Chronicles of the Brittany Kings Part 0

 

The Chronicles of the Brittany Kings

 

The fictionalized adaption of the Brittany Kings from Constantine to Uther Pendragon

Prelude to King Arthur

 

By Jimmy Loong

29/9/2022

After the lapse of one year; frozen in time and ideas lashed to the brink of idleness, the chronicles begin once more.

 

4/11/22022

I came to end the tale here at 68,188 words.

 

 

 

Credit of the image above to Uther, on horseback and disguised as Pelleas, watches Lady Igraine picking flowers in Uther and Lady Igraine by Warwick Deeping, illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Benda

The inspiration to the tale came from here;

Uther is best known from Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae (1136) where he is the youngest son of King of Britannia, Constantine. His eldest brother Constans succeeds to the throne on their father's death, but is murdered at the instigation of his adviser Vortigern, who seizes the throne. Uther and his other brother, Aurelius Ambrosius, still children, flee to Brittany. Vortigern makes an alliance with the Saxons under Hengist, but it goes disastrously wrong. Aurelius and Uther return, now adults. Aurelius burns Vortigern in his castle and becomes king.

With Aurelius on the throne, Uther leads his brother in arms to Ireland to help Merlin bring the stones of Stonehenge from there to Britain. Later, while Aurelius is ill, Uther leads his army against Vortigern's son Paschent and his Saxon allies. On the way to the battle, he sees a comet in the shape of a dragon, which Merlin interprets as presaging Aurelius's death and Uther's glorious future. Uther wins the battle and takes the epithet "Pendragon", and returns to find that Aurelius has been poisoned by an assassin. He becomes king and orders the construction of two gold dragons, one of which he uses as his standard.

He secures Britain's frontiers and quells Saxon uprisings with the aids of his retainers, one of whom is Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. At a banquet celebrating their victories, Uther becomes obsessively enamoured of Gorlois' wife Igerna (Lady Igraine), and a war ensues between Uther and his vassal. Gorlois sends Igerna to the impregnable castle of Tintagel for protection while he himself is besieged by Uther in another town. Uther consults with Merlin who uses his magic to transform the king into the likeness of Gorlois and thus gain access to Igerna at Tintagel. He spends the night with her and they conceive Arthur, but the next morning it is discovered that Gorlois had been killed. Uther marries Igerna and they have a daughter called Anna (in later romances she is called Morgause and is usually Igerna's daughter by her previous marriage). Morgause later marries King Lot and becomes the mother of Gawain and Mordred.

Uther later falls ill and the wars begin to go badly against the Saxons. He insists on leading his army himself, propped up on his horse. He defeats Hengist's son Octa at Verulamium (St Albans), despite the Saxons calling him the "Half-Dead King". However, the Saxons soon contrive his death by poisoning a spring which he drinks from near Verulamium.^[5]

Uther's family is based on some historical figures; Aurelius Ambrosius is Ambrosius Aurelianus, mentioned by Gildas, though his connection to Constantine and Constans is unrecorded. It is possible that Uther himself is based at least partially on Tewdrig, a historical king of Glywysing in the sixth century, given the strong similarities between their death stories. Depending on the source, Uther may either be the son of Constantine III, as is related in the Welsh Triad 51,^[14] or he may be the son of Constantine of Dumnonia, as related in Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain.^[15]

Other medieval literature[edit]

In Robert de Boron's Merlin, Uther Pendragon kills Hengist after an assassination attempt by the Saxon leader and Merlin creates the Round Table for him. In the Prose Lancelot Uther Pendragon claims to have been born in Bourges. He takes an army to Brittany to fight against King Claudas at Bourges, a situation resembling that of the historical ruler Riothamus who went to Brittany to fight ravagers based in Bourges. Uther also appears in the chivalric romance Sir Cleges as the king to whom Sir Cleges brings the Christmas cherries, obtained by miracle.^[16]

There is an alternative account of Uther Pendragon's background in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival. A certain Mazadân went with a fairy named Terdelaschoye to the land of Feimurgân. (This looks like a garbling of some source that told of Mazadân's alliance with the Fay Morgan in Terre de la Joye; the "Land of Joy".) Mazadân becomes father of two sons, Lazaliez and Brickus. Brickus becomes father of Utepandragûn, father of Arthur, while the elder son, Lazaliez, becomes father of Gandin of Anjou, father of Gahmuret, father of Parzival (Percival). Uther Pendragon and Arthur here appear as the scions of the junior branch of an unattested House of Anjou. Early German literature's motif of Uther's descent from fairies, believed to have relied on some now lost Celtic material, may have been meant to explain Arthur's connection with Avalon. Since, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Caliburn was a gift from Avalon, and Arthur was taken to Avalon to be healed. Layamon in his Brut also said that Arthur was given various blessings by fairies.

Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall (1602) drew on an earlier French writer, Nicholas Gille, who mentions Moigne, brother of Uther and Aurelius, who was duke of Cornwall, and "governer of the Realme" under Emperor Honorius. Carew's brief account of Arthur's birth also mentions a sister, Amy, also born to Uther and Lady Igraine.^[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uther_Pendragon

 

The references I took ideas and extracts are listed here with appreciation as it led me to complete this tale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldol,_Consul_of_Gloucester#:~:text=Eldol%2C%20or%20Edel%2C%20a%20Briton,a%20knight%20of%20great%20prowess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_of_the_Long_Knives#:~:text=The%20Treason%20of%20the%20Long,Plain%20in%20the%205th%20century.

https://www.inheritage.org/almanack/cumbria-england-forgotten-celtic-kingdom/

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/Stone-Circles-in-Cumbria/

https://druidry.org/druid-way/teaching-and-practice/druids-stone-circles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinas_Emrys

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totnes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespasian#Invasion_of_Britannia

https://www.visittotnes.co.uk/troy-totnes-tale-brutus-stone/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutus_of_Troy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_(mythology)

http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/historia.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortimer

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/anglo-saxon/earlychurch/germanus.html

https://www.historyhit.com/key-weapons-of-the-anglo-saxon-period/

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/hengist-and-horsa-0013768

https://bantarleton.tumblr.com/post/618902648945623040/the-battle-of-dun-nechtain-the-picts-crush-the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain#Gildas'_De_Excidio_et_Conquestu_Britanniae

https://folklorethursday.com/legends/british-legends-aurelius-ambrosius-legendary-king-of-the-britons/

https://folklorethursday.com/legends/british-legends-treachery-murder-lust-and-rowena-the-rule-of-vortigern/

https://kingarthur.fandom.com/wiki/Constans_(King_of_Britain)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosius_Aurelianus#Scholarship_questions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uther_Pendragon

https://ztevetevans.wordpress.com/2020/02/12/vortigerns-rule-the-assassination-of-king-constans/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortigern

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_of_the_British_monarch

https://conisbroughanddenabyhistory.org.uk/article/2-hengist-and-ambrosius/

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+mode+of+attack+on+a+castle+Britons+ear&oq=the+mode+of+attack+on+a+castle+Britons+ear&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i10i160l4.18260j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://greathall.chaosium.com/Pendragon%20Forum%20Archive/index.php/t-2845.html

https://kingarthur.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrosius_Aurelianus#According_to_Geoffrey_of_Monmouth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_cry#History

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/britain-clairvoyant/a/high-king-gillomanius-of-ireland-article

https://ztevetevans.wordpress.com/tag/prophecy-of-the-star-and-the-fiery-dragon/

https://jesus.net/pentecost/?gclid=CjwKCAjw79iaBhAJEiwAPYwoCC5A-Gy2U4rk4dIvN4pipRO8DnNwrB4ympXCB8nij1fRqKJ9EvGnHBoCousQAvD_BwE

http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artfam/pascent.htm

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/britain-clairvoyant/a/battle-of-menevia-article

https://oath-of-crows.obsidianportal.com/wikis/battle-of-menevia

https://kingarthurpendragon.fandom.com/wiki/Estregales

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendragon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorlois

http://www.zendonaldson.com/twilight/camelot/infopedia/t/tintagel.htm

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/triads1.html#:~:text=Three%20Great%20Enchantments%20of%20the,son%20of%20Collfrewy%20his%20nephew.

https://wno.org.uk/news/three-is-the-magic-number

https://www.bookofthrees.com/the-symbolism-and-spiritual-significance-of-the-number-three/

https://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2016/11/uther-pendragon-man-myth-or-legend.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menw

https://deadliestblogpage.wordpress.com/2018/11/14/the-age-of-arthur-part-seven-cerdic-the-saxon/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrarchy

https://www.google.com/search?q=when+did+rome+occupy+britain&oq=when+did+Rome+occupied+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i22i30l9.16432j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_Roman_rule_in_Britain

https://www.britainexpress.com/History/roman/civitas.htm

 

Thank you.