Re: CHAT: The etymology of (King) Arthur (was Re: CHAT: reign names)

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 01:44, Paul Bennett wrote:
<snip>
>
> I understand that while Arthur is a composite, there was a Romano-Britsh
> leader (originally a Cavalry commander), with a bear as his standard.
Future generations of historians will say there was an Anglo-German Queen with
the Corgi as her standard, and they will go slowly mad trying to connect her
and the corgis - the sacred animal of the British Isles, apparently - with
the English Lion and the Welsh Dragon.  Perhaps some of them will connect the
British Throne with the creature known in its Australian Commonwealth as the
Drongo, and argue that "Dragon" is a misspelling.  :-)

(I don't propose to precede them into madness. ;)

> There was a really good documentary on the History Channel that examined
> the historical evidence to reconstruct as much of the Arthurian truth as
> they could. The show then spent time on Mallory and Geoffrey of Monmouth
> and so on, showing how the vague details of history became the legend we
> know today. I wish I could remember more details about him and his
> contemporaries (I can't even remember the names of the histories he's
> refered to in), but it has been a while since I saw the documentary. The
> name "Arth Ur" was posited during that documentary as plausibly combining
> the Celtic and Latin words for "bear", in agreement with the bear on the
> battle-flag.
>
>
>
>
> Paul
--
Wesley Parish
* * *
Clinersterton beademung - in all of love.  RIP James Blish
* * *
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."

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