Thank You
A short end of year Thank You and Compilation of some new Illustrations.
A few years ago I would have never imagined that I’d be writing to almost 30,000 followers on Twitter and over 3,000 here on Substack. The community here has been wonderful, and extremely encouraging to my efforts to shed light on such a murky period in history. Substack has been a tremendous outlet for me to produce content that otherwise would have been twenty minute diatribes to friends and family, who are honestly probably tired of hearing it otherwise. I do not consider myself a good writer, but Substack has helped me improve greatly over the last few years, and I feel my skills at communication have overall improved greatly because of it. I did not come into this field as anything more than an interested amateur who knew a little more than the average bear. Working through the Brythonic Heroic Age has been a wild ride. Academic trepidation to make conclusions has largely stagnated the field, but a few bolder folks like Andrew Breeze and fellow Substack writer and academic Bernard Mees, have been willing to entertain the idea of Arthur himself as a historical figure may, hopefully, mark a change within. I myself have changed my mind on Arthur a number of times, with Artuir mac Áedán sparking an initial interest. Athrwys ap Meurig reared his head for a short time in my research, quickly tarnished by forgeries, reliance on Geoffrey of Monmouth and the ‘bruts’ of dubious origin, as well as Iolo Morganwg’s manufactured fancies. My interest in the Coeling was really sparked by an oft overlooked passage in Geoffrey of Monmouth that is NOT part of his Arthur narrative, relating information about the Coeling dynasty which he placed chronologically out of sync. Working through this, and with the help of Ken Dark’s work looking at a possible High-Kingship centered around Hadrian’s wall the pieces slowly fell into place for me. While I do think that the Arthur we get by the time of Geoffrey is an amalgam of sorts, I do think that Arthwys (regardless of the name he was originally known as) was probably the Arthur that fought Nennius’ 12 battles and was the Arthur known from Gwarddur’s elegy in Y Gododdin. Putting these pieces together has been quite the exercise, and I do not think that we have even scratched the surface of what actually happened in the period but I think between my work and my good friend p5ych0p0mp we have a good set of bones put in place. I will eventually finish my book (which is currently a little over 300 pages, but will be significantly shorter after editing I believe). This has been a labor as my understanding of the period has changed with research constantly. New nuggets appearing, such as the interpolation of Garbanian ap Coel within this hypothetical High-Kingship or Pseudo-Dux of the Coeling, shift things and cause one to reevaluate what has previously been written. The more things I have found answers for, the more questions rear their heads. Are the Coeling pedigrees accurate father-son transitions of power, or are they King - Petty King transfers of power ala most of Cunedda’s ‘sons’? Is there corroboration of Nennius’ battle list elsewhere? Why does Arthur suddenly gain a pan-island influence, focused seemingly on the south in the later portion of the ‘Dark Ages’? Who contributed what to the composite? All fairly open ended questions that rear their head and don’t have solid indisputable answers. I am grateful for the platform here and for all of my subscribers. I now have a little more than forty paid subscribers now, which is something I never expected, and am honored that my work is valued by so many. The encouragement to push and include more in my work has been greatly appreciated. I wanted to quickly shout out a special thanks to my friend Stone Age Herbalist, who encouraged me to start this journey, as well as Caitlín Matthews and John Matthews, who I greatly respect and am honored to be followed by both of them. Some of my favorite articles I have released this year are below, presenting reasonably historically accurate illustrations of many of these figures, which you can find linked below if you missed them.
Domnall Brecc and Eugein ap Beli
Once again thank you all. I will be re-releasing my piece on Gawan and the Green Knight, with all new illustrations later this month. Until then, Happy Holidays, and Merry Christmas! On to some illustrations!
Illustrations
I subscribed for the Arthur essay. Good work and superb artwork.