Celtic Britons

as i drove from dinton's station in the waning light of that autumn day i was impressed by the weird nature of the scenery the few scattered cottages of the peasants were so dwarfed by the huge evidences of prehistoric life that the present appeared to be a dream and the past to be the obtrusive and masterful reality The road wound through the valleys formed by a succession of grassy hills, and the summit of each was cut and carved into the most elaborate fortifications, some circular and some square, but all on a scale which has defied the winds and the rains of many centuries.

Some call them Roman and some British, but their true origin and the reasons for this particular tract of country being so interlaced with entrenchments have never been finally made

clear.

Here and there on the long smooth olive-coloured slopes there rose small rounded barrows or tumuli.

when the Angles and Saxons invaded.

And so it's also kind of a return of the Britons, and they're getting a little revenge alongside the Normans when they come back in.

And the Normans really latch on to this King Arthur story as something that can be unifying of the three peoples they're ruling now, right? Kind of reaching

back beyond the prehistory of the people that they're now conquering.

And that bought Britain – not out of England, out of Britain – that bought Britain about 30 years of peace and stability as they were under unified leadership.

But then presumably upon the death of that leader, they fell to infighting again, and the Saxons and the Angles returned, and they brought the Jews with them.

And this time the Britons, being disunified, were not strong enough to resist them, and that's the end of Britain and the beginning of England.

So – But once that happens, the British aren't wiped out.

Whatever he was doing during these missing years, he returned unmistakably to the Irish Analystic Record in the year 870, and when he reappeared, he did so during one of the greatest military achievements of his career.

The Annals of Ulster record that Olaf and Aimar, explicitly described as two kings of the Norsemen, besieged Dumberton Rock, the great fortress of the Britons of Strathclyde.

The siege lasted four months.

Eventually, the fortress was destroyed and plundered.

The following Annal entry makes the scale of the victory even clearer.

In the year 871, Olaf and Aymar returned to Dublin from Scotland with 200 ships.

The Annals of Ulster state that they brought with them a great multitude of captives consisting of Angles, Britons and Picts.

Dublin was receiving not merely a victorious army, but the human and material proceeds of a major conquest.

And

Jack, of course, was very happy to call himself a Briton.

All

right.

He's a complicated man of his time.

It also reads way more like historical fiction, even though it's debated whether it's fantasy or historical fiction of where you put it, but the vibe it gives you is you are reading in the 400s, 500s AD, this legend Arthur, and how is he going to unite the Britons against the Saxons at the same time while the Christians and pagans are fighting? Who will win England? and it is that fight that is ongoing and the fun thing about this arthurian legend and why it takes more our historical fiction well arthur is he real in the first place who knows um the the fun thing that it does is the things you think you know about guinevere or about lancelot are taken in a direction here about merlin are taken in a direction here It subverts the character sometimes, but also adds more nuance and depth to especially Arthur.

When I think of King Arthur, I think of this series now.

This is the Arthur that's complicated and has... a perspective from one of his warlords derval that makes you sympathize with arthur but also get frustrated with arthur so if you want to look at this arthur figure it's not just a simple knight in shining armor that saves britain so if you want that extra layer that's how you you are going to get pulled through the series

You guys sent him away.

Which is why that conflict, I was so into the, okay, is it Britain's fault or Arthur's fault, right? Constantly between that.

The thing that goes outside that is how he treats Derval and what he does with Kindwin is outside of the war and the Christians and the pagans and the Saxons versus Britons.

And that's personal.

One fine day he set sail from France and soon came in sight of the island.

The Britons in some way or other had heard of his coming and had gathered to meet him.

As he drew near, Caesar saw with surprise that the whole shore was covered with men ready for battle.

He also saw that the place which he had chosen for landing was not good, for there were high steep cliffs upon which the Britons could stand and shower darts upon his soldiers.

So he turned his ships and sailed along the coast until he came to a place where the shore was flat.

The Roman ships were called galleys.

On either side, from the center of the wheels, swords stuck out.

As the wheels went round, these swords cut down, killed, or wounded everyone who came within reach.