The Pendragon's Hall

Why do legends seize such a hold on our imagination? Why do the tales of King Arthur still move people today, irregardless of his place in history? The Pendragon has recently been rereading some of his favorite Arthurian literature: "The Pendragon's Cycle" by Stephen R. Lawhead. It is impossible for anyone not made of stone to read the final chapters of Book 3 (Arthur) with the victory of the barbarians and the passing of the High King without weeping, or at least wanting to weep. But why? Why should such a remote, historical happening pull on us so much today. Geoffrey Ashe offers a possible reason: "Arthur's kingdom embodies the notion of a far-away, golden age. This does not imply an impossible prosperity and contentment. It does imply a time when individuals who deserved admiration were at the center of things; a time of greatness, even if it was the greatness of a minority; a time of hope, even if it was a tenuous hope....Arthur's legend began as a memory of a resitutor; of civilization endangered and beset; and of Britons headed by their King staging a brave, temporarily successful revivial." I think Ashe is absolutely right. Lawhead echoes this in Arthur, when he puts these words into the mouth of the historian Gildas: "Once there was a time, all but forgotten, when the world knew what it was like to be ruled by a righteous lord, when one man of faith held all realms in his strong hand, when the High King of Heaven blessed His High King on earth. Britain was exalted then." The fact remains: Despite all philosophers' insistence to the contrary, people in their heart of hearts are not very democratic. Rather, they want an elite of people who are respected because they deserve respect. John Adams may actually have been closer to the mark of what people want than the noted people's man (and aristocrat) Thomas Jefferson. Adams believed that elitism was inevitable but hoped to make the elites people worthy of admiration and respect. Jefferson wanted all distinctions removed and everyone to be peasant farmers. As charming as the idea of everyone owning a couple acres may sound. people actually want to have leaders worthy of respect. It's not so much that people resent those who have power and riches and authority as much as they dislike it when the people who have these things are not worthy of their respect. Hence, the great attraction of legends of King Arthur or even of Robin Hood, where the men revered deserve the admiration they receive. It's enough to make one dissatisfied with everything in current life; but if you begin to look, I think you will find that there are still Arthurs today--men and women worthy of admiration who take a stand to protect civilization

Which makes this Pendragon wonder: What if, instead of the legendary prophecy that Arthur would return, it referred to the idea of the Guardian or Pendragon? Brian Jacques writes on his hero's tombstone: "Redwall, in her hour of need will bring forth one to follow me." What if Arthur were the same idea? When Britain is in danger, a new Pendragon, following Arthur would arise to save his people. A quick scan of British history reveals several likely candidates: Alfred the Great, Richard the Lionheart, Owen Glandower, Lord Nelson, Winston Churchill. Is it possible? Who knows?

One thing that makes the Pendragon uneasy about the disregard legends are usually paid by historians is the assumption that any kind of supernatural occurrence negates the possibility of it being the truth. I disagree. Phillips, cited on Moses yesterday, believes that the Ark of the Covenant was made of radioactive materials that managed to create storms and kill large numbers of people when manipulated by the stones set in Aaron's breastpiece. An intriguing possibility, but it seems to me that to accept it outright would mean denying the intervention of God. It seems a tad too convenient that a sea opened and closed on the Egyptians just when the Israelites needed it to; if that's true, I think any rational human being could be forgiven for thinking there was a God intervening on his behalf. I also begin to wonder about some of the sensational stuff in the King Arthur legends. Geoffrey Ashe, whom I referenced a couple days ago, deserves respect for suggesting that some of the "fantastic" creatures appearing in the Arthurian saga might well be remembrances of actual creatures. He suggests that the giant, speckled cat which Cai (or Kay) is said to have slain may have been an escaped leopard from a private collection of a Roman official. Certainly Bodmin Moor, nearby where this combat is said to have taken place, has its share of stories of monster cats stalking the moors. Need it be false? Arthur is said to have driven a dragon from a lake in Scotland--is it so inconceivable some such creature actually existed? Granted, these are not demon-creatures, but something can be a physical creature and still a symbol for something more deadly. Arthur stands for the fight of light against darkness--the light of the Gospel (for Arthur was almost certainly a Christian) against the darkness of the pagan barbarians. God works in strange ways and the Pendragon is not convinced that He has stopped intervening from time to time in this world. I see no reason to doubt it. We do no doubt the miracles of Exodus--why do we draw the line at the Middle Ages?

A major consequence of this new trend in history to take legends more seriously has been that even secular historians have been willing to take the Bible more seriously. As a Christian, the Pendragon believes the Bible to be true and would never advocate abandoning it for the latest historical "discovery." Yet there is much to be gained and nothing to be lost for Christians to dig deep into history to find out more. One place to start might be the figure of Moses. I recently read a book by British historian Graham Phillips entitled "The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant." Mr. Phillips is, I believe, an unbeliever but his work shows a desire to take the Biblical accounts seriously. He places the Exodus around 1360 BC during the reign in Egypt of Amenhotep III. During this time apparently early Egyptian historians tell of a certain group of "undesirables" that rebelled against their enslavement in Egypt but were unsuccessful until they were joined by a priest from the Temple of Ra at Heliopolis. This priest was Thutmose, the eldest son of Pharaoh, who was exiled for abandoning the traditional gods of Egypt in favor of one God. Under his tutelage the rebellion was successful and the slaves won their way back to their homeland. Interestingly, if Thutmose had indeed turned away from the gods of Egypt, he might have dropped the name Thut (or Toth) and become known as simply Mose, or Moses.

Phillips does not believe Moses could then have been an adopted Israelite but must have been an actual Egyptian with the story of his parentage changed to cover that fact. It's possible, I suppose, but it requires one to buy into the tortured interpretation of Exodus being written long after the fact by someone else when strong tradition declares it was written by Moses himself. Phillips' reasoning is that the Egyptians controlled their royal bloodline so strictly a non-Egyptian could never have been adopted. But I do not think we know enough about the particular Pharaoh to be sure of this. For one thing, the Pharaoh of the Exodus was not the one whose daughter adopted Moses. The compassionate princess would have been that Pharaoh's sister. Maybe this is why Thutmose was chosen to be a military leader and priest rather than to succeed to the throne like his brother Amenhotep. I think it is likely that Thutmose was Moses--the similarities are very great--but I think Phillips should not assume that the Bible is wrong here. He could well have been a Semite saved by the Pharaoh's daughter. If his nationality was hidden but it was known he was not of the royal bloodline, he could have been bypassed for succession to the throne and become instead a military leader (according to Jewish historians Moses led an army against the Ethiopians) and a priest (there is no Biblical indication that Moses believed in the one, true God before the burning bush incident). Around this same time, an Egyptian version of the Israelite religion arose--perhaps fueled by Moses and the plagues--and the successor to Amenhotep III was Akhenaten, the father of King Tut and known to history as "the monotheistic Pharaoh." Akhenaten also is famous because he was the younger son of Amenhotep yet he succeeded to the throne. Why? Can anyone think of a reason why the eldest son may have been unavailable? There are intriguing possibilities in historical research and kudos to Graham Phillips for not rejecting the Bible outright but looking for the possible correlations. Still, there is much to be done.

The Pendragon is tired of political in-fighting and has found himself turning lately to more ancient historical pursuits. That I will return to politics eventually is inevitable but history has been consuming as much of my time lately that is not taken up with work and preparing for the new baby. One of the most interesting things I've been pondering lately is the historical identity of the original Pendragon: King Arthur. There has been much discussion of this over the years: historians have reached conclusions ranging from calling the Pendragon a complete fabrication to saying he was a Roman leader of slavic mercenaries in Britain. Others have even suggested that he was a chieftain in Brittany, along the coast of France, where Celtic peoples also settled. That he is a complete fabrication seems highly unlikely since human beings are not really that creative and there are few, if any, legends that are truly made up from scratch. In his seminal work The Discovery of King Arthur historian Geoffrey Ashe suggests a better way to approach the question. Instead of asking if King Arthur was real or merely a fiction, historians should ask what king in British history best fits as a model for the Arthurian legend and should simply assume there was some sort of basis. This Pendragon agrees. The records we have are spotty and don't contain as many names and dates as we would like, but phrasing the question this way helps us stop arguing about the validity of the sources and show us what they actually say. Ashe points out that the basic Arthurian legend, going back before the sword in the stone and the Lancelot-Guinevere affair, is that Arthur became king following a usurper called Vortigern, that he led the Britons in a series of battles against the Saxons, that he won peace for his country for some time and actually solidified it by going to conquer Gaul. While in Gaul, Arthur was betrayed by his deputy king and returned to Britain to fight a losing battle. Wounded, perhaps mortally, Arthur went away to an island called Avalon and has not been seen since except for some vague reference to a future return. This much is what we know from Geoffrey of Monmouth and other early histories. But other historians mention Arthur as well so it seems unlikely that Geoffrey just made him up. In the late 400s, moreover, we do have a Briton resurgence that stemmed the tide of incoming Saxons so it is likely Arthur flourished in the latter half of the 5th century. Historical records also tell of a "high king" called Vortigern who invited the Saxons into Britain to protect his shaky claim to the throne in the early part of the 5th century; Vortigern died in the early 450s according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. So Arthur must have come sometime after him. Ashe suggests he was Vortigern's immediate successor as the legendary figures of Aurelius and Uther, Arthur's uncle and father, do not appear in any other historical records, and seem to have been fictional. Searching Geoffrey and other early British historians we find that Arthur is supposed to have gone to Gaul in the time when the western Roman Empire was on its last legs--somewhere between 455 and 476. Geoffrey also gave us the name of the eastern Roman Emperor during Arthur's fighting in Gaul--it was Leo. There were only two Leos in the 5th century who reigned in the East and the second of the two did not last long enough to merit mentioning. Leo I was emperor from 457-474, so Arthur's campaign in Gaul must have occurred during those years. Geoffrey also speaks of a Pope called Sulpicius. No such Pope ever lived, but a Pope called Simplicius did, and the garbling is easy enough to understand: this would overlap Leo's reign during the years 468-474. The final name we have is that the western Roman Emperor was a man named Lucius. The last of the western Roman emperors was a man named Lucerius in early records or Glycerius originally. He overlapped Simplicius and Leo in the years 469-470. Thus, Arthur must have been in Gaul during those years. Who was king of the Britons at that time? He is known on the Continent as Riothamus, and he took an army of Britons to Gaul during that time to fight the Saxons alongside the Romans. While he was there, a deputy king sold him out to the Saxons and Riothamus was (mortally?) wounded in a crushing defeat and was retreating towards an island off the French coast, known as Avalon, when he disappeared from history. He may have left instructions for the Britons in Gaul to keep fighting and he would return to lead them. At any rate, Arthur's "death" is only hinted at in early British legend, and the promise of return did not come in until after the Norman invasion when probably the French side of Arthur's story was meshed with the early British one. Furthermore, Riothamus is a corruption of the British term "rigotamus" which meant "most kingly" or, possibly, "High King." In Celtic times, the eldest son did not necessarily follow a father in kingship--at any rate, Riothamus was not the son of the last known king Vortigern--so it seems a tad too convenient that the High King's name meant "High King." It seems likely that this was a title. And so what was the King's name? According to early historians, it was Artorius, or Arthur.

It's fascinating to me. This is mostly conjecture but it seems quite as likely as anything else. People are generally too quick to dismiss any form of legend as pure fiction, yet most of it has quite real roots in true history. And Arthur is not the only one--but more on this another day.

The headlines say it all: Hezbollah is calling for an unconditional ceasefire. Someone needs to inform these terrorists that with the US guarding Israel's back, they are not in a position to dictate. While the US keeps Europe, rightly labeled even by progressives as "home of the Holocaust", from interfering, Israel is going to continue to bomb Lebanon into the stone age. It's agree to Israel's just demands or be completely wiped off the map; not terrorists calling the shots. Intriguingly, this is all Iran's doing and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are lining up to support Israel's right to defend herself. And why not? The same terrorists interested in destroying Israel would want to destroy their government as well. Diplomacy must not be practiced. Keep up the bombing. Make them pay.

The White House today blasted former President Clinton's attempts to placate North Korea saying he offered them "chocolates, flowers and a signed basketball from Michael Jordan." Bush refuses to allow talks directly between the US and the newest rogue nation with nuclear weapons. While I agree that Clinton was, in general, bad news, and certainly the liberal penchant for offering candy and flowers to brutal dictators is not the way to go, I hope that President Bush will not slam the door completely on some under-the-table discussion. That's how Kennedy managed to extract himself from the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Some concrete incentives--like stepped-up aid, and diplomatic recognition--might yet sway the North Korean leader. I won't be holding my breath but if Bush offers and is refused, the contrast could not be more clear. I don't doubt that in the end some form of military action will be required but as the stakes are inevitably raised when dealing with a nuclear power, it is well to exercise a little caution.

The woman who would be king told a group of Ohio voters this week to watch their state's fall elections like a hawk. Ohio's Republican Secretary of State is seeking the governorship this fall. Mrs. Clinton's comments of course are simply more liberal dreaming of a world where a majority of Ohioans actually did choose John Kerry. Personally, I would say the presidential race in 2008 is the one to watch "like a hawk." People could die in that one.

How bad does it have to be for American politicians to be taken to task by Canadians? Al Gore is being sharply chastised by the premier of the Canadian province of Alberta for his comments regarding the oil industry. Gore whined that to extra a barrel of oil they use enough natural gas to heat a home for four days.Where he gets his statistics I don't know (as they say, 98% of statistics are made up on the spot) but Ralph Klein, the Conservative Premier, had angry words for the erstwhile presidential candidate: "I don't know what he proposes the world run on...maybe hot air." If so, Al Gore could do the first truly worthwhile thing he has done in his professional career. In the meantime, while he orates meaninglessly, the polar ice caps are melting and polar bears are drowning. I'm serious. I got an email the other day asking me to take action to protect the polar bears from drowning becaudse the icebergs they normally use for boats are melting. What these people won't do for an issue. Kudos to Ralph Klein--one for making it in politics when his mother obviously named him after fashion designers, two for being a Conservative and three for taking to task one of the biggest blowhards in the western world.

This week witnesses two rather grand events: the 230th birthday of the United States and the 60th birthday of it's current president on Thursday. The Pendragon wishes Mr. Bush great happiness and a long, fulfilled life. Something that is intriguing me, however, is the beginning of the bearing out of one of the Pendragon's own predictions. It took a hundred years but Theodore Roosevelt is now being compared favorably to Bush on the basis that he used big government to achieve Jeffersonian (limited government) ends. The critics have obviously not read Fred Barnes' book Rebel in Chief. I share the admiration for Theodore Roosevelt: he was one of our greatest presidents but for years after he was done, he was considered a tyrant who abused the power of the presidency for his own ends. Only recently did they realize Roosevelt achieved many limited government ends through his use of the power of the national government. Bush is no different. Conservatives may carp about the fact that he is not trimming the size and influence of the US government; liberals may complain that he is pro-life, anti-terror and pushing through tax cuts, but Barnes is right. Essentially what Bush has done is accept the fact that big government isn't going anywhere and decided to harness the power to achieve what are ultimately conservative ends: lower taxes, individual responsibility, national defense (all something TR would have been very interested in). I only hope it won't take presidential historians 100 years to feature Bush on the cover of TIME magazine. For one thing, I want to be around to see it.

The obits are underway for moderate Democrat Joe Lieberman in Connecticut. Hillary Clinton has announced that she will eschew her usual disregard of state boundaries and remain out of the picture if Lieberman loses the Democratic Primary to Ned Lamont. And, gasp! Dick Morris is predicting the stalwart defender of the war on terror will be defeated at the polls. Leaving aside the fact that Dick Morris has not made a single successful prediction yet, Newsmax notes that Liberman is still highly popular. Since he has vowed to run as an independent if defeated, is wildly popular with Republicans and unafiliated voters (who make up the bulk of Connecticut's voting population), I say the worry is groundless. Nevertheless, I would like to make a plug if any Connecticut people are reading this and are registered Democrats: Joe Lieberman is a dying breed, i.e. the centrist Democrat who puts country first. If he loses out in Connecticut, then New England will become synonomous with the extreme left-wing of the Democratic Party. Put country first; vote Joe Lieberman on August 8th.

Liberals amuse me and infuriate me at the same time. The US Supreme Court voted 5-3 last week to extend the rights of the Geneva Convention to terrorists, revealing vividly that they have not read the document in question. The Geneva Convention clearly states, "Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it." It then goes on to clearly state rules for recognizing prisoners of war: they must have a recognized commander responsible for them, they must openly carry arms, and they must themselves obey the laws of civilized warfare. Which one of these describes terrorists? Not a one. Terrorists are not prisoners of war and are not protected by the Geneva Convention. The Supreme Court has seriously overreached itself and one can only hope that perhaps Congress will finally have the backbone to pass a law and put the Court back in its place--as an interpreter of law, not a maker of law.

Liberals are also hopping mad about Ann Coulter's statement that Timothy McVeigh should have bombed the NYT headquarters. Coulter, of course, is a bit of an instigator and needs to watch what she says, however, one can easily document liberals, and not even pundits but congressmen, calling for the assassination of key conservative leaders and they are never called to account. A commercial ran in 2000 with a picture of George Bush and the subtitle, "Snipers Wanted." Alec Baldwin declared on live TV that Congressman Henry Hyde, his only crime attempting to bring a felon who happened to live in the White House, to justice, should be stoned to death, along with his entire family. Where was the moral outrage then?

Will the gloves come off? The Pendragon certainly hopes so. The NYT has been leaking important anti-terror secrets to the world at large for years now. This makes it more likely that innocent Americans will die; yet to leak any Al-Qaida program to the public would violate the terrorists' civil rights. On a side note, the term "outlaw" denotes someone who is not obeying the law; by placing oneself outside the law as to obedience, the terrorists have placed themselves outside the law's protection as well. They have no legal rights we need respect. But I digress. The NYT is guilty of treason. President Bush lashed out in a recent statement calling the Times' behavior "disgraceful." That isn't going to cut it, Mr. President. The only way to curb reporters' incessant desire for a "scoop" is if the Justice Department prosecutes the Times. Yes, that's right. The newspaper must be sued for everything. Objective: if we win the case, the NYT will be shut down. And there must be retaliatory measures taken. Helen Thomas, who looks as if she needs a nursing home anyway, should be barred from White House press conferences and no more reporters or editors from the NYT should be invited to White House get-togethers. This is not a call for the President to completely ignore the media...but other papers will love it too. They get to move in on the Times' territory. If all their felony amounts to is a slap on the wrist from a President the entire media hates, there will be no end to the treason. You have to make it cost them something.

The NYT made sure to announce today that a GI is being investigated for murder and rape in Iraq. They also made sure to mention this is the fourth time this is happening. For one thing, a quick scan of the history books will inform anyone without a political axe to grind that four instances of murder and rape on the battlefield juxtaposed with the rescues and the handing out of food we have seen by our forces in Iraq could honestly make the case for calling this a Christian war. No other war in history has had less rampages than the one we are currently involved in. Should soldiers guilty of murder and rape be tried and punished? Yes, indeed. But it would be nice if the NYT started extending to our troops the same toleration levels they have for Muslim terrorists. They go out of their way to tell us that hundreds of thousands of Islamic terrorists do not represent the whole of Islam; yet four cases of wayward GI's apparently is a just a polaroid snapshot of the entire US military, government and nation. And where was their concern for murder and rape when describing the crimes of Saddam Hussein or Zarqawi? The double standard to which they hold the world is sickening. Conservatives at least can agree that soldiers guilty of criminal activity should be punished, but we also think that Islamic terrorists should be punished and so should the minions of Saddam Hussein. The Left has no such compunction. Murder and rape is fine when it is a brutal dictator defying the United States or a sitting Democratic president being accused of it. It's only when jumping on the bandwagon will harm American security interests and advance the liberal political agenda that they start to notice rape and murder victims again. All through the 1990s we had liberal activists making great strides to protect violent criminals on death row. We have convictions of proved murderers thrown out because a detective once was in the Klan or a lawyer mention the Ten Commandments. The discovery that maybe, possibly, a murderer on death row was there by accident (something I do not believe to this day) called for a complete moratorium on the death penalty and the release of all these hardened criminals back into society. Michael Dukakis even released a convicted murder who then killed and raped again. When this was brought up in the election of 1988, Republicans were accused of "playing politics" with the poor black man's fate--the murderer, not the victim. The moral high ground has long since been occupied by conservatives; liberals are going to have to change their whole worldview to get anywhere near it again.