>Sarmatian cavalry were
>definitely in Britain but that's a couple of hundred years before
>Arthur. ...
>My suspicion is someone with little knowledge of the period has
>seen a drawing of the Sarmatian cavalry and gone "Oooh, knights"
>and added that to the "Arthur was a Roman theory".
>
>
>
Overt 'historicising' of any mythic tradition can only lead to trouble
(pick any world religion). Even if Arthur (or Harmast, or Argrath ;))
*was* historical (and I tend to be an Arthur-skeptic) , the stories
about him grew and were embroidered by independent sources for social
and storytelling reasons. Myth is bricolage - taking whatever's lying
around and using it for your own purposes. History comes a very poor
third or forth after entertainment and ideological shaping. This is
surely true even for Glorantha, where myth has a fairly direct link to
the structure of reality.
*
*Recent bad films aside, my own understanding of Artorius Castus and his
Sarmatians' connection to the Arthur story is that distinctly
Sarmatian mythic and storytelling elements (the grail, sword in stone,
story structures) and visual elements (dragon banners) are to be found
in the Arthurian mythology, elements that can't be readily tied to
Celtic traditions. I'm sure there are high and low (as well as
Hollywood) variants to the thesis - I've read articles in 'Archaeology'
and 'Folklore' as well as Reid's popularisation ('The Dragon King'?) -
so it comes down to not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Assuming there is a baby of course :)
There's some nice stuff online in recent issues of 'The Heroic Age':
http://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/1/hatoc.htm
Cheers
John
-- ____________________________________________ nysalor_at_... John Hughes Questlines: http://home.iprimus.com.au/pipnjim/questlines/ ... a flying arrow, a crashing wave, night old ice, a coiled snake, a bride's bed talk, a broken sword, the play of bears, a king's son. - Havamal 86.
Powered by hypermail