What Are Your Thoughts On the Real King Arthur?

[Sophia Leigh]

Do you know your history? Did King Arthur really exist? Was he was born at Tintagel castle? Is Cadbury Fort/Castle actually Camelot and is Glastonbury really Avalon?

[kksmith]

The History Channel once did a show on the King Arthur myth:
http://www.historychannel.com/kingarthur/

I believe they concluded that it was an amalgam of several different historical figures. On that link, if you click "About the Show" it talks about it a little bit (though obviously not as extensively as the show did). It was all pretty interesting.

[Sophia Leigh]

Thanks for the link kksmith :) , however the fact is that no conclusion has been made on King Arthur. There is still plenty more to be uncovered which hasn't been partly because of the cost involved in escavating some of these places.

There is different archaelogical and historical evidence that while it doesn't confirm it does show that there is a strong case that the story could be true. I'm personally interested in what Geoffrey Ashe has to say on the matter (a leading archaeologist on the subject) but am yet to get my hands on some of his books.

In history it is said that at the end of the 1100s (probably 600 years after being buried) monks at Glastonbury discovered Arthur & Guinevere's bodies after a fire had destroyed part of their abbey and that during the 1200s King Edward witnessed them being reburied in a new tomb which was later ransacked after King Henry VIII changed from being a catholic to a protestant.

I'm more interested in knowing people's personal opinions on the subject, after reading some of the facts (just do a net search, you'll find heaps of info) or seeing documentaries etc. The 2004 movie "King Arthur" starring Clive Owen & Keira Knightly is supposed to be based on "fact" as opposed to the movie "Merlin" starring Sam Neill & Miranda Richardson which is just pure fantasy (a good movie though)

[kksmith]

Merlin was actually an NBC Miniseries - back when they did a miniseries pretty much every year (Odyssey, Guliver's Travels, Arabian Nights, etc etc). Pretty good too.

[Sophia Leigh]

Merlin was actually an NBC Miniseries - back when they did a miniseries pretty much every year (Odyssey, Guliver's Travels, Arabian Nights, etc etc). Pretty good too.
Yeah, I've got Merlin on video, I loved Gulliver's Travels with Ted Danson too :)