MY FINAL POST ON THE MISTSHADOWS BLOG

The Lucius Artorius Castus Memorial Stone with 'GENTES' Reconstruction

During recent private conversations with Richard Johnson of the YouTube Channel O'R GOLWG

(https://www.youtube.com/@orgolwg), I've systematically gone through all my old attempts to identify a Dark Age British Arthur in the North.  In each and every case I've concluded that I was right to abandon past theories and that I have failed to produce a viable candidate.

I'm herewith formally abjuring all three of the chief candidates: an Arthur son of Sawyl Benisel, an Arthur placed at Stanwix on the western end of Hadrian's Wall and an Arthur son of Eliffer (who was perhaps a king at York).

The faults of the theory which sought to identify Uther Pendragon with Sawyl Benisel have been detailed in recent blog posts and I don't need to repeat those here.  The Arthur at Stanwix relies upon a very late local folk tradition and thus must be discounted.  Other factors in favor of it (see, for example, 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/01/stones-and-horses-on-reaching-final.html) 

rely upon extremely tenuous associations (one of which can just as easily be applied to the eques L. Artorius Castus).  Uther himself looks to be a creation, conjured from the 'terrible warrior' of the Irish Compert Mongan.  Or the name was invented because something with good poetic assonance was needed for a chieftain whose father was otherwise unknown. Arthur Penuchel son of Eliffer is a corrupt reading for Ardun Pen Askell.  But even if Arthur Penuchel is to be preferred (perhaps as the original form of the name, or as a substitution of another genuine traditional name), his chronology does not allow us to idenity him with the Arthur of the Annales Cambriae.  The latter Arthur fought at Badon in 516 (actually closer to 490-500, given the date of Badon according to Gildas) and died in 537, while his supposed brothers Gwrgi and Peredur died fighting at Carrawburgh in 580.  So even if we accept 537 as the correct date for Camlan, an Arthur Penuchel is dying 43 years before his brothers.  

I'm left then, with this honest confession: if there were an actual Dark Age British Arthur in the North (and the battle sites demand that he be put in the North) I have not been able to find him.  

As per my talk on L. Artorius Castus on O'R GOLWG 

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICS0cyB8bqg), the only attested historical Arthur in the North was an early 3rd century Roman legionary prefect at York.  I still like my proposed reading of ARM.GENTES for the famous lacuna in his memorial text, but am okay with the more traditional ARMENIOS.  If the former, Castus took part in the major invasion of Northern Britain under Septimius Severus. If the latter, Castus was active in Britain during a period of major turmoil in the North that involved losing the Antonine Wall and withdrawing to Hadrian's.  Either scenario supports the notion that Castus could have become a legendary figure in the North, although it is far more difficult to account for such happening if he, in fact, led legionary detachments in Armenia, rather than in Britain. 

Historians and archaelogists, who have not benefited from a good knowledge of other disciplines such as folklore and mythology, are united in their belief that a late 2nd or early 3rd century Roman commander could not possibly be the prototypical Arthur.  This despite the fact that our hero appears in the Historia Brittonum with a Herculean 12 battles and already displays a mythical status by the time he shows up in the Mirabilia and early Welsh heroic poetry.  

For an argument against the recalcitrance that has coelesced around Castus as Arthur I would point to the Greek Herakles.  Herodotus, whose floruit was c. 484-425 B.C.E., dated Herakles to approximately 1300-1250 B.C.E.  That is a gap of some 800 years (give or take several in either direction of either date).  Despite the heavy mythologization of Herakles, the Greeks very much believed he had been a real historical entity. 

In the case of Castus, from the early 3rd century to the 8th or 9th century (the date of the HB), we have around 600 years. But if we measure to the supposed dates of Arthur - which are the first half of the 6th century - we are talking about only a few centuries. The GODODDIN, which contains our earliest reference to Arthur (assuming this is not a later interpolation), has been traced back by John  Koch to a 6th century original text. 

Thus there is no difficulty in allowing for a mythologized British figure of the early 3rd century being utilized first by Irish who were establishing kingdoms in Scotland and southwestern Wales and who were being assimilated by native culture, and then for Nennius's employment of the same character for the usual propagandist reasons.  The AC Arthurian entries, written a century or more after the HB, merely inserted Camlan (either a reference to a legendary Castus battle on Hadrian's Wall or a record of the death of Arthur son of Pedr of Dyfed at the Afon Gamlan in Merionethshire) and accepted the fiction of an Arthur at Badon.  

Of course, I keep coming back to the other battles - the ones which I am pretty confident were in the North, with some in the far North.  I cannot reconcile these locations with a Dark Age Arthur, and neither can the experts (Roman Britain and sub-Roman Britain historians and archaelogists).  The battles look Roman and point to only one man: L. Artorius Castus.