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Celtic Mystic Watch links to Celtic
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| 1. Gildas Bandonicus, a British [i.e. Celtic] monk, lived in the 6th century. In the 540s - in the most aggressive language - he set out to denounce the wickedness of his times. He ended up being the only substantial source which survives from the time of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain, and the best source before the much more impressive work of the Venerable Bede [who completed his Ecclesiastical History of the English People almost 200 years late in 731]. At any event, the Anglo-Saxons began arriving in the 470s, perhaps imported as soldiers as Gildas suggests. For some time the British fought back [the historic basis of the Arthurian myth], but by 600 the Anglo-Saxons had control of most of what becomes 'England', and the Celtic peoples were pushed to the hills of Wales and Scotland and across the English Channel to "Brittany". source | |
| 2. Nennius was an Eighth century historian who is a major source for tales of King Arthur. [see #56 below]. Unlike the much more careful Bede, Nennius was, as one modern historian writes "unrestrainedly inventive" [ Gerhard Herm, The Celts, [London, 1976], p. 275]. Not all of Nennius can be dismissed as he apparently had access to no-longer available 5th century sources, but neither can he be entirely trusted. source | |
| 3. The Life of Gildas by Caradoc of Llancarfan can be dated to c. 1130-1150. Geoffrey of Monmouth refers to Caradoc at the end of some versions of his History of the Kings of Britain as being the only person capable of continuing the writing of British history. Caradoc of Llancarfan also wrote the second version of the Life of Saint Cadog in which Arthur also figures prominently. source |
