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Gwyllion – Welsh word for a witch or spirit.

Hide – Farm or portion of land used to determine the render, or tax, due from the inhabitants of a kingdom.

Loricasegmentata – Type of Roman armour with overlapping plates riveted to leather straps.

Pilum – Roman spear.

Scop – Poet.

Seidr – Ancient word for magic.

Volva – Seeress or witch.

Wealas – Saxon word for Britons, which also means slaves.

Ynys Môn – Island of Anglesey.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Arthurian legends have fascinated us for centuries, beginning in medieval literature, and adapting to their current form in modern-day novels, films and art. This tale of Arthur takes place in a crumbling Britain. A country under a veil of darkness following the Roman departure in the first decade of the fifth century after four hundred years of rule. After so many years of law, trade, taxation, military protection, roads and aqueducts, the country fell into anarchy. Gildas, a British monk and historian writing in the early sixth century, lays down a picture of abandoned cities, civil war and invasions by Saxon tribes. It is into this world that Arthur is born, a semi-mythical figure who is held up to this day as one of Britain’s greatest kings.

For the two centuries following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in around 400 AD, only fragments of evidence survive to help paint a picture of those dark days, which must have seemed like an apocalypse to the people of the time. There are mentions of Arthur in early texts, such as a poem known as ‘Y Gododdin’, an elegy for warriors of the Gododdin tribe from a region in south-east Scotland. The early mentions of Arthur add credulity to his legends, and many of the characters in this novel are historical people, such as Ida, Octha, Theodric, Urien and Owain, while others like Ector and Uther come down to us through the mists of time, legends, fragments of texts and folklore. Ida, for example, is mentioned by Bede as the progenitor of the Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian royal family. Bede mentions that Ida reigned for twelve years and built an early version of Bamburgh Castle on a coastal hilltop known as Dun Guaroy to the Britons.

Bede, a monk writing in the eighth century, writes of the ravages of the Saxon peoples as a punishment for the wicked ways of the Britons, and names Ambrosius Aurelianus as the leader of the resistance against the Saxon invasion. Bede does not mention Arthur but does state that Vortigern invited the Saxons to Britain in 449 and names Hengist and Horsa as their leaders.

A chronicle known as the Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons), written by Nennius, also talks of Vortigern and Saxon invasion. It mentions Octha of the Saxons and gives Arthur as the leader, or dux bellorum, of the Britons who defeated the Saxons over a series of twelve battles. The first of those twelve battles is at the river Glein, and the last is at Mount Badon. This novel deals with Arthur’s rise, and ends with his first battle, which I have placed at the river Glen in Northumberland. Historians believe the river Glein could be the river Glen in Northumberland, or the river Glen in Lincolnshire. I have opted for the former.

Arthur appears in a wealth of medieval literature, which helped Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chrétien de Troyes shape the legends into the stories more recognisable to modern readers. The surviving Arthurian Welsh prose tales were first edited and translated in 1838 by Charlotte Guest into a work she called the Mabinogion. That important work contains Arthurian stories such as ‘Culhwch and Olwen’ (where Llamrei is mentioned as Arthur’s horse), ‘The Dream of Rhonabwy’, and ‘The Birth of Arthur’ (which contains the story of Kaletvwlch, or Excalibur, the sword in the stone). One of the greatest collections of Welsh verse is the Book of Taliesin, originally composed by a sixth-century bard named Taliesin, which is dedicated to Urien of Rheged and his son Owain and contains references to Arthur and his adventures.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, a teacher, cleric and bishop, wrote The History of the Kings of Britain in 1136 which is one of the most influential developments in Arthurian literature. Geoffrey gives us the prehistory to Arthur’s life, which includes Uther Pendragon, Vortigern, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and Merlin cast as a powerful wizard. The Merlin of this novel is a druid: the pre-Roman shamans, priests, lore keepers, advisors and medical practitioners of Britain. The Romans all but wiped out the druids during their invasion of Britain, culminating in the destruction of their sacred groves on the island of Ynys Môn, modern-day Anglesey.

Later writers, particularly the romantic Arthurian writers of the Middle Ages, give us many more Arthurian legends and add colourful characters such as Lancelot, Guinevere and Perceval and the story of the Holy Grail. We shall meet some of those characters in future novels in this series, but Guinevere can be traced back to the histories of Geoffrey of Monmouth, where the original Welsh form of her name was Gwynhyfar.

Lloegyr is a medieval Welsh name for the region of Britain lost to the Saxons during their invasion or migration to Britain, though the origins of the term are uncertain and are the subject of a great deal of speculation. In this novel, I give its meaning as the lost lands, and it is generally accepted that the term refers to a foreign people in a foreign land, and the modern Welsh word lloegr refers to the country of England.

The world I have attempted to paint at the time of Arthur’s life is one of violence, extreme wealth, and extreme poverty, and any mistakes in the descriptions or telling are my own. Following the Roman departure, Britain fell into a lawless state where strongmen prevailed, carving out kingdoms for themselves using war and subjugation, and living in hilltop forts with earthwork defences. They were cruel men, living in the shadow of a literate church and the ghost of an ancient Celtic religion, with Roman-style commands of infantry and mounted warriors to protect towns and trade. The ruling elite fought for precious resources, and to gather the render due from the farmers within their kingdoms. There were twenty-eight civitas, or Roman towns, which had begun to crumble and decay but remained inhabited by powerful men, and the country crawled with mercenary bands, or bucellari, who sold themselves to lords in need of warriors. Warriors of the time did not fight on horseback, according to the historical sources. They did not possess saddles, and stirrups would not arrive in England until the tenth century. So, just as the Anglo-Saxons did later in history, the Arthur of this novel uses cavalry as a means to travel faster and outmanoeuvre his enemies, rather than to charge and destroy enemy warriors.

For a brilliant insight into the world of Arthur’s time, I highly recommend Max Adams’ fantastic book, The First Kingdom: Britain in the Age of Arthur. Any of the texts mentioned above provide interesting wider reading, but the later Middle Ages tales veer more into the romantic, stylised world of Arthurian legend. In this novel, we see Arthur win the first of his twelve battles, but the Saxons are far from beaten and he must march again to fight the tide of invasion and become the leader of Britain’s armies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Gibbons is a financial advisor and author of the highly acclaimed Viking Blood and Blade trilogy. He originates from Liverpool and now lives with his family in County Kildare.