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The Legends of King Arthur

The Dark Ages are a mystery. The two centuries between the end of Roman rule in Britain about 410 A.D. and the settlement of the Saxons have been in shadow. There were stories of the time, of course, which later generations delighted to tell, and probably embroider; and stories often repeated have a habit of becoming history. Out of those tales of warring chieftains, of victory and defeat, emerged a hero king, King Arthur, whose fame as the years went by spread far beyond the shores of Britain, deep into the romantic core of European civilisation.

The Arthurian legends have themselves become a serious subject for study, less for what they tell us about the Dark Ages as for the way in which Medieval romance blossomed. But here in Somerset the Dark Ages are not so dark, for archaeologists at several sites have bridged those two lost centuries, reconstructing a lifestyle both warlike and cultured. The legends can now be seen afresh where so many grew and flourished. ARTHURIAN ADVENTURE is neither all fact nor all fiction. It is a modern quest which brings reality to legend, which reveals a provable past at the heart of a glorious romance.