The Keys to Avalon

Rating:
Summary: Best bit of common-sense research for a long time
Review: As someone very interested in Arthurian legends I bought this book not really expecting to read anything really new - especially as a work has recently appeared on Arthur in Wales. I was wrong!

O.K., you can argue about place names and whose source material is better than whose until doomsday, but nothing helps more to give a book that 'something extra' than a good dose of common-sense.

My initial reaction was one of sceptcism, especially when Geoffrey of Monmouth appeared on the scene, but I took a jump of faith and waded in. Once you have read the entire book - and not tried to nit pick on every individual piece of evidence - the overall picture is extremely convincing.

I may not agree with everything held within this books cover, but there is certainly enough here to warrant further study and debate. I take my hat off to the authors for an extremely well researched piece of work.

Rating:
Summary: An intriguing, but flawed look at the historical Arthur
Review: Most popular books in search of the historical Arthur (and there are many such books and just about as many theories regarding who the "real" Arthur was) use the same classic sources (Gildas, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and a few others) and, increasingly, archaeological data. Welsh literary sources, such as the "Brut Y Brenhinedd," the Triads, and bardic poetry, are generally relegated to the background and are often wholly ignored, despite the rather obvious fact the Welsh people are the primary cultural heirs of whatever society in which the historical Arthur existed. Blake and Lloyd reverse this approach in "The Keys to Avalon," giving their main focus to such Welsh literary sources. Their approach certainly is not without controversy. They follow the lead of a few earlier writers who contend that at least some versions of the "Brut Y Brenhinedd" derive independently from the same source used by Geoffrey of Monmouth to write his great "Historia Regum Britanniae" and are not, as most scholars contend, simply Welsh translations of Geoffrey's work. The difference is crucial since the "Brut" uses Welsh names for locations which differ greatly from the English names in Geoffrey's book. Blake and Lloyd contend that Geoffrey altered the Welsh originals to make his book better suited for an English audience and for political purposes. This is an important point and, if true, could mean that the historical Arthur operated on a smaller stage (North Wales, for the most part) than most popular accounts which have him ranging over large portions of present-day England and Scotland. I certainly am not qualified to absolutely judge the validity of what Blake and Lloyd have to say on the matter, but I do hope their book inspires others to take a serious look at this possibility, either to confirm their analysis or to disprove it.

I have little doubt that Blake and Lloyd in their enthusiam for their Welsh-oriented reconstruction of Arthurian fact have at least in a couple areas gone well beyond what the evidence can support. Specifically, I find their claim that Offa's Dyke (a mammoth earthwork almost universally credited to the Eighth Century Mercian King Offa) was built by the Third Century Roman Emperor Severius to be entirely unconvincing. (There is now archaeological evidence that Wat's Dyke may date from the Fifth Century and thus might explain accounts of a wall in northern Wales prior to Offa.) And secondly, I consider their re-writing of the history of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of much of Britain (moving events from their traditional locations to an exclusively Welsh context) to be very unlikely, as it seems to ignore non-Welsh and archaeological sources that bear upon the question.

Nonetheless, I think that "The Keys to Avalon" is worth reading, even if with a sceptical eye, for its intriguing analysis of the North Wales sites associated with a possible historical Arthur.

Rating:
Summary: The Dark Age Illuminations
Review: Suddenly, the Dark Ages make sense.

The Keys to Avalon explores fact, folklore, myths and legends and brings them together in a work which offers a stunningly simple,logical explanation for why so many 'academics' have struggled for so long to make sense of the Dark Ages.

Put simply, it is the survival of the ancient Welsh language and culture which provides the Key to this new understanding of the Dark Ages.

Until this book, Arthurian (and other) legends associated with the Dark Ages have been interpreted from the anglicised (as in Anglo Saxon) view, with errors having crept in through translations from Welsh to Latin and then to English.

The Keys to Avalon goes back to the original Welsh records of these times, and unlocks the door to a greater understanding of the period by considering the meaning of the original Ancient Welsh language, which differs from the current Welsh language in some critical ways.

In 'The Keys to Avalon' the authors seem to have compared the ancient Welsh accounts of the Dark Ages with the standard versions based on the Anglo-Saxon accounts. The authors give due regard to the fact that there is often a grain of truth in folklore, myths and legends passed down verbally through the generations. This seems particularly appropriate in Wales where even today, despite the celebration of the survival of the Welsh language in the various Eisteddfodau, the majority of fluent Welsh speakers have difficulty in reading and writing the Welsh language.

This book brings to life the Welsh countryside - looking at names and features on maps and showing how the Arthurian legends suddenly 'fit' into specific geographic areas of realistic extent.

Once in a while something comes along which is so blindingly obvious that you think 'why didn't anyone say this before?' I can imagine there are a lot of academics and authors out there who will be wishing now that they had made the same efforts that Steve Blake and Scott Lloydd have in their work, which literally does rewrite Dark Age history.

This is a superb book which will be enjoyed by anyone with an open, unprejudiced, mind.