Creation of Unreliable Texts
When Nennius, a Celtic monk from Bangor, North Wales
wrote "Historia
Brittonum" in AD 858, he had
access to reliable sources but his work is so riddled with folk tales
that it's unreliable as a historical document. Nennius was the
first to mention Merlin and the first to associate Arthur with the
Battle of Badon. Despite being written without historical basis,
later authors took Nennius's work as true history. The work of
Bede who wrote "The
Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation" a century before in AD 735 has great historical
value, but makes no mention of Arthur fighting at Badon or
Merlin. One Nennius folk tale describes the story of the fight
between the red dragon of the Britons and the white dragon of the
Saxons. Perhaps inspired by Gildas's "Island Dragon" this may
well explain the selection of the red dragon flag for Wales.
The Welsh
Annales Cambriae is an Easter table
which on first impression looks like a log of events from AD 447 to AD
954, but this was constructed after the events, by interpolating
from sources such as "Historia
Brittonum" and Irish Annals of Tigernach. Evidently "De Excidio
Britanniae" was overlooked
because the date of AD516 for the Battle of Badon is incorrect.
The miraculous tone of the AD516 entry is out of character with other
entries. The early entries in the Welsh Annales Cambriae are
predominantly based on entries in the Irish Annals of Tigernach apart
from two Arthur entries. The Annales Cambriae is the first
document that refers to a Battle of Camlan. The entry is
suspicious because there does not appear to be a historical source .
It seems unlikely that Gildas, Bede and Nennius would have all
overlooked Camlan. The source was more likely a folk tale.
The entry for AD 537 also contains a reference to a plague, which is an
attempt to give credibility to the Arthur reference. The plague
can be corroborated by the Annals of Tigernach, but the Battle of
Camlan can not. It shall also be shown that the date of
AD537 is too early for the plague; the motive for selecting AD
537 was to give it a credible span from the AD 516 Badon entry, which
in itself is erroneous. My conclusion is that it is highly
unlikely that Arthur fought at Badon or Camlan. The AD 573 entry
mentions Merlin going mad, supposedly 46 years after Arthur died at
Camlan! This reference is also highly suspect. Why would
this event be worthy of inclusion in the annals? It can only be
an attempt to add another Arthurian dimension.
