30 in 30 - 5 - Le Blog D'Arthur

[aggienaut]

   Everyone has heard of King Arthur, but very few people really have a conception of where he fits into history. Most people probably have a vague picture of a rennaissance knight on the throne of England between Ophie I Forkbeard and Henry XVIJ in the fifteenth century. Well I am here to give you the suprisingly accurate real picture of how King Arthur fits into history (largely because I'm writing a paper on it at the moment).


   The legend as it is largely known today came about during 30 in 30 of the year 1485. At that time a blogger by the name of Thomas Malory wrote an entry titled Le Morte D'Arthur, about the life of Arthur. Due to the recent paid account feature of the printing press, this entry received many more comments than any previous version.
   As mentioned, in this version Arthur was very much as one knows him today: he had a magic Round Friends-List in which no one was ever on top; and the magic sword Excalibur, which had free text-messeging, 5,000 anytime minutes with monthly rollover, & got him into certain casinos for free. This entry, however, had been composed from others on Malory's friends-list, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth (The Historia Regum Britanniae, 1136 AD), Nennius (Historia Britonum, 820 AD), and Gildas (De Excidio Britanniae, 541 AD), and some others, some of whom are now lost to us because their entries were friends-only. Of particular note, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia, which elaborated the story extensively and was built upon by later versions, has been hailed by many scholars as "a deliberate spoof" (!!). In fact, Geoffrey of Monmouth was such a saucy prankster he was made a bishop of a place he never visited (even after becoming bishop) -- truly he was a megablogger of our own heart.

   As to the actual historicity of Arthur, some people regard him as just an early Chuck Norris sockpuppet, but all the early accounts ascribe him to a very specific time and place, where there happens to be a big gap in the historical record.
   As you should know, Rome controlled most of Britain from 43 AD until 407 AD. At the end of that time Rome had been in England for 364 years -- to put that in perspective, try to think about 364 years ago today - 1642 - that was a long-ass time ago. So basically England had been Roman for as long as anyone could remember. In 407, however, things were falling apart, and the leader of the Romans in England declared himself the Roman Emperor Constantine III and headed off to Rome with every soldier he could take with him. He proceeded to get his butt kicked but the point is he took the Roman forces out of Britain and left a power vacuum there.

   There then appears to be a largely historical leader in Britain known as Vortigern, whose most notable action is that he invited the Saxons to hang out on the beaches in England (in 428), but they then got belligerent and turned on him and the locals. This and suspicion that he was a hipster caused many to lose faith in Vortigern's leadership and defriend him. One Aurelius Ambrosius rises up instead as leader of the British. Ambrosius (whose name means "Golden Snacks" -- Seriously, you can't make this shit up!) is regarded by scholars as also probably historical, but we're delving deeper into the mythological realm here as well. Ambrosius is the immediate predecessor to Uther Pendragon. Uther Pendragon as you should know, is by all accounts Arthur's father, and is largely legendary / barely more historical than Arthur (if not less).
   Finally, we have Arthur himself, circa 496-537. To give further context, Attila conducted his raging edit-wars across Europe 437-453; and in around 600 the epic saga of how Blogowolf defeated a freakish outcast who lived with his mother named otimus Grendel takes place.
   Following Arthur we have another historical character, Constantine III (2) (Basically the previously mentioned Const. 3.0 was III to the Romans but II to the British, since the Roman Constantine II only posted memes and therefore wasn't very memorable to the British).
   And so I say, yes there are some wild claims about Arthur, but all claims put him at a specific time and place not occupied by anyone else, which is led up to by historic figures and followed by historic figures, so why dispute that there was in fact a dude named Arthur blogging at this time? It's Okham's Razor I believe that states that the simplest explanation is the most likely.


General News
   Intrepid bloggists, be not dissuaded by the negativity of otimus. He is but an ogre sent by the blogging god Blogdor to test our grace & courage.
   Day Five Pick: pavel_lishin, for being drunk at a wedding in Arkansa, and utilizing technique & craft to attach vodka to himself with an ipod strap. Entry could maybe have used a +3 spell of lj-cut though.


Historia Blogospherum
   Three Years Ago Today: The Law of Inevitable Discovery - So I'm wearing my Pedro the Lion shirt when this girl behind me in line at a pizza place tells me I shouldn't be wearing it because Pedro star Dave Bazan is christian & I'm agnostic (and the girl in line is christian). The story gets more interesting when I complain about it in this livejournal entry and friends of the girl actually find the entry and argue with me! Also, my friend Kristy sets me up with her friend Sashie.
30 in 30 I (2004):
   Day 4: By day four the differences between those with blogstamina and those without was becoming apparent. This day brought the first failures to post, neither mrkevincostner nor oystercracker posted this day, though they picked up again the following day. shekb managed to succeed where jdryznar & incomple were consistently failing, by making a funny entry about Bush & Cheney; lerani posted about the Garfield movie and how it tries to portray itself as edgy; stephenl posts an ode to a jelly doughnut; and apoplecticfittz hits blogging gold with The Ten Blogging Commandments (Blogmandments?).
   Day 5: apoplecticfittz composes horoscopes; stephenl realizes that even if he posts the most boring entry he can, he'll still get 31 comments, and lerani hates him for it, but actually writes a nice little entry about her drunken loathred for the whole undertaking. feuders goes off the deepend. shekb effectively summarizes the fate of the bloggist in a post about how despite all his other failures and shortcomings, at least one of his entries comes up number six on a google search.

Comments

[barnabas-truman.livejournal.com]

An excellent historical monologue on the veracity of the Arthurian legends, but I fear I must take issue with your casual misuse of Occam's Razor. In fact it merely states that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity"--in other words, in a debate or proof, do not make complicated assumptions that are not strictly necessary to prove your claim. It is a philosophy on making arguments more efficient and effective, not a claim about the likelihood of simple explanations.

Ockham's Razor

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Yeah I wasn't sure about that.. is there a different law that would be more apt?

Re: Ockham's Razor

[barnabas-truman.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Holmes's Maxim?
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

[orwell-troll.livejournal.com]

Wonderful entry. You should have talked about the time that Brutus defriended Caesar. Such sauce.

In recognition of such an awesome entry, I'm going to declare you the Archbishop of the African Congo for the Discordian church. Go, therefore, and spread the word of the Law of Fives and the Sacred Chao.

Defriending

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Oh I forgot about defriending -- working that in with Vortigern now. If anyone else has any ideas feel free to tell me.

Re: Defriending

[barnabas-truman.livejournal.com]

Not sure how you'd work it in to livejournal terminology, but you gotta have a reference to the dragons-fighting-under-the-tower thing.

Re: Defriending

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Ah Dinas Emrys. The original word is "vermes," which can be translated as either "dragons," or "badgers." Or so my sources tell me, though I don't know why anyone has the same word for both.

I might just have to make another entry on the subject. Specifically I have major beef with the "Sarmatian Connection" theory and the 2004 movie King Arthur.

Re: Defriending

[barnabas-truman.livejournal.com]

Well, badgers can get pretty ornery if you try to build a tower on top of their burrow.

Does this mean that the Welsh flag should be a green stripe, a white stripe, and a big red badger?

Re: Defriending

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Yes, a big red sunburnt badger.

Dinas Emrys

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

And also, for one of the most obviously entirely mythical aspects of the legends, it has possibly the most supporting evidence -- Dinas Emrys is one of the very few locations which is known to be a real place. At Dinas Emrys there is a rocky hillock with a castle atop it, and in the middle of that castle there is a pool (specifically the legend was that the vermes were fighting in a pool of course), and above the pool there is an unusual platform. Considering that nearly every other location in the Arthurian legend has not been tied to anywhere specific in modern times, much less have any other corroborating evidence, this is really quite strange.

Re: Dinas Emrys

[barnabas-truman.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's cool! I've got to go check it out next time I visit the Old Country.

[stunman.livejournal.com]

remember that time that you were going to hook me up with sashie? yeah, i'm still waiting!

You so saucy

[basicallyasap.livejournal.com]

Hey, she's my Russian princess so you better watch it buddy.

She has an LJ too:slosha

Re: You so saucy

[stunman.livejournal.com]

haha, well i guess i'll have to serenade her in the russian to break her from your spell!

oh, thanks for making me feel so stalkerish now, with the whole "here's her entire soul on a platter" livejournal info thing :P