Outpost Magazine

WALES journey through Wales is like Awaking up in a detective story. And in this episode we were travelling with the genuine article. Our guide, WALES John Wake, had been a police officer for 27 years. He spent 23 of them as a detective in the Criminal Investiga- tion Division, and seven as head of the Drug Squad. Today, he’s an ex- pert on the legendary King Arthur. The figure of Arthur casts a warm glow over the medieval history of the United Kingdom. He lived at a time when knights dreamt of rescuing damsels and roamed the land for the love of a quest. Arthur formed the Round Camelo Table, a meeting place of equals, where he ruled over a Golden Age the likes of ncovered which we haven’t seen U since. Or did he...? What about dragons and magicians and gi- ants? What about the Holy Grail? Oh, they were just stories, you might say. Fables tacked on. Metaphors for something else. But could you dismiss one while accepting the other? What’s the truth in all of this? Was there any truth, at all? These pages: Tintern Abbey, Monmouthsire. Construction of the abbey began in AD 1131 and started to fall into ruin in the 16th century. hrough the mist-swept castles and lush Trolling hills of Wales, a literary lover sets on a quest for truth befitting a knight— Did King Arthur Ever Exist? Story by Ryan Murdock Photos by Simon Vaughan 2011|20122011|2012 Winter 44 www.outpostmagazine.com www.outpostmagazine.com 45 Winter 2011|20122011|2012 That’s what my friend Simon already torpedoed our quest? I have to legends, in particular the Arthurian Arthur and Cadwaladr. the site of our next clue, I asked him WALES Vaughan and I have come to Wales to admit I was shaken. I’d grown up on tales. Experts today regard it as a work “Now have a look here. This is a about the Roman occupation. find out. We met detective John one stories of Arthur and his Knights, and of fiction, with a few facts sprinkled in. Victorian-era window, so it obviously “Did you know we’re driving on one morning over coffee at Cardiff’s Parc part of me still wanted to believe. And yet, Arthurian scholars still treat came much later and isn’t a histori- of their roads right now?” he said. “Pull Thistle Hotel, and I asked him how he “So, was there a man behind the it as the one definitive text on the real cal source. But it depicts Arthur as into that parking lot on the right, just WALES developed his rather odd hobby. legend?” I asked. “Or was it all just an King Arthur. a Romano-Briton, which would have up there.” “It started as a fascination,” he said. elaborate fiction?” John Wake would have none of it. been correct.” The Romans left Britain The stone remains of a thick Roman “And then became an obsession. Now “Oh yes,” John said. “I believe there “You can’t pick and choose facts just in AD 410, and the Britons still hadn’t wall stood behind a beer garden, cov- it’s back to being a fascination again.” was a man. But he wasn’t the Arthur to support your case,” he said, jabbing come on the scene. “If Arthur did ex- ered in moss, with only a pile of rubbish An awful lot of people have written of these stories.” a finger into the air. “You can’t say ist, this is probably the type of clothing to mark the spot. We were standing about King Arthur. Academics have And so the three of us set out to Arthur set up his camp at Cadbury in he would have worn.” beside the ancient entry to the village fought over him, England has trans- uncover this person, this mysterious one chapter, and in the next, Merlin Despite Hollywood images and later of Caerwent, where the landscape still planted and claimed him, and a wide Arthur. And there were many digres- flew in on the wings of a dragon. The legends, suits of armour wouldn’t be held signs of what was once a very large range of tourist sites bill themselves as sions along the way. person who wrote that is not a cred- invented for many hundreds of years. market town. It spread across a broad the “real” burial place, and the place of ible witness. All of his testimony must John pointed to the man in the cen- bowl of land, and I could clearly trace the round table and battlefields. But no ur first stop was Llandaff be dismissed.” tre of the triad. “I believe Geoffrey’s the sweep of the wall that marked the one denies that the earliest references OCathedral, a 12th-century church By questioning Geoffrey, John was Arthur was the grandson of Tewdrig. distant limits of the settlement. This to Arthur come from Wales. The en- north of downtown Cardiff. John casting doubt on the one source of And that the fragments he used to was exactly the sort of place Arthur tire topic is so full of misinformation, briefed us on the case as we drove. Arthurian legend that is accepted as weave his fiction and tales were based and his contemporaries would have hidden agendas, personal interest and “There are a few things you a baseline by academic researchers. In on actual events and actual people who known in the centuries following the competing national myths that you’d guys have to know about Geoffrey the world of Camelot—Arthur’s mythi- lived. I’m going to show you exactly decline of Roman Britain. have to be a detective to figure it all of Monmouth,” he said, beginning cal kingdom where chivalry, peace and who I think they were.” It wouldn’t be the first such site we out. And that’s where John comes in. with the source of all King Arthur social justice reigned—this is serious Having set the stage with some stumbled across in Wales. This is a “Here’s my angle,” he said, cut- legends—and the most questionable business. And with that, we arrived at rather stunning stained-glass visuals, place where you can’t throw a stone ting straight to the core. “Would a witness in the entire case. “Geoffrey Llandaff, the first stop on our journey Detective John turned and walked without hitting a 13th-century church, particular fact make it into a court was commissioned to write his History through a confusion of fact, fiction and down the aisle. “Come on then. Our hilltop castle, or Roman site. Every of law? Not, would it by Robert of Gloucester, hidden agendas. next set of clues is a bit of a drive.” square foot of the land has a story to prove the case—but No one denies and the book is dedi- “This place has real historical con- tell, and in Wales, these legends are would it even make it cated to him.” nections,” John said, as we walked Ajourney through Wales is like a right around the corner. Our investi- into court? If a story that the earliest Robert of Gloucester through the church’s moss-covered conversation in a bar. It’s filled gation continued at the nearby site of or a piece of so-called was one of the powerful lich gate. “The first religious com- with digressions. You never really Meurig’s Well. proof doesn’t meet references to Anglo-Norman barons, munity here was established by stick to the point you thought you “You guys remember Tewdrig, the these criteria, I dis- Arthur come the so-called Marcher Saint Dubricius—St. Dyfrig in Welsh. were trying to make. And you never figure next to Arthur in the window miss it immediately. Lords, placed in control Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed Dyfrig know where you’ll end up, either. of Llandaff Cathedral?” John asked. It isn’t relevant to from Wales of the Welsh-English crowned King Arthur at a nearby It didn’t take us long to realize John “This place is connected to him. And the case.” border region at that Roman site called Caerleon. And Wake had a limitless ability to pull there are some very interesting paral- This was clearly a man with no pa- time. In other words, Geoffrey wrote Dyfrig was a real person. This places facts and odd places out of his hat like lels to the story told by Geoffrey of Top three: Gargoyles on the 12th-century tience for nonsense. his book for the ruling class of his day. Arthur in the correct time frame, if a conjurer pulling a rabbit. If there was Monmouth.” Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff. “So, what do you think?” I asked, “You’ve got to remember that the he were real.” ever a Merlin in Wales, this man is it. Tewdrig was a famous 5th- to 6th- determined to appear even more hard- 12th century was a very corrupt time,” Our detective wasn’t the type to As we sped down the highway towards century king of the region of Gwent, boiled than ‘Detective Wake for The John continued. “The kings of Britain mess around with sightseeing. We an area on the Welsh border with Prosecution.’ Trust me, I know how to needed a back story, something to made our way straight down the England. He became a holy man in handle these things. legitimize their rule. And Geoffrey vast, echoing centre aisle to a small his later years, willingly abdicating “Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of wanted to please his patron.” apse tucked away near the altar.

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