Thursday, February 14 2013, 1:04AM
“There may be some ancient folk memory of this because the Winter Solstice is celebrated as King Arthur's birthday.
However, a friend who is a granite quarryman explained the most interesting fact to me. He told me that each of the stones in the centre circle has a different formation of "spars" or particles of feldspar. This means each came from a different place. If each chief from a hill fort community had a man carry his stone to the circle for the original parley and left it there to mark his place for each time they met, then this is the origin of the Round Table.
When we elect a representative in May of the New Year, he or she will not have to drag their stone to Lys Kernow, but I hope that many MK representatives are elected. In this way you can be sure that like the old Chieftains, they have the welfare of their own community at heart and will not sell out to rulers from across the Tamar.
Lowender Montol - Joyful Winter Solstice - to you all.”
Thursday, February 14 2013, 8:11AM
“King Arthurs Round Table is a prehistoric circular earthwork bounded by a ditch and an outer bank, at Eamont bridge, just South of Penrith, and about 400 metres from Mayburgh Henge.
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Researchers exploring the legend of Britain's most famous Knight believe his stronghold of Camelot was built on the site of a recently discovered Roman amphitheatre in Chester. Legend has it that his Knights would gather before battle at a round table where they would receive instructions from their King. But rather than it being a piece of furniture, historians believe it would have been a vast wood and stone structure which would have allowed more than 1,000 of his followers to gather.
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According to legend, the Round Table which hangs in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle is the table around which King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table met, and it has been famous for centuries for its associations with the legendary 'Once and Future King'.
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A little more than a year ago, the Telegraph reported that excited historians in England claimed to have found the site of King Arthur's round table. Apparently, it's been discovered again ... in Scotland. The Telegraph reports archaeologists have been researching a geometrical earthwork called the King's Knot, which is located in the former gardens of Stirling Castle.
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Caerleon was especially noted for "Arthur's Table", a huge grass-covered raised oval hollow around which King Arthur and his knights often sat. At one meeting there, King Arthur appointed St. Dyfrig as Archbishop of St. Aaron's Cathedral in Caerleon. He was later succeeded by St. Dewi (David) who removed the archdiocese to Mynwyr (St. Davids). It was to St. Julius' that Queen Gwenhwyfar retired after the Battle of Camlann, and here she apparently died.
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Geoffrey, places Arthur's main court and headquarters at Urbs Legionium, Caerleon, on the river Usk, not far from the Severn Sea, in a most pleasant position, and being richer in material wealth than other townships,... flanked by meadows and wooded groves, they had adorned the city with royal palaces, and by the gold-painted gables of its roofs it was a match for Rome.
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"LLANFIHANGEL-TYN-SYLWY, a parochial chapelry in the hundred of Tyndaethwy, county Anglesey, 3 miles N. of Beaumaris, its post town. It is situated on the northern coast, and is included in the borough of Beaumaris. Limestone is quarried. There is no village, only about a dozen houses. The living is a curacy annexed to the perpetual curacy of Llangoed, in the diocese of Bangor. The church is dedicated to St. Michael. In the neighbourhood coins of some of the Roman emperors, and other remains, have been found. Here is also an ancient British fort called Dinas Sylwy, and part of a stone circle, commonly called "Arthur's Round Table.""”
“The "real" Round Table
"Standing stones have a very special place in Celtic culture. They are quite often linked to religious festivals and places of Druidic activity. Of all these stones and circles, the one I became most interested in was The Hurlers on Bodmin Moor."
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The Hurlers on Bodmin Moor (picture by Jim Champion).
Perhaps democracy in Cornwall is older than you think. It has long been my belief that I know where the Round Table is that features in the Legend of King Arthur. It is a very strange thing that Arthur crops up all over the Celtic world. This lead to me to think that it may be a title rather than a name as Arloedh (th) a Pendragon – Lord of Pendragon (the dragon’s head). Every place in the Celtic lands would have had a great chief and his name would have Arloedh a (Arloetha) at the beginning.
So what about the Round Table? Standing stones have a very special place in Celtic culture. They are quite often linked to religious festivals and places of Druidic activity. Of all these stones and circles, the one I became most interested in was The Hurlers on Bodmin Moor. People far better than I at geography have managed to plot lines through the stones that show that projections through the centre of the circles to the surrounding tors and carns count down the days before and after the winter and summer solstice.
Not only that, but if the line through the solstice stones in projected North, it follows the line of the old trail road from Camelford up onto Roughtor, which is itself peculiarly straight. If the line is then continued on northwards it crosses the coast right through the middle of Tintagel Island. If these stones were placed to follow this line, then it must have been by astro-navigation because a sight line is impossible as the high ground gets in the way.”