cry from the Dark Age stronghold of a real offer [Applause] [Music] a fifth-century Camelot would have been a hill fort identifying which one has proved a headache for our theory and sleuths Dark Age Kings were always moving between fourths but in another corner of Southwest Britain in Somerset there are some remarkable leads the clues were first spotted as long ago as 1542 by John Leyland an antiquarian fascinated by the legend of Arthur and Camelot he found a river cam and two villages West camel and Queen camel in Somerset their names have the same roof as Camelot but there was no Castle in sight until he took a closer look at an imposing local landmark just four miles from the camel villages Cadbury Hill today trees obscure much of the view but in the 16th century Leyland noticed that the hill was surrounded by Noven four lines of banks and ditches they were man-made the tell-tale signs of an ancient hill fort it wasn't the image of grandeur we associate with Camelot but in the 5th century Kings and warlords lived austere and simple lives and the fort was so close to the camel villages that Leyland believed he had found King Arthur's Camelot the trouble of course was that Leyland did not have a shred of archaeological evidence to prove it but then in 1966 round about the time I was filming Camelot archaeologists began to dig here on Cadbury Hill would they prove Leyland right or show once and for all that this was not Camelot four years into the dig they made a breakthrough right here in the southwest corner of the fort they are not the foundations of a gate car the size and layout of the postholes allowed archaeologists to work out what the Gator would have looked like [Music] on both sides of the tower they also found the remains of massive stone and timber ramparts three-quarters of a mile long although only 6% of the site has been excavated this is clearly the kind of place a warlord would have ruined but was it in use in the 5th century when Arthur might have lived the best way of gazing a settlement is through pottery remains one day but the base of the gate are the archaeologists found just what they were looking for the remains of cracked and worn-out pots discarded by Dark Age people who traditionally threw their rubbish into a dump outside the gate the pieces dated from the 5th century AD Arthur's time the archaeologists then made the most significant find of all this hill fort had been refortified during the second half of the fifth century when the anglo-saxons were still pressing westwards in its size and defensive structure it was unique in 5th century Britain this was a mighty fortress large enough to be the seat of a leader of warlords and the heart of the resistance this appears to be the citadel of the king it has great commanding views of the area the Britons would have fled to places like this as places of refuge with anglo-saxon war bands and kings expanding their territories in this direction that would have taken over 800 men to defend the ramparts of Cadbury castle alone now given that the size of the average war bein in this period is well under a hundred men and this appears to be the undertaking of a powerful figure who could command enormous resources could Cadbury be the real Dark Age can Allah [Music] [Music] Geoffrey of Monmouth writing in his medieval manor house didn't mention Camelot but does he give us any other clues that could help establish whether a real King Arthur lived at Cadbury Hill well Geoffrey writes of Arthur's Brotherhood of loyal Knights the knights of the round table these are any evidence that the ruler of Cadbury Hill fort gathered his warlords around him as Arthur did in the legend that round table is one of the strongest Arthurian images it conjures up a time of chivalry and refinement at first glance it's hard to reconcile that medieval image with the course life in a Dark Age hill fort but archaeological discoveries on Cadbury Hill have raised intriguing possibilities the evidence came from the raised mound in the center of the hill fort along with hundreds of fragments of 5th century pottery archaeologists found post holes laid out in a pattern the post holes and the shards of pottery told that they have found the remains of a Dark Age timber oil the whole was 60 feet long by 30 feet wide big enough to host a gathering of warlords but it was inside the hole of archaeologists unearth some tantalizing links to the legendary round table once again it was pieces of pottery this time from broken wine jars it was obvious from the sheer quantity of wine jars found in the hole that the main activity here was drinking a sensible way to relax you might say after a hard day fighting the Saxons for a sixth century poem reveals how drinking and the round table might be linked the god oven describes how warrior Nobles came together in feasting Vols to drink wine and Mead the round table of scenes was a metaphor for some essential male bonding there's a germ of truth there the idea of equality and Brotherhood inside a body of retainers of war ban professional warriors they are really quite expensive by the standards their day they are high technology they have weapons - sometimes handed down for generations they drink epic quantities of high-grade alcohol and they're kept faired upon things like pepper chops given a really high nowadays rock star lifestyle in exchange being prepared to die for their prince but what about the roundtable itself well perhaps we're taking the image too literally [Music] there may be nothing in archaeology suggesting there's Dark Age warlords sat at round tables but they would have clustered around the central heart of they're feasting [ __ ] so the legendary image of Arthur and his knights and council may be more factually correct than we imagined [Music] perhaps another important guest at the table was Arthur's wife whom legend says was called Guinevere but anyone looking for a story of true love is likely to be disappointed thoughts of passion or an affair with the legendary Knight Sir Lancelot are strictly fantasy a real 5th century king would probably have opted for a marriage of convenience we don't know very much about the nature of marriages and the dark ages some of them must have been for Laughs most likely if we go by most keenly and royal marriages they're going to be arranged for dynastic and political reasons and if Arthur exists there's no reason to believe his marriage had been different if Geoffrey of Monmouth's medieval story is based on a real 5th century warrior king the great mystery is why his name is never recorded in the documents of the time this silence has puzzled Geoffrey Ashe one of the world's leading our theory and experts he embarked on a major investigation to try and establish once and for all who the real Arthur might be he found a rare six century document the Gothic history it tells the story of the one king of the Britons that everyone agrees existed in the 5th century someone would close links to the Roman Empire at the time a warlord called real thalmus it had been thought that the dates for Rhea thermus didn't coincide with those of Arthur but what Ashe corrected earlier chronological mistakes he began to suspect there might be the same person there were certain recognized errors and if you recognized the error in this case you could see that the dates did work together and I think when I first noticed that I began to feel I was really getting somewhere I've decided to compare what the Gothic history writes about riothamus with what Geoffrey of Monmouth's said about Arthur both men are said to have been kings in the second half of the fifth century [Music] one of RIA thermoses campaigns is dated to be around 469 ad amazingly this is the very time when according to Geoffrey of Monmouth King Arthur was winning his battles indeed the more Ashe looked the stronger the parallels between Arthur Andrea Thomas became Chad Burley he'll fought for example although there are no records of where real farmers lived his dates precisely matched those for the reef or to vacation of the hill fort we had promised was exactly at that time he was the only documented person who could have done it so he fitted in very well with the results of archaeology for the most intriguing parallel concerned they're overseas campaigns real farmers was asked by the Roman Emperor to lead an army into France to repel the barbarian invaders there Geoffrey of Monmouth also had Arthur campaigning in France history is now helping to fill the Arthur shaped hole at the heart of 5th century Britain but why then the Geoffrey of Monmouth called his King Arthur and not real Thomas on the face of it the name realist sounds Roman and appears to have nothing in common with the name Arthur but there is in fact a link riothamus isn't a name as such it's a Latin word meaning supreme or High King and that of course is precisely what Arthur was the nearest thing to an English equivalent pairs would be Generalissimo a military title plus is him at the top General in the same way realist meant the top King might have been even a sort of nickname after he came became famous a sort of good old Arthur phrase so maybe the real Arthur was real Thomas perhaps he wasn't the grubby long-haired King we've got to know [Music] well connected within the Roman Empire this Arthur would have followed the latest Roman fashions [Music] boaties beard and hair could have been worn short and he probably would have sported leather armor especially toughened of course we cannot be absolutely sure that real Thomas was the real King Arthur but we do know that real farmers was a real king heavily influenced by the Romans maybe the real King looked Romanesque or maybe his appearance was more Celtic but one thing's for certain the real King Arthur looked nothing like what we imagined it's time to abandon once and for all the image of Arthur as a knight in shining armor [Music] sometimes the strongest evidence for the existence of a historical figure is what the records say about his or her death we don't know how rhea Thoris died but according to the famous legend Arthur died at the hand of his nephew [Music] Jefferey story says that the ambitious Mordred plotted with other young knights to bring the old king down the two sides of the bloody battle leaving only three Knights alive among them were Audra and Arthur Arthur is said to have surprised Mordred with his speed of hand and launched him to death before he fell Mordred managed to inflict on Arthur a terrible head wound [Music] just as Arthur's kingship began with Excalibur so Arthur's life drew to an end with it the story says that Sir Bedivere a knight who survived the bloodbath took Excalibur and threw it back into the lake [Music] 9 hooded maidens took the wounded Arthur to the Isle of Avalon where he died [Music] maybe I belong as a product of Geoffrey of Monmouth's imagination but maybe not but we could find Avalon perhaps we could confirm a real King Arthur is buried there [Music] lots of other people have looked for an island of course of the Scottish Welsh Cornish and Breton coasts but nobody's found firm evidence of the barrier place of any fifth century warlord let alone one called Arthur strangely the best evidence for the Isle of Avalon is not offshore at all in 1998 richard table was digging on the lower slopes of Cadbury Hill where we think our real 5th century warrior King lived when he unearthed an ancient burial pit inside was a skeleton probably an ancient warrior although it was dated to the Bronze Age centuries before the time of Arthur it had one special feature well yet scale a hit that we found it was in the remains of a coffin as a black mineralized deposit where the wood had decayed the coffin was made up of slats of wood and then we noticed it was a rather boat shape it's far longer than it needed to be the image of a warrior on a boat evokes Arthur's final journey to Avalon so could Avalon be close by well the team then began to take photos of the burial site as we went round and round photographing in detail we eventually were looking from the feet towards the head when they looked at the photos they found that the boat was aligned to a hill ten miles away Glastonbury Tor as in many ancient cultures the boat was meant to carry this man's soul to the afterlife is it possible that centuries later Arthur's loyal followers wanted his body to make the spiritual journey to the same place the problem is that Glastonbury is not an island it's at least 15 miles from the sea but this wasn't always so if you visit the area after heavy winter range you'll begin to glimpse a rather different Glastonbury canals now drain the access waters [Music] but in the Dark Ages floods got much higher I mean we'd be standing in water probably up to our knees and behind me the tour would have been standing up through the water and I think he must have looked like an island now the islands were important because they were removed from the world of the living and people considered but on the islands lived if you like the ancestors that was the next world and I think it's extremely likely but a really ambitious warlord would want to get himself buried at the top of Glastonbury Tor for the simple reason that he's right up there with the gods perhaps the Isle of Avalon and Glastonbury are the same place and Arthur is buried there if so where until now excavations have revealed no Dark Age burials on the top of the tour or perhaps Arthur support has decided to settle for the foot of the hill [Music] at the base of the tour today are the ruins of Glastonbury a.d the abbey flourished during the middle ages around the time that Geoffrey of Monmouth was writing about Arthur by then the legend was becoming popular across Europe and some years later after Jeffrey's death the Abbey suddenly hit the headlines Geoffrey of Monmouth never mentions Glastonbury in his tale yet records from that time show that shortly after his death monks began to dig in that cemetery over there behind me could it possibly be that they believed that Arthur was buried here the monks left detailed records allowing us to reconstruct what happened they said they found a small cross with an inscription in Latin which read here lies the famous King Arthur and his Queen Guinevere in the Isle of pavulon [Music] so apparently the monks continued to dig [Music] until they unearthed a hollowed-out log with two bodies they claimed that next to the skeleton of a woman was that of a tall man with the badly damaged skull [Music] the monks then wrote that they took the bones out and relayed them inside the alley just here and especially made tomb unfortunately the tomb and the bones were lost when the abbey was destroyed by Henry the eighth all that remains now is this plaque he was put here to mark the spot where Arthur's bones were supposedly reinterred but how reliable for the monks claims records show that just before they found the bones the abbey was damaged by a great fire the monks may have been in need of repair funds what better way to attract pilgrims than to claim that you had found the body of the legendary King Arthur who by then was famous across the whole of Europe but our Furion expert Frank Reno looked into the history of Glastonbury Abbey and found no evidence that it cashed in on its find they received no extra special funds there were no more pilgrimages here than there were for instance at Canterbury no more money and no more recognition so that contradicts the theory of a hoax indeed none of the rival Abbey's never claimed that Glastonbury had perpetrated a hoax so perhaps the monks were telling the truth after all [Music] [Music] the legendary Arthur is the ultimate romantic hero a king with magic of his side a court wizard of Goddess in a lake a beautiful but unfaithful wife a band of brave knights and an honorable death on the battlefield now the evidence suggests that there were elements of truth behind all these stories and that there was indeed a real warrior king who successfully United the Dark Age tribes of Britain against a common enemy for many years of course we can't be sure he was called Arthur what the name does suddenly become fashionable at that time Arthur appears as a personal name first in the sixth century Kings start naming their sons Arthur Kings and Wales Kings and Scotland's must have been some impetus for these Kings to start naming their sons after a figure named Arthur so maybe Geoffrey of Monmouth was tapping into the folk memory of a real king called Arthur after all that memory was then embellished by centuries of poets the most fantastic theory of all is that Arthur never quite died that his spirit became a raven some legends say that Arthur is asleep somewhere in a cave the whereabouts of the cave is a mystery but the story goes that if you came along at the right moment a golden gate would open and you could see Arthur asleep [Music] well obviously that's just a tall story but amazingly it may well be the best clue yet that there once was a great warrior king called Arthur request number of other stories in various parts of Europe about an immortal King Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in a hill in Germany and various others who are supposed to be still alive and asleep in the cave that doesn't seem to be any other instance of this cave legend being told of some fairytale figure or mythical figure it's always told of a real person so if you find it told of Arthur that's in favor of his being a real person whether Arthur was a real warlord who became the one great hero of the Dark Ages that of course we will never know it is just impossible but Martha was Geoffrey of Monmouth's fantasy inventor to chair the Britons after centuries of oppression but maybe he wants a real-life hero whose true achievements were only kept alive by storytellers until Geoffrey of Monmouth committed them to paper but one thing we do know everyone needs a hero to have come true and that is exactly what Arthur was [Music] beautiful homeboys

Channel: Steve Haskett

Views: 151,127

Rating: 4.8923688 out of 5

Keywords: King Arthur, Camelot, documentary, avalon, tintagel, Richard Harris, Harry Potter, merlin, pendragon, stone circles, druids, history, myths, the dark ages, medieval

Id: bI5MlEZSHdw

Length: 58min 42sec (3522 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 15 2020