camlan

Date & TIME: 12/8/07 - 2/9/07

VENUE (LOCATION): Meirion Mill, Dinas Mawddwy, near Machynlleth.

ADMISSION: Free

ACCESS: 9am - 5pm.

DIRECTIONS:  The installation can be found near Arthur’s stone on the battle field walk.  Meirion Mill is located in the village of Dinas Mawddwy near to Machynlleth off the A470 to Mallwyd.

PARKING:  parking is available in the mill car park.

For Further Details Contact Chris here.

Legend

Maes Camlan is the name given to a field in the district of Dinas Mawddwy, this field of Camlan is one of the few places in Britain to bear the name of King Arthur’s final, ill-fated battle against his treacherous nephew. Its undoubted beauty however masks a grim legend, a tale of futility, betrayal and tragedy.

In the well known version of the story, as found in the French Vulgate cycle and told in English by Sir Thomas Malory in his definitive ‘Le Mort Darthur’, Arthur’s final battle is never named as Camlan and is said to have taken place on Sailsbury Plain in southern England.  They tell how as Arthur made war on Lancelot in France in revenge for his adultery with queen Guinevere, back in Britain his nephew and incestuously conceived son Mordred seized the throne and besieged Guinevere with a view to marrying her.  When her heard of Mordred’s treachery Arthur quickly returned to Britain but with the Round Table depleted by the Grail quest and split by the war with Lancelot he could no longer command his full strength.  He met Mordred’s army at Sailsbury Plain where they attempted to reach a negotiated settlement.  However as they were at the parley a knight was bitten by an adder and drew his sword to kill the serpent.  Tragically, seeing the flash of a blade in the sun, the two armies thought treachery was afoot and charged each other, joining furiously in battle.  The battle went on all day and by nightfall only four men were left standing, the rest of the knights slain.  Arthur still had Sir Lucan the butler and his loyal companion Sir Bedivere but Mordred was the only man of his army remaining.  Seeing each other across the bloodied field Arthur and Mordred charged at each other and Arthur ran the traitor through with his spear.  With his last drop of strength Mordred hauled himself up Arthur’s spear shaft and struck him a heavy blow to the head, then crumpled to the floor and died.  Arthur was mortally wounded, as was his butler Lucan who died himself trying to carry his king from the field.  Bedivere carried Arthur to the shore and after casting away his sword Excalibur away delivered him into a barge piloted by three queens who took him over the water to rest in the Vale of Avalon.  Some say he passed away, others that he sleeps, waiting to come again when his people should have need of him. 

The Welsh version of the tale, probably the remnant of a much earlier and therefore more genuine tradition, is without the romantic polish but lacks nothing of the tragedy of its better known counterpart.  This version as found in the Triads and the Annales Cambriae is said to have taken place in 539 AD and states that Arthur and Medrawd fell at a battle called Camlan.  The battle followed thirty rare years of peace and stability after Arthur’s crushing defeat of the Saxon invaders at Mount Badon and brought about the collapse of the British resistance.  The Welsh sources state that far from being the villain as he is traditionally portrayed, Medrawd (Mordred) was a proud, courageous and courteous lord.  Jealous nobles sought to inflame strife between Arthur and Medrawd, presumably in an attempt to fill the power vacuum that this would inevitably create.  Iddawg the Embroiler of Prydein encouraged hostilities by acting as messenger between the two men and deliberately and provocatively altering their messages.  Gwyn Hyfar is also said to have plotted the battle (although this could be a transmission error - Gwyn Hyfar and Gwenhwyfar being not dissimilar).  The battle was however caused not by Guinevere’s infidelity and its subsequent division of the Round Table, but by her enmity with her sister, the wife of Medrawd (Mordred).  Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) and her sister Gwenhwyfach quarreled, (in some stories over two nuts!) and it is told that Medrawd came Arthur’s court at Celliwig in Kerniw (variously argued to be in Gwent, Cornwall or Lleyn) where he ravished the court leaving neither food nor drink unconsumed.  Worse than that though, he dragged Gwenhwyfar from her royal seat and struck her a savage blow.  In retribution Arthur and his men traveled to Medrawd’s court where they similarly ravaged it and the stage was set for open war.  The two armies met at Camlan, described in the Welsh tradition as one of the three futile battles of Britain, becoming synonymous with terrible and pointless slaughter.  Arthur fatally divided his forces and both armies were almost wiped out to a man, leaving the British kingdoms vulnerable to to Anglo-Saxon assault.  Traditionally only seven (or three) of the combatants survived: Sandde Bryd Angel, so beautiful all thought him an angel, Morfran ap Tegid, so ugly all thought him a devil, St. Cynfelyn/Cynwyl who escaped on Arthur’s horse Hengroen, St. Cedwyn who escaped by luck, St. Pedrog by the strength of his spear, Derfel Gadarn by his strength alone and Geneid Hir by his speed.  But could Maes Camlan preserve the location of this fateful clash? Indeed if one attempts to locate places associated with each of the listed survivors, they do appear to cluster around this area of North Wales and therefore Maes Camlan, along with nearby Camlan pass and Afon Gamlan, is certainly a strong candidate for the battle site. 

Camlan was catastrophic for the Britons, Arthur’s victories had won a generation of peace and forced the Saxons back to their beachheads.  After the date given for the battle in the Welsh tradition there was indeed a turning of the tide in this most bitter of struggles between the Germanic invaders and the native Britons.  Camlan is dated variously between 520 and 542 AD and in the years following this, textual and archeological evidence shows rapid Saxon advance.  By 577 AD the Saxons had defeated the British at Dryham near Bath, thus cutting off the Britons of what was to become Wales from those of Dumnonia (Cornwall and Devon).  Not long after in 613 AD the Angles defeated the British at Chester and cut Wales off to the north from the British Kingdoms of Rheged (Lancashire and Cumbria) and Strathclyde.  These victories show just how influential Arthur must have been for less than a century before they had been the sites of two of his greatest victories (Mount Badon and the City of the Legions).  With the western Britons now cut off Wales (from the Saxon word Wealh - meaning ‘foreigners’) was effectively created and it was about this time that the British started referring to themselves as the Cymru from the British word ‘Combrogi’ meaning fellow countrymen.  Though they held out for hundreds of years, eventually the northern and south western British kingdoms fell to the Anglo-Saxons and what was to become England finally took shape.  If it hadn’t been for the utter slaughter of Camlan and the British collapse, who knows the shape that our Island would take today, Welsh could still be the language of not just Bath and Chester but perhaps of Oxford, York and London too.

The view overlooking Maes Camlan where the famed battle is said to have taken place.

To Contact Chris:

E-bost: legendarylandmarks@hotmail.co.uk

The Artwork:

The work references the local legend of King Arthur's last battle at field of Camlan in which he and his nephew Medrod fell in combat.  The work takes the form a temporary installation of two sculptural figures of armoured knights constructed of a variety of materials (mostly built around a filled wire frame) lying on the grass.  The figures are accompanied by a small board explaining the work and containing a short quote from the legend.  The two stylised figures of prone knights are designed to recall Arthur and Medrod, constructed in layers and dressed in the trappings of later ages they seek to represent the way in which the earliest tales have been dressed in layer after layer of subsequent legend and interpretation, each time reflecting the concerns and specific viewpoint of their particular age.