English professor claims early reference to King Arthur

The story of King Arthur is old. People have sung battle songs and told tales in his honor for more than 1,000 years. The best-known and fullest tales about Arthur come from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), written around 1136 AD. Few other sources-- the writings of Gildas in the sixth century, a chronicle by Bede finished in 731, and an account by "Nennius" from the ninth century--are recognized as being earlier.

Until now.

English professor Scott Gwara believes he has discovered evidence that Arthurian tales were circulating in the tenth century.

"Stumbling across something like this rarely happens," said Gwara, who teaches courses on Old and Middle English, including the Arthurian legends. "I tried to resist my own intuition. All the sources from this period are already known, and prior to 1136 AD anything that mentions Arthur or looks faintly Arthurian has been thoroughly investigated.

"However, I've alleged that a story from an obscure dialogue is likely to be an Arthurian epitome," he said. "If you're willing to credit the circumstantial evidence, this discovery suggests that the outlines of Arthurian literature, including a war waged against 'Romans' in Gaul, were already developed by about 900 AD."

His theory will appear in a paper published in the fall issue of Arthuriana, the quarterly journal for the International Arthurian Society and the only academic journal in the world on Arthurian topics.

Gwara came upon the information while translating De Raris Fabulis (On Uncommon Tales), a tenth-century Latin colloquy text used to teach students conversational Latin.

"The text is full of short dialogues that students would have memorized," he said. "While translating these for the University of Cambridge, I came to the conclusion that one of the passages, a story about a legendary war between Britons and Saxons, fits every detail of the Arthurian saga.

"It's well worth speculating that in the early tenth century, oral stories about King Arthur were circulating in Cornwall," he said. "It's an argument that needs to be made."

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