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Next time you are sitting before a round
table, remember King Arthur’s Round Table, a symbol of equality.
We are familiar with the stories of King Arthur, his famous Round
Table and his magnificent castle at Camelot. However, historians are
yet to arrive at a consensus on how much of it is history and how
much of it is a myth.
Legend has it that King
Arthur was a Briton who fought the Saxons between 400 AD and 500 AD.
Some researchers have even identified that the Castle of Camelot
could have been either in Wales or Somerset. But no historian has
been able to pinpoint the exact period when King Arthur lived, as
there is no documentary evidence. As mentioned above, we are yet to
sift the fiction from the facts.
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Legend has it that King Arthur was the son of Uther Pendragon, who,
acting on the advice of a magician, Merlin, is said to have hidden
his son from his enemies. Sir Ector, a nobleman, brought up Arthur.
After the death of his father, Arthur became king, but only after he
pulled out a powerful sword called Excalibur from a stone.
He established a court with one hundred and fifty knights in
attendance. Arthur used a huge round table, with seats that were
known as sieges. It is said that the table was deliberately round
because Arthur wanted to emphasize that no knight was more important
than another was. Some of the famous Knights of the Round Table were
Galahad, Gawain and Lancelot.
Galahad was said to have been the best of all the knights. Gawain
was a nephew of Arthur, while Lancelot was a sworn enemy because he
killed Gawain’s brothers by mistake.
A special seat was reserved at the Round Table for the knight who
could find a dish that contained the holy blood of Jesus Christ, or
so the legend goes. The dish was apparently brought to England by
one Joseph of Aramathea, but is said to have disappeared later. The
dish was called the Holy Grail. The story goes that Galahad was the
only one who saw the Holy Grail and that it later floated to
Heaven.
Arthur married Guinevere, much to the chagrin of Lancelot. He was
challenged by Lancelot and, while, he was thus occupied, his throne
was challenged by a nephew.
Although Arthur overthrew his nephew, he was wounded and was taken
to a fairyland for rest and recovery. The story goes that Arthur is
expected to rise to Britain’s rescue should she ever need his
services again.
It was in the History of the Britons that early historians
found a mention of King Arthur. The book was penned by a Welsh monk,
somewhere around 800 AD.
Three hundred years later, a writer from Monmouth wrote another book
tracing the history of the Britons, in which he is said to have
referred to both King Arthur as well as the magician, Merlin.
In later years, many stories were woven around King Arthur that the
fiction seeped into the fact. Hopefully,
this will keep the romance around King Arthur and Knights of the
Round Table intact. |
