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!

modern myths

after the last dull post, i needed to quickly amend that mistake with something worthy to write about. so now, i will share my findings on modern myths with you. so please read on and be shocked by the answers.

is it true that a person should drink 8 glasses of water everyday?

FALSE

yes, you read right! it is completely false. i've found that in general, to remain healthy, we do need to take in the water that we lost through exertions, sweat and other bodily functions. BUT water intake varies from person to person. factors includes age, weight, activity level and the climate where the person lives. the 8 glasses per day is a thumb of rule really and interestingly, it doesn't have to be just plain water.

and to add to this myth, there has been a general thought that drinking coffee, milk, tea, soda or other drinks makes you dehydrate more. a research on this discovered that there were no differences at all. one glass of any of these drinks amounts to about the same hydrating fluids as a glass of water. only drinks with alcohol makes you dehydrate but even then, one needs to drink a lot of it to have noticeable difference, doctors say.

so if you have kidneys the size of a peanut (like myself), the best hydrating advice is "drink if you're feeling thirsty. and you don't have to drink when you're not, unless you want to."

by boiling water in a microwave make it explode?

TRUE but very rare

this myth started with an email being circulated:

I feel that the following is information that any one who uses a microwave oven to heat water should be made aware of. About five days ago my 26-year old son decided to have a cup of instant coffee. He took a cup of water and put it in the microwave to heat it up (something that he had done numerous times before). I am not sure how long he set the timer for but he told me he wanted to bring the water to a boil. When the timer shut the oven off, he removed the cup from the oven. As he looked into the cup he noted that the water was not boiling but instantly the water in the cup "blew up" into his face. The cup remained intact until he threw it out of his hand but all the water had flew out into his face due to the buildup of energy. His whole face is blistered and he has 1st and 2nd degree burns to his face which may leave scarring. He also may have lost partial sight in his left eye.

While at the hospital, the doctor who was attending to him stated that this a fairly common occurrence and water (alone) should never be heated in a microwave oven. If water is heated in this manner, something should be placed in the cup to diffuse the energy such as a wooden stir stick, tea bag, etc. It is however a much safer choice to boil the water in a tea kettle. Please pass this information on to friends and family.

many thought this email was just a typical scare-o-gram, it turned out to be true. conditions need to be perfect and you might not even get to see the phenomenon. but if you get it just right, you'll get this:


if you are 'lucky' to see that, chances you'll get hit in the face is very very rare.

does tapping the top of a soda can prevent it from fizzing out?
TRUE and FALSE

to be honest, i found a lot of answers and explanation to this myth. some proved it to be true by experimentation and videoed his findings and some explained scientifically with physics.

Soda Can Lid Tapping Urban Legend - Awesome video clips here

a website i stumbled upon gave me different results with different beverages, time length of tapping and the resulted foaming. click here to find the results in more detail. her final conclusion?

Tapping on a soda can will not decrease the liklihood that it will foam over on you when opened. It will, however, give you something to do while you wait for the contents to calm down. Generally speaking, one minute is a sufficient amount of time to wait before opening a shaken soda can. Of course, these tests were all done in Portland, Oregon and the majority of the soda was cold. Results at other altitudes with other temperatures of soda are unknown.

very amusing.. the best conclusion of this myth is just let can rest on a table for a few minutes before opening it.

i hope that was a good read!