is king arthur real?

i have this friend, *li *m*ni (the 'A' in his name is not shown to protect his identity), he told me that king arthur was real. of course, i laughed thinking he was joking.

"i'm f*ckin' serious, dude" he said with a straight face. i remained quiet.

then i laughed louder than before. apparently, when he was a wee boy, his mommy brought him to a castle in winchester and there, they saw the legendary castle of camelot and the round table. well, today, i shall unravel the truth and myth of the mighty king, shattering my friend's dream and reveal his childhood memory was nothing but a lie.

king arthur. just a legend or a true hero?

first off, let's start with a brief 'history' of the magnificent king. king arthur was not ruling the east part of england but was more associated to cornwall. there are multiple time frames of his era, but it is around 367-734 AD. his origins is not known. some say he's british or roman. the earliest account of the reign of arthur was not documented until 200 years after the arthur era. so, this account is a long shot to the truth at best. but in 1998, this stone caused a stir.

In the north coast of Cornwall on cliffs overlooking the sea. In the 1100's this was recorded as the traditional birthplace of Arthur. In 1991 the first major excavation since the 1930's took place at Tintagel Castle directed by Professor Chris Morris of the University of Glasgow. In 1983 an excavation here found the remains of dozens of huts from the 400's. During the1998 excavation in August some evidence of a Runic inscription on a piece of rock of the 500's mentioning Arthur (Artognov) was located. The present day economy of Tintagel is closely built on the myth of King Arthur. Arthur's birth site is reputed to lie beneath the Norman castle.

the answer is not yet conclusive.


you may know the story of the sword in the stone.

"only a true king can pull this sword from the stone!" said merlin . then, a boy came and pulled it out and became king of camelot. it is said that the mythical sword could cut anything. the story doesn't just end there. according to historical accounts, he threw away excalibur when he accidentally killed a fellow knight but went on a quest to find a new sword and named it after the original.

as he was a great leader, he was also a great warrior. in a crucial battle with the invading anglo-saxons, he won the battle..... single-handedly, killing over 900 men.

now for the truth... where better to start than wikipedia.
King Arthur is a fabled Brython leader and a prominent figure in Britain's legendary history. A real individual may have been the inspiration of the legend, but later stories of Arthur are almost entirely fictional. In these he appears as the ideal of kingship both in war and peace; even in modern times he has been ranked as one of the 100 Greatest Britons of all time. Over time, the stories of King Arthur have captured such widespread interest that he is no longer identified as the legendary hero of a single nation. Countless new legends, stories, revisions, books, and films have been produced in Europe and the United States that unabashedly enlarge on and expand the fictional accounts of King Arthur.

most historians think that arthur were stories of many great leaders of the time, making him one great king. he was actually nothing more than a mere romantic story of a great king and his brave knights and round tables which was just used as a moral booster for pheasants and soldiers of the time. a big proof to this are the armours. during the alleged arthur era, weapons back then were simple. there were no knights in shinning armours on horses with metal swords. wooden spears would have been common and realistic during that period.

there's a lot more to it than what i described above but for your sake, i shall stop here. it's very long and some may find it dull.

but there was one more thing i needed to find out. what did my friend actually see when he was a kid? well, here it is...

this was just a replica of the famous king arthur's roundtable. and the king on the table is king henry VIII. kings and leaders of the knight era would use king arthur's brave stories in war cries before going into battle. so, it is not surprising that a roundtable is made to, again, boost morale.

hope you had a good read, *li!