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"On my
friend's left-hand side, as
she still remembered vividly,
almost in photographic detail,
there were 'woods, clear,
sun-filled glades with the
leaves of the trees all
dappled in the sunshine . . .
and all around such a feeling
of happiness, of liberty . . .
of . . . of, oh,
everlastingness about it all.'
"I
nodded, because I knew she
really had had an experience
that had gone very deep. It
was that quality of
'timelessness' that seemed to
have imposed itself upon the
whole scene. She was just
saying to herself in quiet
delight, 'Oh, this is just out
of this world!' when something
inside her and quite apart
from her own mind said:
'Arthur and his men used to
ride here.' She knew perfectly
well, for some unknown and
uncommunicated reason, that it
was the King Arthur of the
Round Table that the words
referred to. Then, even as the
words were formed, she heard
the sound of a horn, then of
voices, and with a shock of
surprise, she saw men on
horseback riding through the
glades, cantering, talking
lightheartedly amongst
themselves, and with laughter
that matched the golden day.
They were wearing leather
jackets of some sort, carrying
swords and spears, but quite
obviously out hunting or on
exercise, not for fighting or
any sort of foray.
"For
ever after she was at pains to
insist that she knew it was
not something real that she
was seeing, but a sort of
'inner vision', one within her
own mind. She said it was
something like seeing an old
film being replayed, or like
looking at an old, faded,
sepia photograph. She insisted
it was not in colour."
It was this
story that set
Mary
Andere on a trail to
find out how likely it was
that the mysterious Arthur had
ever ridden across those
Herefordshire fields. Whilst
knowing that St Dubrucius,
long believed to be the cleric
who 'crowned' King Arthur, had
his seminary at Llanfrother,
near where this sighting had
taken place, she didn't
believe that much more could
be discovered. Arthur's Stone,
for example, is clearly a
prehistoric burial mound, not
a relic of the Dark Ages. But
then there is Nennius's
description of the burial of
Arthur's son at the Licat
Anir, displayed so proudly in
the pub at Wormelow and
believed to relate to the old
twm, or tump,
destroyed in the 19th century,
which once stood nearby.
She
long puzzled over the pieces
in the jigsaw and they
gradually fell into place.
Some parts are documented in
old Breton and Welsh sources,
only recently made available
to the reader of English;
others involved predicting
courses of action between
documented events; yet other
interpreting snippets of lore.
What
emerges is an Arthur who is a
definite historical figure, a
commander-in-chief, rather
than a king, but descended
from a royal British lineage
that could hark back to
Constantine the Great. His
mother is from Erging, the
land that is now south
Herefordshire; his uncle,
Caradoc Vraichbras, held land
at Sellack. His knightly
companions, Geraint and
Gawain, also both had
connections with
Herefordshire. Developing the
theme, a case is made for the
siting of the eighth of
Nennius's Twelve Battles of
Arthur on the Doward.
This book
shows that Herefordshire could
indeed have strong links with
Arthur and some of the events
of his life and those of his "courtiers",
the knights of the Round
Table. |
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