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Comment by elvinyung | Hacker News Reader

Matter of Britain/Arthurian mythos nerd here.

It's amazing how much of the Arthurian mythologies have been derived from varius vague allusions in this book. Probably lots of people know about the theory of Ambrosius Aurelianus as a possible candidate for historical King Arthur because of his role in the battle at Mount Badon, but what's even more interesting is that in the book Gildas refers to a leader only by their sobriquet of "the bear", which was rendered as ursus in Latin, but in Brythonic, it would've been arth.

Also another fun fact, Gildas never refers to Dumnonia by name, instead calls it "Damnonia" presumably to reflect his condemnation.

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The article touches on how later Anglo Saxons identified with Gildas, especially in their own resistance to Danish invasion. I think that's largely why the myth of Arthur became so entrenched. It resonated with later English readers, with the trials of Arthur paralleling the struggle of Alfred against the Danes.

I can't help suspect that Arthurian scholars and fans that want to place Camelot in south-central England are drawn by the ghost of the kingdom of Wessex.

I once read that King Arthur is one of the crowning (pun probably intended) counterexamples of "history is written by the victors": if the Anglo-Saxons really did write the history of the Sub-Roman Britain period, we would have heard more about the Völkerwanderung and less about Arthur and Badon. But maybe what you said is more correct, that history was adapted by the victors (who then became the losers).

There are times when the victors win by allowing the losers to write 90% of the story. Thus, the Catholic saints. Many of the saints were previously pagan gods, and the Catholic Church decided that, rather than fight about it, it was easiest to just accept the old gods as saints, which made victory much easier.

http://biblelight.net/verita.htm

http://www.articleseen.com/Article_pagan-gods-and-goddesses-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianization_of_saints_and...

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