
Royal palace discovered in area believed to be birthplace of King Arthur - curtis
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/03/royal-palace-discovered-in-area-believed-to-be-birthplace-of-kin/
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cyberferret
Forget the castle, where is the lake & the Lady?? We want the sword, even
though: "...strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a
system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the
masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony..."

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arethuza
Which sword though, aren't the Sword in the Stone and Excalibur different
swords? :-)

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cyberferret
Hmm... I thought it was one and the same... But you could be right... Drawing
the sword from the marked him as the true King, but I recall Excalibur was
handed to him by the lady in the lake later... I might have to consult
Malory's tome again...

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josh-wrale
Pretty sure he cast Excalibur into the lake and the Lady of the Lake cared for
it before returning it to him later. (making the stone sword Excalibur).

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cyberferret
I do recall Sir Bedevere(?) throwing it back in the lake in the end after
Arthur is mortally wounded, but I can't recall the bit where Arthur first
throws it to the 'watery bint' before that. Having trouble locating my
Arthurian books to research that bit...

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Declanomous
Well, according to the wikipedia page on Excalibur, depending on the story,
sometimes the Sword in the Stone and Excalibur are one and the same, and
sometimes they aren't.

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arethuza
_He fed black ravens on the rampart of a fortress

Though he was no Arthur

Among the powerful ones in battle

In the front rank, Gwawrddur was a palisade_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Gododdin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Gododdin)

I can strongly recommend Michael Wood's book _" In Search of England"_ which
has a chapter on Arthur.

[NB I can see _Din Eidyn_ out of the window as I write this].

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Castle#Early_Middle_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Castle#Early_Middle_Ages)

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empath75
> believed to be the birthplace of King Arthur.

believed by who? I thought it was pretty widely agreed that he never existed.

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ergothus
As depicted, no, but if take a squinty-eyed view of a "king" uniting
squabbling nobles into one land (where "land" == "bigger territory than was
normally allied"), and perhaps throw in some level of
violent?/sexual?/usurping? family dysfunction, well....you get a lot of "king
arthur"s.

Much like Count Dracula (the evidence saying he was inspired by Vlad the
Impaler is awfully thin and largely rests on everyone assuming an initial
theory was correct and then laughing at anyone that wanted to say otherwise
because "everyone" knows). If you go looking for nobles in that area that
fought the Turks and were notorious...well, take your pick. You can filter by
"son of the dragon/devil" (Dracula), but I've heard that "Dracul" was sort of
an honorary title that wasn't shy among, you know, nobles that fought Turks,
so that filter isn't likely to help much.

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smnscu
I'm Romanian and incidentally I vacationed several times in the close vicinity
of the Bran castle. Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes or Vlad Draculea) was very
much a real person (and the Bran area is pretty nice, I definitely recommend
visiting). While the vampire connotations are indeed mostly fabricated, he was
known for more mundane gruesome acts, like affectionately poking people with a
stick (see pic).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler)

[http://www.livescience.com/images/i/000/071/430/i02/Impaled....](http://www.livescience.com/images/i/000/071/430/i02/Impaled.jpg)

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Yuioup
Vlad, the Poker.

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golergka
Vlad, the pentester.

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bshimmin
_They believe the one-metre thick walls..._

"Merlin! I can't get on the damn wifi again!"

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linker3000
"Merlin, the 6ft wide doors for the Great Hall have arrived, but they don't
fit the space in the metric-specced walls!"

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gilleain
On an audio tour around a castle in northern France, they had actors
"reconstructing" lines from the past, including one that went:

"The tower had to be strong, so we built the walls 1.85 meters thick!...."

Soooo authentic.

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tokai
You wouldn't have been able to understand what they were saying if it had been
100% authentic. And if you translate the language why not translate the units?

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duaneb
Why not say "make 'em really thick"? Or say "an arm span". The precise units
are entirely unnecessary.

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mrweasel
I'm fascinated that the royal palace has a team of archaeologists on staff.
That some top notch genealogy from the royal family.

