From Scythia to Camelot

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Plenty of scholarship but a flawed thesis - Rated
Malcor and Scott Littleton have been working on their "Scythian" thesis for some years and have amassed a remarkable amount of evidence to support their view. The book is, despite a core theme, more a selection of separate essays than a developing narrative and this in itself is disappointing - but the overall impact of the weight of scholarship is impressive.

Briefly their thesis is that the Arthurian legend had its genesis with the Scythians - a scattered tribe of horse warriors who lived on the plains north of the Black Sea over 2000 years ago. A thorn in the side of the Romans, they were finally defeated by Marcus Aurelius in the second century AD. To prevent further trouble 5000 of them were shipped across to Britain and used as auxiliary cavalry to defend the Roman polity against attack from beyond Hadrian's Wall.

Far fetched as this may seem there are tales from the descendents of the Scythians, the Ossetians, whose homeland is between the Caspian and the Black Sea, which bear a striking similarity to some Arthurian tales. For instance, the main hero of the Ossetian myth is Batraz whose sword is flung into the sea at his death and caught by a hand rising from the waves.

Spooky or what?

From this Malcor and Scott Littleton have constructed an entire history of the Scythians in Britain. They place King Arthur's traditional twelve battles in the North country where the Scythians were based, claim that Arthur's tradition of mounted knights was derived from the Scythians as was, they claim, his dragon emblem. There is much more of this and similar claims for another barbarian tribe, the Alans, who settled in the Loire Valley in the fifth century.

This is attractive stuff and the arguments are much more persuasive than in any other pseudo history I have read. This work is for instance much superior to Howard Reid's book "Arthur, The Dragon King", which argues the same case.

One thing, however, is not mentioned. The Ossetian myth about Batraz was only written down during the ninetenth century. Could the Ossetians have not read Mallory and stolen an idea or two from him, thus nullifying the whole thesis?

A stimulating read however if you are interetsed in the origins of Arthur and if you can cope with footnote-omania.

Dave Burnham