The world at large first became aware of Dr. Linda Malcor’s
Arthurian theory through a product of the entertainment industry, the movie
KING ARTHUR of 2004 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur_). To those unfamiliar with her work, the film
seemed a very odd departure from what has come to be expected from Hollywood’s
misuse and abuse of the Arthurian Tradition.
Malcor’s most important and comprehensive presentation of
her theory is found in her book FROM SCYTHIA TO CAMELOT. For those who don’t have access to this
title, Malcor has made available two articles in the online THE HEROIC AGE
journal:
Dr. Malcor approaches the Arthurian Legend from the perspective
of a trained folklorist. Unfortunately,
while her theory is superficially intriguing and has caught the imaginations of
many, her methodology as it applies to other fields of study (linguistics,
history, archaeology, etc.) is seriously flawed and thus her conclusions are
often wild and unsustainable.
The nucleus of her theory revolves around the confirmed
existence of a 2nd or 3rd century Roman army officer
named Lucius Artorius Castus who for a spell was a camp prefect at York in
Britain. She does not accept the
existence of the 5th-6th century Arthur of Nennius or the
Welsh Annals, except as this latter
Arthur is a folkloristic reflection of the earlier Roman one.
This position immediately creates insurmountable
problems. Firstly, if the 5th-6th
century Arthur is merely “LAC” (as L. Artorius Castus is often referred to)
moved forward centuries in time and made into a savior figure during the Saxon
invasions, we cannot account for the subsequent Arthurs of the following
centuries. It seems unlikely, if not
impossible, for families to have borrowed a name that had not been made famous
by a real hero of the time, but was instead a name borrowed to create
propagandist fiction. On the other hand,
it is not unrealistic to assume that the name Arthur had been passed down in
the North, quite possibly from LAC, and that it was a 5th-6th
century warlord who made it famous enough to be assumed by other royal sons in
the succeeding generation. It does not
follow, therefore, that is was LAC who made the name famous to begin with.
Another major problem with Malcor’s theory is its insistence
that the heavily armored knights of King Arthur owe their origin to Sarmatian
cataphracts stationed at Ribchester at LAC’s time. There is absolutely no evidence
whatsoever that LAC had anything to do with these mounted warriors of the
Eurasian steppe. The medieval depiction
of knights in shining armor is not limited to the later Arthurian
romances. Other Dark Age warriors such
as Charlemagne and his paladins were also similarly equipped, even though
historically their armor and weaponry would have been of a much simpler, more
primitive kind. It is normal in such
literature for anachronisms to abound, as it is natural to portray heroes of
yore in the trappings of the day.
Malcor compounds her difficulties by making errors in the
field of toponomastics and epigraphy. In
an attempt to prove that Arthur’s conquest of Europe (as first recorded in the
fiction of Geoffrey of Monmouth) is based on LAC’s military activity, she draws
upon a reading on a LAC stone that she claims refers to him leading Roman
troops to quell a rebellion in Armorica.
All the top epigraphers and historians
disagree with her. I myself contacted
several of these and other authors critical of Malcor’s theory (see, for
example, http://christophergwinn.com/celticstudies/lac/lac.html) have since done the same. The verdict?
The letters in question on the inscription actually designate Armenia,
not Armorica.
She makes additional blunders when she tries to identify the
Arthurian battles as these are listed in Nennius and ascribes them to LAC. [As camp prefect, LAC would not have been
leading battles away from York.] Her
Ribchester, Roman Bremetennacum, is not Breguoin; this is a linguistically
impossible equation. And Mount Badon
cannot, by any stretch of philology or phonology, be Dumbarton Rock. She also places the Dubglas or Douglas River battle
in Lancashire, where there is no Linnuis.
The Tribruit she puts arbitrarily on the Ribble estuary (presumably
because this is close to Ribchester). I
have provided good candidates for all of these battle sites in my book THE
ARTHUR OF HISTORY.
Perhaps nowhere does she become more undisciplined than when
she proposes supposed parallels between motifs found in the Arthurian Legend and
those found in Alano-Sarmatian stories, especially in the Nart Saga. She does everything from misinterpreting the
name of Lancelot of the Lake to suggesting that the thoroughly Celtic Bedwyr
owes his origin to the Nart hero Batraz.
This is “sound-alike” etymology at its worst – a classic amateur’s
pitfall. To try and bolster this less
than weak case from the standpoint of comparative linguistics, she claims to
have proven that certain aspects of Arthurian romance (all late medieval
creations) are to be derived from material found in the Nart stories. I’ve dealt in some detail with the Sword
Deposition tale in my book THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON, and there dispense with her
explanation. In the same work I show
that the Sword in the Stone episode owes nothing to ancient Alanic ritual
practice.
The same kind of wishful thinking underlies other aspects of
her Sarmatian theory. She makes much of
the draco standard of Uther Pendragon, pointing to its origin among the
Sarmatian cavalry. This despite the fact
that such standards were in use by the Roman army in general from a fairly
early period (see http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco.htm).
In ascribing so much significance to the draco standard of the Sarmatians, she
neglects to properly analyze the dragon story of Dinas Emrys.
Even the Holy Grail is not spared a Sarmatian makeover. Once again she engages in false etymology in
order to convince us that key figures in the Grail story – like the Grail King
Alain (not ‘Alan’, as in the tribe of that name, but from the thoroughly Celtic
deity names Alaunos and Alauna) – were imported from Sarmatian tradition. She also commits an unpardonable sin, in my
estimation: she relies on the late
romance Grail stories to further her agenda.
In doing so she fails to grasp the obvious: the earliest stratum of the Welsh
Arthurian tradition has its own prototypical Grail tradition which all point to
magical Otherworld cauldrons with Irish
associations. There is simply no
connection at all between these Celtic mythological elements and Malcor’s
Sarmatians.
Now, had Dr. Malcor as a professional folklorist promoted an
Arthurian theory that sought to utilize Jung’s idea of archetypes, I might have
been able to get on board with her on this.
I mean, the human mind tends to work much the same from culture to
culture. Thus we always find what appear
to be amazing parallels from ethnic group to ethnic group. But these parallels are not due to diffusion,
in the sense that this process is understood by folklorists. They are present in diverse populations and
over great periods of time precisely because people tend to symbolically render
the world in accordance with how their brains are wired, which in large part
determines how they will experience and react to their environments.
Are there, then, parallels between the Celtic and
Alano-Sarmatian traditions? Well,
yes. But did the latter inform or
influence the former?
No. There is not a
shred of evidence that they did.
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