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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 8:22:08 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Feb 18, 2008 8:22:08 GMT -1
I thought Arthur was buried in a cave with his army? Thats the story I was told as a kiddie. The Stanzas of the Graves, a 13th (12th?) century text which I believe has been dated to orignate in the 9th century, does not have a burial place for Arthur. but then, how many of our great heroes do? Perhaps his grave site is indeed long forgotten, perhaps he retired from service, perhaps he followed later fortune elsewhere. The very fact we don't know is what makes him so interesting. EDIT: I forgot to mention there was a place found a few years ago by the authors Baram Blackett and Alan Wilson. Supposedly they found an inscription at a church. Intriguingly, they claim that no academics/archaeologists would even view the site. Whilst they are are somewhat derided by the establishment they do make fascinating reading. I would recommend 'Holy Kingdom' as an intersting read and to make of it what you will.
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 11:06:45 GMT -1
Post by arth_frown on Feb 18, 2008 11:06:45 GMT -1
But not a one of them has ever explained why such an important sacred concept is named after a fruit introduced by the Romans. I thought apple trees were native to Britain if be it small and tasted horrible.
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 11:32:38 GMT -1
Post by Francis on Feb 18, 2008 11:32:38 GMT -1
Poeseidia wrote I think it's worth remembering what it means to talk of a rare apple. Different named types of apples are not different species just varieties. Apples do not come true from seed. If you plant the seed from a cox's pippin you don't get a cox's pippin apple tree. They have to be reproduce vegetatively - for fruit trees this means almost always grafting. Almost always the sort of apples you get on a tree you plant from a seed will be small and sour or bitter. But everyone one of those you could claim as a unique 'rare' 'variety' of apple tree. Varieties are just individual trees recognised as being of merit and then reproduced by grafting. Everyone tree of a variety is the same genetic individual tree. To talk of the Bardssey Apple as one of the rarest in the world doesn't really make much more sense than to talk of Craig as one of the rarest humans in the world! (but let's not start thinking of vegetatively reproducing him...) Anyway the reason I'm blathering on about this is that for every several thousand apple seeds you plant you typically get only one that yields worthwhile sweet fruit. Okay. You would have thought that the remaining Druids, the group that supposedly kept the histories of the tribes, at least had a name for their Otherworld that didn't come across in a legionaries backpack. Now whilst it's true that a large proportion of the genetic makeup of modern domestic apple varieties has come from further east, we do have a native apple species here in the uk. Our wild apple (malus sylvestris), often confused with crab apples, is a small tree with spines. Normally it's fruit is very hard, small and extremely bitter (full of tannins and has been used to tan leather) but every 5000-10,000 seeds will give a tree with larger and sweeter fruit. Just genetic variation. It is my belief that such trees would seem like a magical gift to a brythonic people (particularly so the further back in time you go - before other large sweet fruits of any type would have been occasionally available by trade from the continent) who would have been completely unfamiliar with any other trees bearing large sweet fruit native in Britain. That they were special would be reinforced by the fact that at the time the people wouldn't have been able to reproduce them. The seeds from the fruit if planted just giving the normal small bitter apple. The Romans brought the technology to graft sweet apple trees. When the Romans left it seems to be the case that this knowledge surprisingly became lost over the next hundred years. The varieties the romans brought still often gave apples from seed that could be used for cooking and making cider, And obviously some trees would live a long time - on the rootstocks of the day they might have lived to 200 years or more. But it wasn't until Henry VIII's time that continental "orcharders" were brought to Britain with the knowledge of how to graft, and how to propagate sweet varieties of apples again. So I think we need to think about apples in the context of the long ago and the mystery they would have once held- large sweet apples that could be eaten straight off the tree weren't common place. They would have been exceedingly rare before the romans. They became rare (albeit less so) again after the Romans - when most apples would have been consumed as cider or sweetened and cooked. So even writing in the ninth century in the west of britain - sweet fresh 'eating' apples might still have seemed a bit magical. Apples at that time brought from the continent by sea might have been a bit ropey after a couple of unrifrigerated weeks at sea? (At one point in the past the main use of apples was to make verjuice - very acidic sour juice used to tendarise tough meat www.thegoodwebguide.co.uk/index.php?art_id=775P.S. I've also once read that the cistercian monks brought the technique of grafting apples from the continet back to Britain earlier than HenrVIII's time, this may be true - but if it is it wasn't something they seem to have shared.
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 11:41:53 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Feb 18, 2008 11:41:53 GMT -1
But not a one of them has ever explained why such an important sacred concept is named after a fruit introduced by the Romans. I thought apple trees were native to Britain if be it small and tasted horrible. I believe that Crab Apple is evidenced from the Neolithic(?) but the large fruit we tend to think of as Apple is definately an import. I'm open minded on this, but considering the dating of the stories and what the people telling them would have been familiar with it just doesn't convince me. Of note of course is the 'Silver branch' of the voyage of Bran (him again, doh!) which IIRC was of apple. But considering the date of the story was post 7th century .....
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 11:52:08 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Feb 18, 2008 11:52:08 GMT -1
Normally it's fruit is very hard, small and extremely bitter (full of tannins and has been used to tan leather) but every 5000-10,000 seeds will give a tree with larger and sweeter fruit. Just genetic variation. It is my belief that such trees would seem like a magical gift to a brythonic people (particularly so the further back in time you go - before other large sweet fruits of any type would have been occasionally available by trade from the continent) who would have been completely unfamiliar with any other trees bearing large sweet fruit native in Britain. That they were special would be reinforced by the fact that at the time the people wouldn't have been able to reproduce them. The seeds from the fruit if planted just giving the normal small bitter apple. Now that is the kind of info I was open minded to - brilliant! I had no idea. Now that would have been a *truly* sacred tree. You can easily see why there was only one in the Garden of Eden, and why an entire island of such trees was considered a kind of 'paradise'. You can also see how the branch of such a tree would have been such a sacred, silver branch. thanks for that
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 13:20:02 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Feb 18, 2008 13:20:02 GMT -1
The Stanzas of the Graves, a 13th (12th?) century text which I believe has been dated to orignate in the 9th century, does not have a burial place for Arthur. but then, how many of our great heroes do? Yes, it describes the idea of a grave for Arthur as 'anoeth'. 'Unwise' in modern Welsh but usually translated as 'unattainable' or some poetic equivalent of that. That is, either there isn't one or if there is you're not going to find it. Hence the idea that he is not dead. Aren't apples associated with immortality?
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 13:28:10 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Feb 18, 2008 13:28:10 GMT -1
I thought Arthur was buried in a cave with his army? Thats the story I was told as a kiddie. There's nice ironic twist on this in a poem by R.S. Thomas : 'A Welshman to any Tourist', which, referring to Arthur in his cave, has the lines: He and his knights are the bright ore That seams our history, But shame has kept them late in bed.
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 13:51:49 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Feb 18, 2008 13:51:49 GMT -1
It is my belief that such trees would seem like a magical gift to a brythonic people (particularly so the further back in time you go - before other large sweet fruits of any type would have been occasionally available by trade from the continent) who would have been completely unfamiliar with any other trees bearing large sweet fruit native in Britain. That they were special would be reinforced by the fact that at the time the people wouldn't have been able to reproduce them. The seeds from the fruit if planted just giving the normal small bitter apple. Now that is the kind of info I was open minded to - brilliant! I had no idea. Now that would have been a *truly* sacred tree. You can easily see why there was only one in the Garden of Eden, and why an entire island of such trees was considered a kind of 'paradise'. You can also see how the branch of such a tree would have been such a sacred, silver branch. thanks for that Yes that is good. Not forgetting the 'Afallenau' attributed to Myrddin in the 6th century but probably composed much later: Sweet-apple tree with sweet branches Bearing much fruit.... It makes him invisible along with the tree: Sweet-apple tree which grows in a glade It's power hides it from the men of Rhydderch Given the later highjacking of Myrddin by Geoffrey of Monmouth into the Arthurian legend, apples do seem to be a recurring theme. I'm sure we should be able to work in Isaac Newton somehow.....
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 14:28:51 GMT -1
Post by Blackbird on Feb 18, 2008 14:28:51 GMT -1
iirc, sweet apples came in from Iran... Joseph of Arimathea is also a late import. The thorn isn't mentioned until 1520 and his association with it, not before 1715. It's a palestinian variety, and I suppose that it was brought back by a pilgrim at some point. Certainly, apples would have seemed very exotic - and given the association with the middle east, perhaps very special for Xians. A modern person might imagine paradise as a tropical island with exotic fruit and attractive slaves waving palm leaves... hardly surprising that British people in earlier times were imagining something similar
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 14:59:00 GMT -1
Post by Francis on Feb 18, 2008 14:59:00 GMT -1
iirc, sweet apples came in from Iran... Mostly yes but it is a little bit more complicated than that! If you're interested a good paper is Harris et al. 2002, Trends in Genetics Vol18 no 8 p426-431 "Genetic clues to the origin of the apple" It doesn't address all the issues of polyploidy, introgression and hybrid reassortment in the domestication of apples, but I'd guess only a tragic geek like me would be interested in that.... But in terms of the point I was making all of that isn't relevant- I was talking only of the very rare but occasionally found sweet, large fruited individuals of our native spiney wild apple, and how special/magical they would have seemed long before the arrival of domestic varieties from the East.
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CAMLANN
Feb 18, 2008 16:42:17 GMT -1
Post by arth_frown on Feb 18, 2008 16:42:17 GMT -1
I suppose you could of cook the apples and added lots of honey to make them more edible, I doubt it would of been over looked as a food source.
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CAMLANN
Feb 19, 2008 8:00:40 GMT -1
Post by Francis on Feb 19, 2008 8:00:40 GMT -1
I suppose you could of cook the apples and added lots of honey to make them more edible, I doubt it would of been over looked as a food source. If you mean the post-roman apples then yes as I suggested in my first post they were sweetened and cooked. If you mean our true native wild apple (not to be mixed up with crab apples - a mistake even the great Ray Mears seems to make!) then I really don't think so! Adding honey won't make the tannins go away. We are lucky enough to have a few true wild apples in our woods, and I'd love to watch your face if ever you wanted to experiment! However strong your palate I don't think any amount of honey would help! The other point is that tannic and phenolic acids bind to other nutrients and make them unavailable for absorption from the human gut - so no advantage in gathering them (though obviously this wouldn't be known in those terms at the time)
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CAMLANN
Feb 19, 2008 8:22:07 GMT -1
Post by arth_frown on Feb 19, 2008 8:22:07 GMT -1
Hi Stephen
is there any way of getting the tannin out? Ray Mears tried a method of getting poisons out Black Bryony by soaking in a river, could this be the same with tannin?
Pleased to hear that you have wild apple in the woods I'll have to come and have a look at them when I'm on holiday in Wales. I have planted a few grafted apple trees along the woodland edge
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CAMLANN
Feb 23, 2008 9:14:58 GMT -1
Post by poseidia on Feb 23, 2008 9:14:58 GMT -1
This is the source for the tale of Barinthus the ferryman - Vita Merlini , or The Life of Merlin , is a work by Geoffrey of Monmouth composed in Latin around AD 1150. When I read it I find it hard to think of needing an ability to navigate by the stars and a very experienced ferryman in a ship to get to Glastonbury, even if it was an island at that time. However, if you were leaving shore where the river Gamlan spills out into the sea in North Wales and then setting sail for Bardsey, it would be enitrely appropriate.
"The island of apples which men call “The Fortunate Isle” gets its name from the fact that it produces all things of itself; the fields there have no need of the ploughs of the farmers and all cultivation is lacking except what nature provides. Of its own accord it produces grain and grapes, and apple trees grow in its woods from the close-clipped grass. The ground of its own accord produces everything instead of merely grass, and people live there a hundred years or more. There nine sisters rule by a pleasing set of laws those who come to them from our country. 48 She who is first of them is more skilled in the healing art, and excels her sisters in the beauty of her person. Morgen is her name, and she has learned what useful properties all the herbs contain, so that she can cure sick bodies. She also knows an art by which to change her shape, and to cleave the air on new wings like Daedalus; when she wishes she is at Brest, Chartres, or Pavia, 49and when she will she slips down from the air onto your shores. And men say that she has taught mathematics to her sisters, Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea, Gliton, Tyronoe, Thitis; Thitis best known for her cither. Thither after the battle of Camlan we took the wounded Arthur, guided by Barinthus to whom the waters and the stars of heaven were well known. With him steering the ship we arrived there with the prince, and Morgen received is with fitting honour, and in her chamber she placed the king on a golden bed and with er own hand she uncovered his honourable wound and gazed at it for a long time. At length she said that health could be restored to him if he stayed with her for a long time and made use of her healing art. Rejoicing, therefore, we entrusted the king to her and returning spread our sails to the favouring winds.”
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CAMLANN
Feb 23, 2008 9:34:02 GMT -1
Post by megli on Feb 23, 2008 9:34:02 GMT -1
But - but - Geoffrey's Vita Merlini is explicitly described by him as 'an amusing poem' ('musam...iocosam'.) It's not intened to be taken seriously. It's a 12th century exercise in writing pseudo-Ovidian brief mock-epic. (Look how Morgen's sisters have those delightfully Greek names, and the fact that the place Morgen flies to are the major centres of learning in the 12th century: it's deliberately inconguous.) It can't be taken as an accurate record of anything at all, although G. of M. obviously had access to some Welsh traditions about the crazy Merlin (Myrddin wyllt). Barinthus looks Irish to me: (barr ind, 'white-topped', i.e. the waves) so the sources used by Geoffrey are obviously very eclectic. I think you're right that Geoffrey is clearly visualising his insula pomorum as being over the ocean.
Geoffrey's witty, clever poem, designed for the appreciation of a small circle of literary friends, cannot sensibly be used as a source for the 'truth' about Arthur. Sorry. Great poem though.
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CAMLANN
Feb 23, 2008 20:54:00 GMT -1
Post by poseidia on Feb 23, 2008 20:54:00 GMT -1
I think we are at cross purposes here because I have taken this section to be for the "lore of the land" - historical accuracy would be nice but folklore in itself has a value. Without the lore we have no possibility of uncovering the real history. Surely that is the fascination - what might have been?
Of course, Barinthus does appear in the "Voyage of St Brendan" so the Irish connection could well be right. In that story he appears as a holy man who persuades Brendan to go on a voyage to seek an "island of Saints" where "No plant saw we there without its flower; no tree without its fruit" so perhaps this was Geoffrey's inspiration. It ties up with other descriptions of Avalon and also with descriptions of Bardsey.
In any case, if we are going to speculate on Camlann being in Snowdonia then you have to look for an Avalon much closer than Glastonbury. Seems like a long way to carry a mortally wounded king.
I think the placing of Avalon at Glastonbury had more to do with tying it in to Camelford as Camlann although I am inclined to go along with Glastonbury as Arthur's final resting place despite all the rubbishing of the monk's discoveries as some sort of medieval fraud. Maybe they did create the grave but I suspect they may have justified their actions by virtue of the fact that at that time it was well known to folk at Glastonbury that it actually was Arthur's resting place.
Sometimes you can throw out the baby with the bathwater when you put down folklore as unreliable and ignore it completely. I prefer to sift for the grains of truth and keep an open mind. I also think it just a bit crazy to totally discredit history that was accepted fully 1,000 years ago on the basis of the analysis of 21st century minds who are obviously 1,000 years even further away from any feel for the truth.
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CAMLANN
Feb 24, 2008 1:58:56 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Feb 24, 2008 1:58:56 GMT -1
When I read it I find it hard to think of needing an ability to navigate by the stars and a very experienced ferryman in a ship to get to Glastonbury, even if it was an island at that time. However, if you were leaving shore where the river Gamlan spills out into the sea in North Wales and then setting sail for Bardsey, it would be enitrely appropriate. Well no, because the Style of sailing at this time did not involve setting sail across open sea unless absolutely necessary. A voyage to Bardsey from the Gamlan would involve hugging the coast up and around the Lleyn and then crossing over to the island at it's shortest width of the straight. No star navigation necessary. It's also rather longer than is implied by 'ferryman'.
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CAMLANN
Feb 24, 2008 8:40:53 GMT -1
Post by megli on Feb 24, 2008 8:40:53 GMT -1
I'm not ignoring it as valueless. I'm seeing it in the context of when it was written, where, and by whom, with what kind of mind, and with what kind of literary aims. On this kind of thing, it;'s delightful to see what, say, Geoffrey of Monmouth thought made an amusing literary diversion in 1150, but that tells us nothing about British history in 450, any more than the BBC1 Robin Hood tells us about life in Nottingham in 1300.
In general I get the impression that on this board we all like folklore for its own sake, but don't believe it when the latest scholarship, archaeology etc can show it to be simply wrong. I hope other people feel that this is the case. (For example, I once started a PhD thesis on the British History/Trojan origins, so I'm very interested in it, but I don't believe it's true.)
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CAMLANN
Feb 24, 2008 9:03:53 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Feb 24, 2008 9:03:53 GMT -1
I'm not ignoring it as valueless. I'm seeing it in the context of when it was written, where, and by whom, with what kind of mind, and with what kind of literary aims. On this kind of thing, it;'s delightful to see what, say, Geoffrey of Monmouth thought made an amusing literary diversion in 1150, but that tells us nothing about British history in 450, any more than the BBC1 Robin Hood tells us about life in Nottingham in 1300. He shoots, he scores! My lad loves the new Robin Hood, but he knows it's a story. And becasue of that he has gone on to ask about the *real* history behind it. In general I get the impression that on this board we all like folklore for its own sake, but don't believe it when the latest scholarship, archaeology etc can show it to be simply wrong. I hope other people feel that this is the case. (For example, I once started a PhD thesis on the British History/Trojan origins, so I'm very interested in it, but I don't believe it's true.) Absolutely. Just because it's folklore doesn't mean it's an untouchable sacred text. It could be nothing more than a story some bloke with a quill made up to try to explain something he read about in an older book. Imagine how ridiculous it would seem if people started worshipping the great religious movement that is 'High School Musical', the divine ambassador on Earth of the most high Walt. An extreme example obviously, but whose to say folklore is any different? Tha would have been a fascinating thesis. In fact I think we should start a thread on that sometime.
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