This is the question that Richard Denham asks in his book Arthur: Shadow of a God (Blkdog Publishing, 2019), claiming to give “a fascinating overview of Britain’s lost hero and casts a light over an often-over-looked and somewhat inconvenient truth; Arthur was almost certainly not a man at all, but a god”.
I must admit I find the concept of Arthur as a god intriguing as, search as you will, there is very little evidence for a historical figure behind the legends. If Arthur was indeed a god we should expect to find him among the pantheon of Welsh gods such the Children of Llyr and the Children of Don. These deities feature in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi euhemerised as Christian Kings and Queens. The tales of the Four Branches clearly have their roots in much older fables but Arthur is notably absent.
However he does feature in the later Native British tales, such as Culhwch and Olwen (10th century?) and The Dream of Rhonabwy (12th century) included in the collection known as the Mabinogion, first compiled in the 18th century.
To scholars of the 19th century the Gaelic hero Fionn mac Cumhaill was seen as a historical figure fighting battles against foreign invaders. Yet, in early literature Fionn clearly belonged to the realm of mythology rather than to that of history.
There is now general agreement among scholars that Fionn was originally a pagan deity; indeed early references record Fionn as a descendant of Nuada Airgetlám of the Tuatha Dé Danann (the folk of the goddess Danu), deities of pre-Christian Gaelic Ireland.
The early Fionn, like Arthur before Geoffrey of Monmouth, belongs to a mythical world; did Arthur, like Fionn, have a divine origin?
I was quite eager to read what Denham unearths in searching for “The untold mythical Roots of King Arthur”.
Mist and Shadows
In setting out to reveal the obscure Celtic origins of King Arthur Denham waste no time in getting to “one of the earliest” references to him, which, he claims, comes from the Roman Province of Dalmatia (p.7). Of course here he is referring to Lucius Artorius Castus a 2nd century Roman officer briefly stationed in Britain. But this no early reference, indeed the link to the legendary King Arthur was not suggested until the 20th century.
Denham swiftly dismisses the notion of a “Dalmatian Arthur” before examining a “Sarmatian Arthur” from which the Roman historian Dio Cassius records 5,500 Sarmatian heavy cavalry were sent to Britain in AD 175 by the emperor Marcus Aurelius and literally disappeared from the archaeological record. Denham then moves on to the “Nartian Arthur”; the Narts Sagas are claimed to have influenced the Arthurian mythology and the Grail stories. Denham is so far not impressed and I’m in agreement with him.
We then move on to the ancient king of Britain Arviragus identified as Arthur by J Whitehead (Guardians of the Grail, 1959) and then the Ufologist Brinsley le Poer Trench who claimed Arthur was a generic name for a series hereditary priests (Men Among Mankind, 1962).
He’s starting to loose me now but then the relevance of the inclusion of these characters becomes apparent when Denham asks as he winds up the Prologue; "does Arthur occur everywhere, by different names and different guises, because he is not human at all?"
This then presumably sets the tone for book which one expects to be an investigation of the various claimants to be the real Arthur, ultimately leading to the conclusion of the author's argument that Arthur is a God. And so the investigation begins.
Book I examines the Dark Ages the period following the Roman withdrawal from Britain and the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. The is the classic Arthurian period in which our Hero is typically depicted as a Romano-British warlord. Denham toys with the idea of Arthur as a mercenary "like Vortigern's Hengist", who “transmogrified” over time into a king.
Denham claims many early texts refer to Arthur as a cavalry commander, which in the later Romances evolved into the Knights of the Round Table. What early texts? Denham does not reference any.
Then we're off to Armorica with Riothamus, another candidate for the legendary king before briefly examining Ambrosius Aurelianus and quoting John Morris (The Age of Arthur, 1973) who argued that what Ambrosius started [the Anglo-Saxon wars] Arthur finished.
The author briefly examines the Arthurian reference in the poem Y Gododdyn, suggesting that this Arthur was probably Artur mac Aedan of Dal Riada who died in battle with the Picts around 596.
Denham takes us through the Arthurian sources before coming to the conclusion that Arthur is an amalgamation of two gods; the horned god Cerunnos and Artio the bear goddess. No mention of any similarity with Fionn mac Cumhaill, or Arthur’s absence from the Four Branches.
Here he fails to present a persuasive argument for Arthurian links with these two deities before he departs on the next chapter, a round up of Arthurian sites. In this list he claims there are five ‘Arthur’s Quoits’ when in fact Chris Grooms lists over thirty just in Wales (The Giants of Wales: Cewri Cymru, Edwin Mellen, 1993). And this is the main problem with this book; there are a number of errors and inaccuracies which disappointingly shows the lack of research carried out on the subject:
p.6 "No doubt William of Malmesbury believed that Arthur's killing spree was accomplished with his mighty sword Excalibur".
Excalibur ultimately derives from the Welsh Caledfwlch, listed as Arthur’s sword in Culhwch and Olwen. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain, c. 1136), Latinised the name of Arthur's sword as Caliburnus, perhaps derived from the Latin chalybs for "steel".
In the poem Conte du Graal (c.1180) Chretien de Troyes has Arthur present Gawain with the sword Escalibor. It is not until Malory, in the 15th century, that Arthur's sword is properly named as Excalibur and neither Malmesbury (died c.1143) or Geoffrey would not have known it by this name in their day.
Ok, so we all all know what the author means by Arthur’s sword, so what’s in a name, perhaps I’m just nit-picking and after all, we do all make mistakes, but this early inaccuracy sets the scene for the rest of the book and we rapidly loose confidence in the author’s argument:
p.20 "This is the Arthur of the Britons whom Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote about in the early thirteenth century...." Geoffrey actually wrote his account around 1136 and died in the mid-12th century.
p.27 Denham claims many early texts refer to Arthur as a cavalry commander, which in later Romances evolved into the Knights of the Round Table. What early texts? Denham does not reveal what these are.
pp.46-7 He states that in Culhwch and Olwen, "Arthur and Bedivere survive Camlann" along with Sandar and Morvan. When in fact there are just three survivors of Camlann recorded in Culhwch; Sande, Morvan and Cynwal Sant.
p.82 Denham writes that the "whole area around Glastonbury is criss-crossed with leylines and chalk carvings that echo signs of the zodiac in the sky overhead." Leylines maybe, but the Glastonbury zodiac is not made up of chalk figures; according to Emma Maltwood it consists of a series of mounds, paths, streams and rivers that come together to form terrestrial representations of the 12 horoscope constellations. No chalk.
p.150 lists the burial chamber Cors-y-Gedol at Talybont in Gwynedd as one of five "Arthur's Quoits littered all over Britain." Chris Grooms lists over thirty in Wales alone as stated above.
p.197 At the big reveal Denham then hints at the "Belgic god Camulos .... a war god with the similarity of name with both Camelot and Camlann cannot be a coincidence" before claiming that "we believe" the once and future king is actually a mix of two Celtic gods; Cernunnos, the god of the hunt, and Artio, the bear goddess.
Cernunnos, the god of the hunt and of the forest, Denham associates with Arthur because "the hunt occupies so much Arthurian legend in the Welsh texts" (in Culhwch and Olwen yes) and in France the Wild Hunt is known as la Chasse Artu (Arthur's Hunt) and "Arthur himself is also known as Herne the Hunter" (where?). I can't see the relationship myself, however, carry out your own research into Cernunnos and Herne the Hunter and explore the associations with King Arthur.
The Goddess Artio is depicted in the Muri statuette group now displayed in the Historisches Museum in Bern, Switzerland. The bronze statue shows a large bear facing a woman, perhaps the goddess in human form? The woman, or goddess, is holding a bowl of fruit in her lap, perhaps feeding the bear as a Mother of Plenty. It would appear the attributes of Artio were later absorbed into the hunter goddess Diana.
The association with Arthur appears to be based solely on the Proto-Celtic *arto which has been argued for the source of the name. However, there the similarity ends and there are no links between the goddess Artio and the Arthurian legend.
And then we get the odd notion put forward by Denham that the image that Nennius says Arthur carried on his shoulder at his eighth battle was not an image of Saint Mary at all but more probably a bearskin (p.200) without qualifying his argument. Then, on the same page, he claims that the bear goddess Artio is also linked with horses which he says brings us back to "Arthur's cavalry" and the knights of the Round Table. I’m now seeing a big grizzly bear riding a horse.
Then he claims that Ambrosius Aurelianus, Lucius Artorius Castus, Vortigern and "even the shadowy Hengist" are "all fifth and sixth century figures" (P.202). Last time I looked Lucius Artorius Castus was a 2nd century Roman officer.
We can excuse one or two errors but this account has many, which betrays how poorly researched this investigation in to the world of Arthur has been. Ultimately Denham fails in his quest to present a convincing argument for his identification of Arthur as a combination of Cernunnos and Artio, or indeed a deity at all. I really wanted to like this book, I was hoping it would bring something new to the Arthurian debate, and a negative review is never pleasant but at least it is honest.
Richard Denham is the co-author of the popular historical fiction series 'Britannia'.
[Read during lockdown 2020]
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