Tea at Trianon: Shadows in the Mist: The Quest for a Historical King Arthur

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 26, 2023

Shadows in the Mist: The Quest for a Historical King Arthur

I could read Arthurian research all day. From Shadows in the Mist:

A lot of ink has been spilled on the subject of the actual location of Arthur's Kelliwic (or Celliwig) - including by the present author. But I was never completely satisfied with any of the identifications offered, so have decided to treat of the place once more.

There are many good sources which treat of the several candidates for Kelliwic. One of the best is Oliver J. Padel's "Some Souther-Western Sites With Arthurian Associations" in THE ARTHUR OF THE WELSH (ed. Rachel Bromwich, A.O.H. Jarman and Brunley F. Roberts). I refer my readers to that excellent study, as it is not my intention to rehash such material here.

In Triad 1, we are told that the chief bishop of Kellewic is Bytwini/Bitwini/Betwini (modern Bedwenni). Some have thought this merely W. bedwenni, 'birches', a sort of pun on the meaning of Kelliwic. But others (including Bromwich) have made a connection with Bodmin, the etymology of which is discussed by Ekwall as deriving from Cornish bod, 'house, dwelling', and either meneich, 'monks' or menehi, 'monsastery.' The chief elder of Kelliwic in Cornwall is Caradoc Freichfras - which is extremely odd, as this particular Caradoc belong to central and, perhaps, SE Wales.

What I decided to do was to see if there might be any Caradoc place-names at or near Bodmin which could have been wrongly related to the Welsh Caradoc. There are, in fact, two such places. (Read more.)