Inspired by seven year-old Matilda Jones, who found her very own Excalibur in a fabled Cornish lake (see Part I) Bohemianmojo decided to unravel historical fact from the mountain of fiction surrounding the legend of King Arthur. The popular wisdom on the subject is that there are no historical facts to back the existence of a King Arthur; he’s just a very romantic but mythical figure.

We beg to differ and argue there are indeed references, which validate Arthur as a real historical figure and we can find them in poems recited by Celtic bards close to the time Arthur lived. I say recited because these were poems in the oral tradition, to be memorized and then declaimed at the courts of the powerful nobles of the day. Arthur is also mentioned at length and in some detail in a history of Britain written by a Welsh monk a couple of centuries after his time.