After recent dealings with modern big tech and automation, I'm not in the head-space to handle anything serious at the moment, so let's be fully silly and whimsical and try to use sharp critical logic to identify who the legendary King Arthur really was ... how hard that can be ;-)

My silly 0.00005 whimsical cents about who really was King Arthur. Let's prioritize earliest sources and 'big picture' logic. Let's go!

Chapter 1: Sources vs flying dragons

Okay, so most historical sources about King Arthur were written like 1000 years later, often at least 1000 miles away, and they do include dragons and wizards which are a bit of red flags in what comes to historical precision. So let's begin by making a tiny, gentle, gracious adjustment, and INSTANTLY THROW INTO TRASH all the sources with dragons. Sources with wizards, TRASH. Maidens, TRASH. Written 700 years later, TRASH. Written 1400 years later, TRASH. Written 2000 miles away, TRASH. Written 1000 miles away, TRASH. Written fully by competing kingdoms, TRASH. Written by different cultures aiming to rewrite history, TRASH. This leaves us with, uh-oh, do we actually have any sources left at all after that thorough cleanup? Well, we still have few... Historia Brittonum, Annales Cambriae and some Welsh poems like Y-Gododdin written in old Welsh.

So, let's scrape the possible 'fact nuggets' AKA data-points AKA mushy poorly translated 'information' from those murky earliest sources:

Chapter 2: List of available 'fact' nuggets

#1) There was a ruler name 'Arthur', obviously, this is not a major breakthrough, calm down!

#2) He ruled a non-coastal major city

#3) He fought invaders from north (Picts) and from east (Anglo-Saxons)

#4) He died fighting his coup-attempting nephew at Camlann

#5) Buried on an island

#6) He likely died 536-539-ish (as derived both from mention of dates and natural disasters, more about these later)

Chapter 3: Reasoning with, let's call it, 'logic or something'

Where should we geographically place our search net? Well, if King Arthur fought folks from the north, surely north is out. And the East goes out of the window for the same reasons. Had he lived in a coastal settlement the story would have spread in a much different manner and pattern, so ignore coastal areas. But crucially, the most of the primary sources are in (old) Welsh, so we can safely skip anything England related. This would put us squarely in the South-West Central-Britain. Why not place him super-West? Well, that area was not 'Romanized' properly and lacked the more complex infrastructure (the need of which is critical as you read on). So we effectively can block all cardinal directions, and then gravitate towards Wales. Everything else is just speculating based on tiny details or relying on sources that fanatically downplay Wales.

Let's put on our detective disguise, and start with the easy leads, the names mentioned in #1 and #3: Was there a ruler even remotely named like 'Arthur' around. NOPE! Is there a big place named something like Camlann famous for this battle, or at least for some battle. NOPE! Okay, err, this is a bit of a stand-offish start on our guest. We burned through the two obvious clues and got absolutely nowhere. Is it time to pack our bags and go home, not yet.

If you have read a ton of history, you notice that the seemingly pointless piece of info about city (#2), actually, amazingly enough, allows us to precisely pinpoint Arthur. The core fact is this: cities require a mind-boggling amount of infrastructure and engineering to function. Not everybody realize this, but after Romans left, the complex knowledge and machinery needed to maintain cities, utterly collapsed. Peer reviewed archeology proves that only a handful of non-coastal cities managed to remain upright in Britain in the following centuries. All the rest of the cities were abandoned and folks moved back to the countryside into their mud dwellings. So, let's look at those 5 non-coastal cities still standing: two of them are fairly north and held by people Arthur fought against, so he's unlikely to be ruling from there. And we can eliminate two east-most cities due to the same reason. This leaves us with precisely one city that Arthur could have ruled, if he was a real person. That city undisputedly is.... drumroll... Wroxeter. If you have read plenty of Roman histories, you have known it earlierly as the Roman inland megacity called Viroconium Cornoviorum (up to 80 hectares, only Londinium was notably bigger, and the reason for that was how much space the port facilities occupied). And if Arthur died around 536-539, this is going to be a slam dunk. Let's simply dig up who ruled that only possible city Arthur could have ruled around the early part of 530s and BANG, we'll have positively identified the legendary King Arthur. GPS level pinpoint accuracy. And while the Romans leaving also meant that 'paper' to write on was almost impossible to come by and history annals were rare, we do have scattered info about the local kings.



Now, the grand-reveal! This is exciting, is it not. The dude ruling Wroxeter/Viroconium around 535 was... who must have been the king Arthur by our logic! Drumroll please... we have clearly solved the case, this guy MUST have a name that is either exact or very similar to 'Arthur'... more drumroll please... the dude was: Owain Ddantgwyn, ruler of the kingdom of Powys! WAIT A SECOND! What the heck! That name is not even remotely similar to the word 'Arthur', do they even share any letters? What is going on here? Either our city-logic totally failed, or we missed a crucial detail. Oh yes, wait a second, if you look at OLD poems from this period, rulers were, outside rare official lists, often referred (in the songs and poems) to by their nicknames, which often was animal this far in the past. Okay, our lad Owain was actually known as 'bear'. But, in 530s in that region nobody used English, and nobody used Welsh, everybody used OLD Welsh. And since we are all fluent in old Welsh, we instantly know that 'bear' is 'arth'. 'ARTH'. I'm not a native English speaker, but that is a teeny-weeny bit like 'Arthur', wouldn't you say! Release the fireworks! No, hold on...

Let's not celebrate yet, we still have the rest of our 'fact' nuggets to compare against, plus some historical background to lay bare for this mess to make sense.

Chapter 4: Wider 530s circumstances from state of documentation to natural disasters

The challenge with documentation is this. Basically, before 12th century, vellum/parchment manuscripts were mostly made in monasteries and were solely about religion. And it took centuries before manuscripts expanded to cover other topics than biblical commentaries, like law codes and chronicles. So, if we want to know about a guy living in the 530s, and non-monestary texts only really emerge in the 13th century, then we are screwed, because there is a 800-year gap. The point I'm trying to underline here is this: If an epic hero were to emerge during this 800-year period, he would not be remembed by official histories using long formal names and titles, he would surely be only remembered by his nickname via oral poems. This is why 99% of those trying to identify Arthur go instantly astray: they look for the name 'Arthur' in official documents as a part of an official formal title and name. This has been the dead wrong approach.

Why do we rememer this one guy in particular?

If you're smart, you might have been asking this: it's normal that once a century, there is an invasion or rebellious nephew. But why are multiple invasion and rebellions happening nonstop within only a few years when Arthur is ruling? And why is King Arthur such a legend that his name carried over millennia? There were dozens of small kingdoms with ungodly amount of rulers in each over the centuries. Surely this implies that event of an unheard scale was happening to make this one character rise so much above others that his name would live on even if writing materials were scarce. And you would be right on both accounts.

Starting from 535-536 several volcanic events took place (their source location is disputed), releasing sulfate aerosols which blocked sunlight, and that wiped out most of the food on several continents. Procopius of Caesarea and Cassiodorus in Constantinople noted the sun's dimness and the unusual cold, describing it as being 'without brightness'. A handful of years with zero or minimal crops collapsed human immune systems, and unsurprisingly a plague (bacterium Yersinia pestis) broke loose in 541 (Plague of Justinian), wiping out up to 24% of the global population, some Mediterranean cities reporting 40% population loss. So here is a free tip: If you are a fun-loving person who owns a time-machine, this is not the time period to travel to. Those places/cities with high civilization that did multi-year food storing, had a chance of making it through. Well, if they didn't fall to angry, hungry mobs raiding around and spreading disease. This is basically the repeat of Bronze Age collapse (tree rings show 1198-1196BC was hyper-dry, underground water level dropped 50 meters). The lack of food caused the chain reaction: entire cultures were forced on the move one by one, raiding as they marched forward, entirely ruining the flow of commerce, collapsing most of the empires of that era. Egypt being the rare survivor, as they managed to both stop the raiders on the battlefield and assign them new survivable areas to live in. But back to our storyline.

Let's shed a tear about unlucky Britain. First Romans left and complex society that could have stored food for a long-term collapsed. The resulting primitive power-vacuum created chaos as everyone fought for power without much organization or thought. Then volcanic years happened. Effectively, societies in Britain triple-collapsed. This explains why our guy 'Arth', just like mythical King Arthur, was nonstop fighting invasions from the North and invasions from the East or relatives attempting to take him down. The year 536 is regularly cited as “the worst year to be alive” (out of the last 2000). If you ruled during this era and beat a gigantic list of enemies and managed to keep a city or two functioning as a small kingdom, then surely your name would stick around through millennia. All this might also explain why none of the primary sources ever bothered to mention the name of the city King Arthur is ruling from. They simply didn't need to: First, Romans leaving wiped out cities. The few cities that still stood were wiped out by volcanic years. There might have been few coastal cities, and few in the far north and far east. But hey, if you said 'city' while living inland in Britain, for decades or even for centuries that could only refer to one obvious place: Wroxeter, the ancient Roman megacity, that was still functioning.



Chapter 5: Secondary nuggets and details, is every battle named after a (great) city?

So, let's continue comparing our man 'Arth' and legendary king 'Arthur'. According to the legends, King Arthur died fighting his nephew Mordred/Medraut in the battle of Camlann, our guy 'Arth' died in 537, also fighting his nephew, called Maglocunus in the battle taking place on the banks of the river Camlad. Wow, what are the odds of that. Surely the names have changed a few letters over the centuries and while switching to newer languages, but it's still a remarkably similar story with similar names.

OK, let's compare the last nugget of info we have. King Arthur is buried on the mystical island (of Avalon ='afal' ==apple, mature apple tree has long roots, so it's one of the last food sources during a famine driven by a tough spell, like the volcanic years of 535-536, but this Avalon sidenote is just wild speculation). Meanwhile, our totally unrelated dude 'Arth' is buried on one of the two islands (water level has dropped, they are no longer islands but mounds in a field) in Baschurch (Eglwyssau Bassa), Shrewsbury, where rulers of the kingdom of Powys usually ended up. Well, at least accordingly to pissed-off poems written by exiled Princess Hilleth/Heledd after the kingdom of Powys she lived in fell a bit later. And yes, archeologists have done a superficial scans of these islands/mounds. The smaller island/mound seems to have a singular grave in it, and the size even matches the later descriptions of the island on which King Arthur was buried on. But since the mound is currently a protected area, digs would require special permissions. The good news is, if our logic holds, we now know precisely where King Arthur is buried, and we can go and have a picnic there, and raise a glass to 'Arth'.

Apart from the clearly fantastical elements like flying dragons, the stories of 'Arth' and 'Arthur' are remarkably similar considering they were passed through 800 years of 'sorry, we're all out of writing material, why don't you make a song about it and repeat it only verbally over countless generations'. Chapter 6: Summary of a tall tale

So, I guess the final question is, what are the chances that there was a ruler (nick)named 'Arth' living in the right place, at the right time, fighting the same foes as the made-up legendary King Arthur? And what's more, how likely it is he died fighting his nephew with a similar sounding name, in a place carrying effectively the same name, getting buried the same island-way? The total collapse driven by volcanic events would explain why heroes of this particular era would always be remembered. I think our bloke 'Arth' is a worthy contender for being Keyser Söze, err, I mean 'King Arthur'. If our two characters, 'Arth' and 'Arthur', are not linked at all, then it at least is a funky historical random happenstance worth mentioning. Plus as pointed out previously: If writing materials were on short supply for centuries, only stories, poems and songs would have lived on. And how often do folks use the full official title in them? Nope, too cumbersome, only the nickname would have survived and lived on, 'Arth' evolving to the more romantized 'Arthur' in the later centuries.

Concise summary: A dude nicknamed 'Arth' ruled a kingdom that inherited one of the last Roman megacities in Britain. Via the tech-edge it gave him, he managed to keep the kingdom functioning and providing through the volcanic years around 536 that wiped out almost all civilization in Europe. Surely his epic feat made him immortal, but since writing materials were not around, he is not remembered by his formal titles or in the official histories, just by his nickname passed on via oral tradition.

To me it all makes great logical sense, but maybe I simply have been charmed by my own theories?

Chapter 7: What happened in the centuries before and after King Arthur?

How and why did Rome left Britain?

Rome abandoned Britain in two giant waves (my unpopular take, obviously it is currently vogue in science/archeology to always state that 'everything happened slowly for a countless reasons', this is often true, but dilutes the soul out of us humans who love a good story and simplified good and bad narrative).

Firstly, in 383 a general called Magnus Maximus got up one morning and decided he would make a truly great emperor. So, he took most, and more crucially the best, Roman troops from Britain and marched towards Rome to claim the throne. Since Maximus had to rule and administer half of the empire while the power struggle raged, he also took most of the administrators to run his half of the empire. What low quality remnants of Roman troops and administration remained in Britain still semi-functioned for three decades, but tax income was going down, reducing the worth of (even bothering to hold) Britain in the eyes of Rome.

Secondly, three decades later, the Huns began properly pushing into Europe, and in 406 Germanic leader named Gunderic, stuck in between rock and the hard place (between Huns and the Rome), realized it's much easier to beat the 'on-the-decline' old Roman empire than the 'on-the-rise' Huns. So Gunderic joined together Vandals, Alands and Suebi into one gigantic Germanic army, then waited until the river Rhine froze, and BOOM, he marched over and wiped out both the Roman troops and their allies Francs, unbelievably collapsing the entire Roman front. Between 407-410 continental Rome was under such a tremendous pressure trying to stop this coalition, that as a result, within few years, Rome effectively emptied Britain of remaining troops and administrators in a desperate attempt to hold Gaul. Constitutionally, it all ended in 410 when Emperor Honorius officially declared 'f*ck Britain', although not in those exact words, but that was the precise sentiment: Britain was too far, producing too little tax income, in constant danger of getting cut off. And if you think that I'm over-playing the threat and trouble Gunderic cause to Rome, you need to realize he made it all the way to the Iberian Peninsula. He basically cut the Roman empire in half. In response, to raise enough troops to counter this mayhem, Rome had to make shakier and shakier alliances, promising these allies more and more. While in the short term Rome managed to patch up part of their empire, we can all see how that spiral ended up in a total downfall after Rome kept promising everything to everybody and then eventually they faced the impossibility of paying up all that fantasy.

Since the key Roman assets from Britain were evacuated in only handful of years and the best troops and administrators were already out, they most likely could not, or locals would not, evacuate technology and machinery of their biggest inland city Viroconium Cornoviorum. The grip of Rome was in free-fall and there was a long, dangerous road to transport anything from this distant inland city to a major port that Rome still controlled, and even if you survived that trip, who knew if Gaul was still under the Roman rule in the coming months and years. If you were a skilled Roman, the temptation to leave the crumbling Britain must have been overpowering if you lived near the coast. But what if you lived in a massive, sophisticated, almost self-sufficient inland city, wouldn't you be safer by staying than risking trying to wiggle through crumbling Britain and crumbling Gaul? And maybe, just maybe, King Arthur's city truly was 'better' than any other city, not because it was some magical utopian city, but because all the other cities sucked since they collapsed. It's all relative, basic urban engineering is macic if you have only seen mud huts.



So, what happened to the The Kingdom of Powys?

For centuries after 'Arth' has passed, the kingdom played the usual bloody 'games of thrones', fighting and allying with the nearby kingdoms, at times winning and at times getting a bloody nose. Sadly, since it was mostly inland kingdom, it slowly lost its ability to project power as the new innovations arrived via coastal areas. Then Vikings arrived, that was one big 'innovation' nobody wanted, and suddenly all these bickering kingdoms realized the wisdom of uniting to try to fend off the biggest Viking waves and stop them from looting and taking over everything. Few centuries later the Kingdom of Powys tragically split into north and south part, we have seen this happen quite a number of times before and after this particular occurrence, and it's rarely a great development.

Then Edward I of England conquered Wales in 1283, and put an end to all this 'Wales' shenanigans. Edward even held an elaborate ceremony at Glastonbury Abbey in 1278 to 'rediscover' the supposed remains of Arthur and Guinevere, linking the Arthurian legend with English royal propaganda. To me, this is the ultimate proof that Arthur was an entirely Welsh phenomena, that needed to be culturally hijicked. The lands of the Kingdom of Powys were redistributed under English control. And so ended the kingdom 'Arth' managed to guide through the worst years in the historical record.

Step 8: How it all went down in my vivid imagination

Let me rephrase and sum my wild interpretation of all this into one imaginative fictional heroic fable.

So, a new kingdom of Powys formed around this 'inherited' and shockingly still functioning ex-Roman megacity, and it did manage to hang on to a bit of civilization after the Romans left. But then, alas, century+ later volcanic years hit, causing an unbelievable level of violent conflict in Britain as crops failed. If there was infrastructure left in Britain that was able to store food, surely it was in Wroxeter, which made an obvious target for all mobs, raiders and hungry armies.

Fortunately, this newish kingdom happened to just then have a robust military leader, nicknamed 'Arth', who spend the next few years nonstop in cutthroat fights against all the various invaders. If there was a near complete lack of food, these were combat to the bitter end for the most parts, as attackers were coming from already pillaged 'no-food' regions towards possible food in the kingdom of Powys. Amazingly, somehow 'Arth' managed to beat one wave of massive attacks after another, blocking armies and hordes from the north, blocking armies and hordes from the east. And just when 'Arth' and whatever he had left of his army thought they could let out a sigh and relax, they heard that the Nephew had staged a coup in the south. Arth's army most likely was decimated by now, but they also were the most battle-hardened military force within a few thousands miles. These men had seen most of their friends perish in the battlefields to defend the last bit of civilization, each warrior much have had multiple battle scars. And if there still was Roman military discipline and skill and weaponrty left in Britain, this was the group that had it. And they must have been furious, when some stay-behind fancy-ass palace-guy was trying to use their sacrifice to take over. The Arth's army pulled itself together once more, marched south for one last epic battle (seems that the nephew had allied with either the still remaining southern coastal forces or Irish raiders). In an effect it might as well has been a ghost Roman legion: Rome had left Britain generations ago, but one Roman unit still maneuvered in their worn-out gear in the middle of the chaos. Unsurprisingly, Arth's (last Roman) elite band beat the Nephew and his army to pulp. We can safely reason that 'pulp' must have been the end result of this encounter because the fatally wounded 'Arth' was still carefully escorted back to royal tombs, gracefully buried with all the honors. All the poems were about him, not the Nephew. Surely this would have not been the case had he lost the battle, or it was a draw, and 'Arth' was dying.

So, maybe 'Arth' is legendary, because his small kingdom and city stayed functional and civilized through the most horrific years in the past 2000-year historical record. Heck, there might have been only a few cities in the entire north-Western Europe still standing, functioning and providing at this point. If this is the case, 'Arth' earned to live on forever. Then as centuries passed, all this dark (literally, due to lack of sunshine) grim vicious nonstop military action to the death, somehow evolved into fanciful dragons and wizards and maidens and magic. I can already envision King Arthur cursing from an edge of a cloud, as he looked down to the later historians adding the wizards and lizards and turning his bloody tale into a colorful carnival of fantastical characters.




Step 9: Scrutiny and critique

And now, let's critique every word written above. For every event-piece of this story, there are only a few sources, maybe just two, and those two usually fundamentally conflict (Wales vs England). The source that I 'naturally' picked was the one that fits the Arthurian narrative, and I ignored the other source telling an entirely different non-matching version of that particular event. Unsurprisingly, Welsh and English sources violently disagree what happened. So, to put it bluntly, I have been cherry-picking the side of sources that fits in this particular narration. Had I always picked the other source, we would have ended up a with a story that does not match King Arthur's life at all. The challenge is that we have so few yet wildly differing sources, that we can't average them out for some type of consensus. What is the average of a 'palace' and a 'frog'? There is no average, you pick either frog or palace and run with it. We are talking about such a long-forgotten events, during a particularly chaotic lacks-writing-materials period of time, passed through various cultures and kingdoms that opposed each other and tried to badmouth each other and their legacy. 'Shaky' is too generous word to describe the foundation of this particular interpretation. HOWEVER, compared to hundreds of other theories about who was King Arthur, at least this one has a handful of sources, as murky and cherry-picked they are.

Step 10: The unknown conclusion

So, who was King Arthur? We do not know, at least for anything resembling 'for sure'. 800 years of 'we-are-all-out-of-paper' made sure of that. Countless names have been put forth over the centuries, each new suggestion based on more convoluted theorization than the previous one. And that's why it is such an enduring fun mystery, you can effortlessly twist it into any direction you wish. If you like, you can even make the claim that the city is the bigger player in this story than the king (Arthur): Inherinting this city allowed multi-year food-storing to survive through famines and it was the city that provided the lost-to-others military tech to block the invading hungry armies. My particular view-point has relied on early sources and 'big picture' logic of looking at what were the major historical trends shaping the societies. Hey, if I had to bet a rusty bent copper coin on 'which historical character was King Arthur', Owain Ddantgwyn, ruler of the kingdom of Powys in the 530s, would be my humble candidate. There is a flimsy row of sources putting him in the right place at the right time doing the same acts. Plus an epic natural disaster would explain why this was an extraordinary time period. Not to mention that inherting a still functioning Roman megacity while everything collapsed around you would explain some of the mythology. And since pretty much every historical ruler in this geographical or time vicinity has been suggested as being King Arthur, I'm not breaking any new ground here or being the first to suggest Owain. Would I BOLDLY bet TWO rusty bent copper coins on him being Arthur, heck no! Nonetheless, I would love to visit Wroxeter and Baschurch one day, and toast to who-ever rests in that island-mound. Cheers, mate, ahem, sorry, Cheers King!




Edit: okay, for some inexplicable reason I had typed 'west' a couple of times instead of 'east'. Fixed that. Damn I'm envious of native English speakers, who don't have to waste mental energy to language they are using.

PS: Do we actually know anything about the seemingly fairly well-documented Roman era, if we are still today learning new info that changes 'quarter' of the story? Now think about the dark ages that followed the Roman pullout.
DNA-stury: Scandinavians came to Britain long before Vikings and Anglo-Saxons
— Genetic analysis of Roman soldier who lived between the second and fourth century in York reveals 25% of his ancestry came from Scandinavia. Dr Pontus Skoglund: much of the history explored in the study was set down by the Romans about other groups of people. There’s some degree of historical information, but there’s so many things left in the dark.