Written in the Stars

In the book, I explain how Arthur got his name. 

Not to go into too much detail, it came from a Greek myth which happened to replicate the circumstances in which he was conceived.  In the myth, a 'Most Beautiful' priestess was seduced by naughty old Zeus and gave birth to a boy.  She was then turned into the likeness of a bear.  When the boy was old enough to go hunting, and came close to killing his bear-like mother without realising who she was, Zeus elevated them both up to the heavens.  The mother became Ursa Major, the Great Bear.  The boy became a nearby star, a red giant whose name meant 'Bear-Guardian'.

This myth inspired the name of Arthur (from the Welsh arth, meaning 'bear', and gwr, 'man' or 'husband') - the Bear-Guardian star having reached its zenith at the moment he was conceived.

I also explain in the book why Arthur's father was referred to in a poem, composed immediately after his death, as Gorlassar.  The name can be translated as 'Blue-flame', 'Bright-blue' or 'Super-blue'.

For the next few nights, a supernova will be visible over the constellation of Ursa Major.  In Britain, people with binoculars ought to be able to see it.  It looks like a pale blue disc.

Now, call me superstitious, but I find it a little exciting that a 'Super-blue' light will appear above the Great Bear on the weekend that I shall be finishing my ARTHUR revisions.  After all, Arthur's people paid a great deal of attention to astronomy.  His father's accession as king was heralded by a comet in the sky, and cosmological events allow us to work out the exact date and time of Arthur's burial.

So, forgive me if I feel a little light-headed.  After all, it's not often that your efforts are flagged up in the firmament.  I'll be looking at that blue light over the Bear tonight and saying a quiet thank you.

Uther Pendragon

As I guessed, slowly drip-feeding info about the real Arthur out into the world provokes a backlash.  And a very funny backlash it is too, much of the time.

Still, it allows me to sharpen my claws, check my arguments and practice countering the usual charges.

One observation I've recently made on Arthurnet (a sort of global email community) is that a lot of the old familiar names from the Arthur legends only make sense when you stop thinking of them as Welsh and start thinking of them as Gaelic in origin.

A good example is the name we all associate with Arthur's father: Utherpendragon.

Now, a lot of people assume that it's Welsh and means something like 'Terrible Chief Dragon'.  And, let's face it, that sounds fair enough.  Uthr (Welsh: 'terrible', 'awesome') makes sense.  Pen means 'head' or 'chief'.  And we all know what a dragon is.

Except that's not the original meaning of Utherpendragon.  Only the pen bit is right.

'Uther' is an English version of the Welsh Uthyr.  That in turn was a contraction of Gwythyr, which some say was the Welsh version of the Latin 'Victor'.

But Gwythyr was still only a Welsh attempt at a Gaelic term.  Athir was an Old Irish word.  It meant 'father'.  To that was added Eo or Io, old words for a 'yew'.  In fact, there is evidence that Eo ('yew') could be applied to any large sacred tree.

Put the two together - Io and Athir - and you get 'Yew-Father', a name I'm sure we're all familiar with.

No?

It's what the name Jupiter meant.

So, Uther wasn't a Welsh name at all.  It was the Irish equivalent of Jupiter, the Roman god also known as Jove (or Zeus to the Greeks).

I don't want to give too much away about the 'Dragon' part - you'll just have to hold your breaths till the book comes out.  But I'll give you a bit of a clue.  It has nothing to do with dragons.  It was Draigen, an Old Irish word meaning 'Blackthorn'.  And it was a place - an island in fact.  A very special island.

And Arthur's father was the 'Chief' of that isle. 

See, it all makes sense when you figure out what language you're dealing with.