Finding Arthur (28 page)

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
.

I
T 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