Real Man Also Believed to Be Behind Legend of Wizard Merlin : Fabled King Arthur More Than a Fable, Author Says

The legendary King Arthur and his wizard Merlin actually existed, two recent books suggest, although much earlier and in far different form than in medieval romances about Camelot and the Round Table.

“The Discovery of King Arthur,” by Geoffrey Ashe, contends that Arthur was in reality a king called Riothamus, who is known to have ruled the British and campaigned on the European continent in the middle of the 5th Century, 50 years after the Romans left the British Isles.

“The Quest for Merlin,” by Nikolai Tolstoy, argues that Merlin was a pagan bard and shaman of the latter 6th Century who mixed prophecy with his poetry and eventually went mad.

Despite healthy skepticism from experts in the field, the evidence of Arthur’s existence was so compelling to Debrett’s Peerage, the handbook of British nobility, that it has accorded him formal recognition as a sovereign of Britain and published Ashe’s work.

Neither book claims to have uncovered any new documentation. Rather, they offer a new reading of what is already available that supports the idea of real men behind the myths.

12th-Century Writer

Both myths have their roots in the work of a giant of 12th-Century English letters, a teacher and cleric named Geoffrey of Monmouth.

In Geoffrey’s “History of the Kings of Britain,” Arthur was a youthful Celtic ruler leading the post-Roman Britons against Saxon barbarians who invaded from Europe. He rolled the Saxons back and restored Britain to peace, stable government and Christian worship.

Later, according to Geoffrey, Arthur conquered what are now Iceland, Norway and Denmark and went on to fight in Gaul--now France--defeating the remnants of the Roman Empire there.

He was at the Alps preparing to march toward Rome when he heard his nephew Modred, ruling in Britain, had turned traitor and slept with his queen, Guinevere. Arthur returned, killed Modred and routed his legions but was mortally wounded himself.

Over the centuries, writers from Sir Thomas Malory (“Le Mort d’Arthur”) to Alfred Lord Tennyson (“Idylls of the King”) have embellished the story, transforming it into an epic romance, shining with chivalry and crusades.

Most historians have regarded Geoffrey of Monmouth as merely the first of the fiction writers, since much of what he wrote is fantasy or provably false.

“Practically everything about King Arthur is legend,” acknowledges Ashe, a Cambridge-educated writer, lecturer and Arthuriana buff. “All I’m suggesting is that I have succeeded in laying my finger on a real man at the origin of the story.”

Ashe said the real-life Arthur was Riothamus, “a person who is really historically documented,” who reigned from 454 to 470 in the twilight of the Roman Empire. Ashe said it was surprising no one had earlier identified Arthur as Riothamus, whose existence is documented by a letter from Sidonius Apollinaris, a 5th-Century Gallo-Roman aristocrat.

Another Source

Ashe also places Arthur on the Continent via an 11th-Century document from the Brittany region of France entitled the “Legend of St. Goeznovius.”

“This saint’s life has a long historical preface telling where the Breton ecclesiastics came from, and in the course of this, the author talks about Arthur’s wars, including Arthur’s wars on the Continent,” Ashe said. “If it had been given its proper weight, the document would have settled all this ages ago.”

Riothamus’ exploits in Gaul, now France, closely parallel those that Geoffrey of Monmouth attributed to King Arthur. “Riothamus, too, led an army of Britons into Gaul, and was the only British king who did. . . . He, too, disappears after a fatal battle, without any recorded death,” Ashe said in his book.

However, if the man is King Arthur, why is he called by another name?

Ashe explained that Riothamus is a word meaning “High King” and that powerful people have sometimes been referred to by their formal titles.

“The Mongol conqueror who is always known as Genghis Khan was actually named Temujin--Genghis Khan means ‘very mighty ruler.’ The name of the first Roman emperor was Octavian, but he is always called Augustus, meaning roughly ‘His Majesty,’ ” he said.

Arthur-Riothamus, Ashe said, “most certainly had a kind of personal army, a war band who were very probably mounted men. This is as close as you get to the Knights of the Round Table.

“He would have been a person of reasonable culture. He would have known Latin as well as the British language. He would have been literate. He would have been a nominal Christian, if not a very enthusiastic one.”

With Merlin, again it is Geoffrey of Monmouth who provided the myth that hid the man. In “Vita Merlini” (Life of Merlin), an epic poem, Geoffrey describes Merlin as a prophet active in southwest Wales about a century after Arthur. He helps one Celtic king against another in battle, retires to the woods in grief when three of his brothers are killed, but goes on prophesying, teetering always on the brink of insanity.

Author Tolstoy reports finding historical evidence of the Merlin story in a series of Welsh poems dating back to the 6th Century--the texts refer to him as Myrddin. There also are medieval texts describing an ancient king who kept a court madman called Lailoken and to a northern Irish king, Suibhne, who goes mad in battle.

Tolstoy’s conclusion: Merlin was “a pagan Druid or bard, surviving in a predominantly Christian age.”