From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail by C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor (review)

Abstract

Niggling though these point may seem, they but scratch the surface of much greater problems, ones that suggest that Littleton and Malcor are poorly grounded in the history they need to know in order to demonstrate the validity or even the plausibility of their case. Indeed, given their thesis and the way they present it, one also wonders whether they even know the history of that history. It must be said, after all, that to argue the Scythian origins of Arthur is scarcely a radical reassessment when, in fact, it goes back for centuries and was first given popular form by Sharon Turner in the 1820s. Indeed, one still encounters it in some of the more occult and/or evangelical literature today, notable Adam Rutherford's Israel-Britain: An Explanation ofthe Origin, Function and Destiny ofthe Norse-AngloCelto -Saxon Race (1934, with many subsequent editions) and Herbert W. Armstrong's The United States and Britain in Prophecy (1967', with an equal number of subsequent editions). No scholar would want to buy into their tales of the Scythians as the Lost Tribes of Israel - and hence of Britons and Americans as the true inheritors of their manifest destiny - but at the same time anyone pursuing the Scythian connection should surely be aware of their existence and continuing appeal, for they suggest dimensions to the whole hypothesis that are badly in need of serious investigation. Nevertheless, in spite of all the defects that From Scythia to Camelot so clearly has, it makes a not-insignificant contribution to the ongoing debate about the mythic and folkloric sources of Arthurian literature. Much as one may doubt many of Littleton and Malcor's specifics, it is hard to put down their book still believing in the purely Celtic origins of those aspects of the story that seem to transcend simple authorial inventiveness. For that deepening of the mysteries involved, readers should be grateful. CHARLES T. WOOD Dartmouth College C SCOTT LITTLETON and LINDA A. MALCOR , From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment ofthe Legends ofKing Arthur, the Knights ofthe Round Table, and the Holy Grail. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 1795. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994. Pp. xxxiii,401; 18 plates, 19 maps, and 11 genealogical tables in Appendix 2. isbn: 0-8153-1496-5. $66. In the last chapter of From Scythia to Camelot, Littleton and Malcor make the following claim: The evidence clearly suggests that, save for some unique historical events, the core of what later became the Arthurian and Grail literature was born on the steppes of ancient Scythia' (283). After reading their book, however, many readers may feel, as I do, that the authors did well to disclaim from the outset that they had discovered anything like 'the final "truth"' of this matter (xxxi). The authors employ a cultural diffusion model to argue that the most important Arthurian figures and themes originated in the culture of nomadic horse-riding peoples who inhabited the Eurasian steppes, an area known as Scythia to the Romans and Greeks. Between the second and fifth centuries B.CE. two tribes, the Sarmatians and the Alans, imported these figures and themes into the western Roman Empire. In support of their argument Littleton and Malcor offer a wealth of detailed information and speculation, divided into four parts. Part I, The Cultural and Historical Background,' consists of one long chapter detailing the early history of these Scythian tribes. Because of their martial prowess, both were eventually employed by the Romans to help defend the Empire. In the late second century the Iazyges (a.k.a. Sarmatians) were settled in northwest Britain along Hadrian's wall and during the fifth century the Alans were settled in parts of Gaul, principally in the southwest. Part II, 'Figures,' consists of four chapters. In the first, Arthur's name is derived from that of the prefect who initially commanded the Iazyges in Britain, Lucius Artorius Castus, while Arthur himself is derived from a Scythian prototype of Batraz, the central hero of the Scythians' modern descendants, the Ossetians. The most striking evidence they offer in support of this connection concerns the fate of the two heroes' swords. As he...