7. Juni 2016, Brucknerhaus
C. K. / PH OÖ
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Let me take you back in time. Let me take you back 2000 years. The Celts lived in Britain.
There were lots of different tribes and these tribes were ruled by kings or chiefs. Chiefs
often fought one another. They lead their warriors into battle. For defence against enemies,
they built forts on hilltops. These hill-forts had earth banks and wooden walls.
In Celtic Britain there were no towns. Most people were farmers living in villages. They
made round houses from wood and mud, with thatched roofs. There were no roads and
people travelled by boats on rivers, or along muddy paths. Some British Celts also crossed
the sea to trade with other Celts in the Roman Empire.
But in 43 after Christ, the Roman Emperor Claudius sent an army to invade Britain. The
Romans conquered the southern half of Britain, and made it part of the Roman Empire.
The Romans stayed in Britain for 350 years, ruling the country, building roads and building
towns. But then, warlike tribes were attacking the Roman Empire and taking land. The
Angles, the Saxons, the Huns, the Vandals, the Goths, and the Franks split the Roman
Empire into Western and Eastern sections.
The city of Rome was under attack and the empire was falling apart, so in 410 after Christ
the Romans had to leave Britain to protect Rome. Soon, Britain fell into chaos. The chiefs
of local Celtic tribes began a fight for power and the country split into several kingdoms.
Also, Saxon invaders, who came from the continent, attacked the country.
In this period of the Dark Ages, beginning at about 450 after Christ, Britain had no true
king or emperor. The British Isles were a dangerous place. The Saxons were settling in the
South East of England and they pushed the Celtic Britons westwards into Wales and the
South West.
To the Britons, who had lived under civilised Roman rule, these Saxons were barbarians.
The time was right for a powerful leader to unite the Britons against these outsiders. The
people were hoping for a king to protect them and to keep justice.
This was the time, when the story of King Arthur began. Arthur’s father was Uther, who
was a good man and a chief in the south of Britain. In Uther’s country people did not fight.
Uther and his wife had a son, who they called Arthur. They wanted Arthur to be safe, so
he grew up with Sir Ector and his son, Kay.
When Uther was very ill, he called for Merlin, a great magician, because he wanted to talk
about the future of his country. He wanted Arthur to become king, but Arthur was very
young and a lot of knights and great men began to fight because every one of them wanted
to be the king. There was civil war and no new king for a long time.
When Arthur was a young man, the Archbishop called the knights to London for a
tournament and to find a new king. Outside a church there was a very large stone with a
great sword in it. On the stone there were these words:
WHOSO PULLS OUT THIS SWORD FROM THIS STONE, IS THE TRUEBORN KING OF ALL BRITAIN
Every knight tried to pull the sword out of the stone, but nobody could do it, nobody was
the true King of Britain.
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When all the knights were at the tournament, Arthur did not have a sword, because he had
given his sword to Sir Kay. When he happened to see the sword in the stone outside the
church, he got off his horse and – he pulled the sword from the stone.
This was how Arthur became king. And Merlin told him, that when Arthur was a baby,
he had taken him to Avalon, a magic place. And he told Arthur that he would be the best
knight and the greatest king.
So King Arthur began a new life. But the Anglo-Saxons made life difficult for the Britons.
They were a mix of tribes from the northern part of the continent. The three biggest were
the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. They were trying to invade Britain and the land
where they settled was 'Angle-land', or England.
King Arthur went through the country with his knights and in many wars they fought the
Saxons.
Arthur made the town of Camelot the most important town in the country. He gathered
around him the best and the bravest knights of the country. This was the beginning of the
Knights of the Round Table. There were many places at that great table, which was made
of wood and stone, and every knight had his place. As the table was round, nobody sat at
the top and nobody sat at the bottom. No chair was better than another chair.
One day King Arthur was hurt in a fight when his sword broke. Merlin told him that he
would find the best sword in the world, a sword from Avalon, the place of magic. Merlin
took him through a dark wood to an open place in the mountains. They came to a beautiful
lake. The water was very quiet and blue. In the centre of the lake, Arthur saw an arm with
a beautiful sword in its hand. It was The Lady of the Lake. Arthur went to the middle of
the lake in a boat and he received the magic sword. Merlin told him, that no man could kill
the person who had that sword. And he also told Arthur the name of the sword: Excalibur.
One day, Arthur’s neighbour king Leodogran asked him for help in a battle. Arthur
gathered his warriors and it so happened, that as he and his men were marching past the
neighbouring castle to meet the enemy, Leodogran's daughter, Guinevere, who was the
most beautiful lady in all that land, stood on the castle wall to watch her father's friends
pass.
She did not know, of all the knights who rode by, which of them was Arthur. But Arthur
saw her bending over the wall. She was slender and graceful; her black hair fell in two long
heavy braids over each shoulder; her eyes were large and black. And Arthur felt a warm
love spring from his heart, and he decided that if he won this battle for Leodogran, he
would ask him to give him Princess Guinevere for wife. And so it happened, Arthur won
the battle and returned to Camelot. Soon after, he married Princess Guinevere.
One of the knights was Sir Mordred, the nephew of King Arthur. When he grew up,
Mordred travelled to the Court of King Arthur and was made a Knight of the Round
Table. For some time, he was the companion of Sir Lancelot, but the good character of the
other knights did not influence Mordred: he was a bad man. He had affairs with married
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ladies while being mean to their husbands. He even killed some of the ladies. Still, Arthur
was in favour of Mordred and left him in charge while he was away from Camelot. But
Mordred was an evil man. He made alliances with the enemies of King Arthur: with the
Saxons, the Picts and the Scots.
As Arthur had no children, Mordred was going to inherit the kingdom when Arthur died.
But he did not want to wait and planned to make himself King of Britain. He even
declared that he wanted to take Queen Guinevere as his wife.
Arthur admired Guinevere and married her although his adviser Merlin warned him that
she would be unfaithful to him. Guinevere was a beautiful and noble queen but her life
changed when she fell in love with Lancelot. Sir Lancelot was one of Arthur's bravest and
most loyal knights, he was one of the greatest knights of the Round Table. He was wise,
strong, and kind. But unfortunately, he fell in love with Queen Guinevere.
Their love developed slowly as Guinevere ignored Lancelot at first, but soon she fell to his
charms and they became lovers. They tried to keep their love a secret from the king and
spent time together outside the palace. At first, Arthur did not notice the growing
attachment between the queen and Lancelot.
When Sir Mordred, the evil nephew of King Arthur, found out that Guinevere and
Lancelot were in love, he told King Arthur. So the king was forced to accuse his wife and
to fight her lover. Several violent battles between Arthur and Lancelot followed, with
groups of knights joining in on each side. Eventually, Guinevere returned to Arthur.
At that time, the Saxons increased in numbers and their strength grew in Britain. Arthur
fought against the Saxons in those days with the other Kings of the Britons, and he
himself was called “The Leader of the Battles”.
The Anglo-Saxon armies were usually small, with only a few hundred men. Most soldiers
had farms, and after a battle went home as soon as they could, to look after their animals
and crops. They had spears, axes, swords and bows and arrows. They wore helmets and
carried wooden shields. Everyone fought on foot during a battle. A fight was man against
man, with lots of pushing and yelling, and nasty wounds.
The most feared Anglo-Saxon weapon was a battle axe, but the most important weapon
was the sword. It took hours of work by a smith to craft a sword.
The Britons and the Saxons were fairly evenly matched during the time of these battles,
both sides were winning and losing. There were eleven great battles: the first one took
place on the mouth of the river, which is called Glein.
The next four battles were upon another river in the Kingdom of Linnus. These were
followed by six more battles, on rivers, in woods, in towns and the eleventh battle was
waged on the mountain which is called Agned. Both the Britons and the Saxons could not
win these eleven battles.
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The twelfth battle finally turned things in the Briton’s favour. In the Battle of Badon,
which took place on Mount Badon, almost a thousand men fell in one day. It was an
important victory which gave the Britons a strong position over the Saxons and there was
a time of peace that lasted as long as 30 years.
One day, when King Arthur and some of his best knights were away in France, the evil
knight Sir Mordred started a rebellion. Mordred put together his own army and came to
Camelot. He told everyone that King Arthur had been killed fighting on the Continent, in
France. People believed Mordred and he made himself King of Britain.
Some of King Arthur’s knights went to a castle in London. Mordred also came to London
with his men to fight against the knights. But the walls of the castle were too strong, and
he could not get inside.
Then one of Mordred’s men came to him and said that King Arthur was coming back to
England with his men. Mordred went to Dover with his men and waited for King Arthur.
There was a great fight, but Sir Mordred’s men could not win. One of Sir Mordred’s men
wounded Sir Gawain, a brave knight who was fighting for King Arthur.
When King Arthur returned from France he was told about the fight and the death of Sir
Gawain. He was also told that Sir Mordred and his men were waiting for Arthur at a
place near a lake. King Arthur knew the place, because it was the lake where he had got
Excalibur from The Lady of the Lake.
The King called his knights and told them that he would go and speak with Mordred. He
also said that they should come with him and bring their swords, but they should only take
them out and fight when Mordred or his knights took out their swords. Then, Arthur met
Mordred.
Arthur killed Mordred, but was very badly hurt himself. Arthur knew he was going to die
and he spoke to his men:
“I am leaving you now, and I want you to tell everybody in the country the story of King
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I will come again one day when my country
asks for me.”
Those were King Arthur’s last words.
Many of King Arthur’s men believed that the spirit of King Arthur would return one day,
to bring back the days of Camelot, to help them fight the Saxons and to create peace.
They believed that the spirit of King Arthur would return to save Britain in the hour of its
deadliest danger.