Welcome back to the show!
I'm really glad that you're tuning in because today we have yet another interesting and very exciting episode!
Once again we're going to be talking about something that you guys seem to love so much, mythology.
But today we're not just talking about any mythology, we're talking about perhaps one of the most well-known
legends of all time, King Arthur.
If you're new here, I'm Darius Cosden, this is vlogs of knowledge and it's absolutely crazy every single week!
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Every single week, we have a brand new episode about history and it's awesome.
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whenever I release a new video.
So with that being said, let's roll the intro.
[Intro music]
The story of King Arthur is a story that I've heard many times by different people.
It's the story of a great knight who became a king, who fought many battles. He won the battles, and of course,
as we all know, he had his famous round table.
But to be honest, I've never really looked into it more than that. Even though I always wanted to learn more
about King Arthur, I never did.
Which is a shame really, because now that I've actually done it, I can say with confidence that this is one of the most
exciting and one of the most beautiful stories that I've heard so far.
Now since you guys love mythology so much and since I love making great videos for you, guys, this week is
going to be the week that we finally talk about the legendary King Arthur.
We're going to look at his story, his conquests, his victories, himself as a person, what made him so special
and the impact that he had on the entire world.
But as always, let's put all of this in circle context and get some background.
To really understand his story, we have to first understand how Britain was during the fourth and
the sixth century A.D.
This was a time of the Roman empire when the Roman Empire was declining rapidly.
Things were changing around Europe
This was a time when the Roman empire got so big, too big for its own good, that it wasn't able to maintain
its empire and it was starting to crumble.
This was the fall of the Roman empire.
As a result, Rome had no other choice but to withdraw a lot of its armies, a lot of its troops from the edges of
the empire to bring them back closer to the capital, to Rome, to fight off the invading Barbarians.
It's an unfortunate truth that Rome, as well as any other big empire, was always subject to attacks from
Barbarians, like Barbarians throughout history, they were always there.
They were always there to try to invade you, to try to take your riches, they just wanted to see you crumble,
like Rome was being attacked from every single corner.
When the Romans removed their armies, they effectively left Britain defenseless, Like Britain had no army
because Britain was part of the Roman Empire, and its citizens considered themselves Romans.
And being Roman, being part of the Roman Empire, of course you can expect that the Roman army is there
to protect you.
You're not going to get a different army if you're part of the Roman Empire, that would make no sense.
So when the Roman army was gone, well, you had no army, like who's going to defend you?
Britain had nobody.
Britain was invaded many times and because they had no army, well, what were they going to do?
Like they could not defend themselves.
They got so bad that the king even had to hire mercenaries to act as an army, but even those
mercenaries, they realized that it was better off for them to just invade Britain than get the payment for being
mercenaries.
It was more profitable to invade Britain.
So poor Britain, like things were bad, like nothing was good, like nothing was going right.
Now of course, you can obviously imagine that this would have been the perfect time for some sort of hero to come
into the story and change its outcome, right?
Like how great it would be to have a hero, possibly a king, come in, he gathers a huge army, he fights off the
invaders, he wins, and he brings back peace and prosperity to Britain!
Well, look no further because today we're in luck!
That hero is none other than King Arthur!
Now here is the story of King Arthur:
Once upon a time, there was a great king that ruled over Britain.
The king was wealth in many ways, except for the fact that he had no wife and that he had no child.
And if that wasn't enough, he was also in love with the wife of one of his dukes.
And that's never a good thing, you should never be in love with somebody else's wife.
Like the wife belongs to him, like she's not yours, like don't get it, don't fall in love with her.
This was a bad situation.
In a desperate call for help, the king went to Merlin, a very well-known wizard, to ask for advice.
Merlin, he felt petty for the king and he said, "you know what? I'll give you the woman"
but it comes with a price."
The condition was that he could have the woman as he wanted, whenever he wanted, but any child
that would have come out of that union, because it was an illegitimate union,
would have to be turned over to Merlin.
The king accepts, because he really wanted the girl, and nine months later
they have a baby boy that they named Arthur.
As the contract says, they're not allowed to keep their baby and they have to give it over to Merlin.
Merlin takes over the baby, and it's his responsibility to ensure that he is raised properly.
Arthur is then taken away. He is given to a different family to be raised, allies of the King.
But nobody knows about Arthur's true existence.
Nobody knows who really Arthur is except Merlin.
Then, because this is a story, like something obviously had to happen.
Arthur's father dies and he leaves no heir to the throne.
Which is never a good thing!
Britain was in a trouble, they had no king, they had no idea who should be the next king,
There were a lot of disputes and a lot of fights About who should be the next king,
but ultimately nobody could decide.
and that's usually what tends to happen in such a situation.
Everybody wants to be king, Everybody is going to fight to be a king. They're not going to play clean.
They're going to play dirty, and ultimately chances are: you're not going to make a proper decision.
As Merlin sees all of this happen, he thinks to himself, like, "No, we can't do this. This isn't good.
We need to have a king. We can't not have a king."
So he proposes a solution:
He takes a sword, he puts it in a rock and he makes it stuck.
And he proclaims that only the person who's able to pull the sword from the rock
would be the only person that is fit to be the ruler of Britain.
Many people from around the world came to try and pull the sword, but nobody was able to.
And meanwhile, Arthur as still growing up.
When Arthur got a little bit older, Merlin decided to introduce himself to him and the two became great friends.
Merlin taught him many things and they developed a very strong relationship.
After a few years, Merlin sees a lot of potential in Arthur and thinks to himself that:
"maybe this is the man that is going to become the next king of England!"
To test his theory, he brings Arthur to the sword to try to see if he can pull it off.
The story says that there was a great crowd, Arthur tried to pull the sword, he succeeded!
Everybody cheered!
And he was then crowned the king of England.
He then proves himself to be a great king, a great warrior and a just person.
He brings forth many laws for Britain that make a better place.
He kicks off the invaders and he brings back the peace and prosperity that the British people wanted for so long
He even gets a round table where he and other great leaders can sit down and discuss important matters
as equals.
And the reason why it was a round table was that if you had a traditional table people would actually fight over
who gets to sit next to King Arthur.
And king Arthur wanted everybody to be an equal, he wanted everybody to feel like an equal.
So, he made them a round table.
Many plans and adventures were discussed at the round table.
Plans like: How do we rescue this person?
How do we win this war?
How do we reclaim this territory?
Like this were the usual stuff.
And according to the myth, King Arthur was a very well-respected man.
He was a respected leader and people wanted to be a part of his kingdom.
Now every king needs a queen, and King Arthur was no exception.
He sees a woman that he really likes.
He decides to go for her, but Merlin warns him that this is not the girl for him.
Arthur, being stubborn as usual, decides to ignore what Merlin says and goes for this woman.
Merlin knows that this is going to be a bad idea, so he makes a plan for protecting Arthur.
He tells him to go to this person called "the lady of the lake" to get a magical sword that is supposed to protect
him from any harm.
That sword is called the 'Excalibur'.
The Excalibur is a mystical sword that is believed to offer protection to anybody who wields it.
All Arthur had to do was not let go of the sword.
If you let go of the sword, you run the risk of losing the powers of protection.
With this new sword and new confidence, King Arthur now invites more people to his round table because he
just generally wanted to meet new people and he loved to have new people to go on adventures with.
They had many adventures throughout the years but one in particular stood out, and of course this being a legend,
this being a myth.
You can obviously imagine that one adventure was going to stand out.
It was going to change the outcome of the story.
One day, at the round table a knight from France comes, his name is Lancelot,
and he tells Arthur about something called The Holy Grail,
which is believed to be the cup that Jesus drank from at the last supper.
Further more, he said that he wasn't able to get the Holy Grail because of his impure heart.
Only a man with a pure heart was able to get the Holy Grail.
So, then they go on the adventure, they manage to reach the Holy Grail,
but it turns out that it was not King Arthur that managed to get the Holy Grail
It was actually Lancelot son, he was the one with the pure heart .
The Holy Grail is then believed to have been brought back to the middle east, where -apparently- it was
ascended to heaven, I guess to be back with Jesus.
Now if you thinking, or hoping, that the story has a happy ending, unfortunately, it does not.
I'm sorry.
Lancelot falls in love with King Arthur's wife, and she went with him.
Of course, they have an affair, Arthur finds out and is forced to leave and go back to France.
Arthur did not want to let Lancelot go because he took his wife, like he loved his wife, he wanted her back.
So, he went to France to try and get him and he left his kingdom to one of his commanders.
Now here's where we get to see Merlin's warning come into play.
Remember that this whole thing was because of the woman, the woman that Merlin said you should not
marry because she's going to bring you trouble.
Little did Arthur know that the man that he left his kingdom to had bad intentions.
he never wanted to protect the kingdom, he wanted the kingdom for himself.
Arthur then literally had no choice than to let Lancelot go and go fight for his kingdom
he had to deiced : wife or kingdom and of course he choose the kingdom
Arthur comes back he finds a huge battle ,he drops his sword , He loses the protection , and he's killed in battle
Arthur's body is then put on a boat to sail away
the ex-caliber is brought back to the lady of the lakes so hat nobody can benefit of the sword's power
and that was the end of the legendary king Arthur
All in all that was a great myth , very interesting , very powerful
that had a big impact on the entire world and actually little is known about
whether a man that similar to king Arthur actually that excite
some people believe that the myth is based on some real figures some real hero but no definite link can be made
none the less this was a great story
and i really do hope you have enjoyed it as much as i love to make it for you guys .
I haven't talked about everything and things that I did talk about I haven't gone into too much detail. That's okay
I'm actually doing this on purpose
Because I want you guys to go out and research on your own if you do want to research
Please do there's some links in the description
where you can do so with that being said it's been an absolute pleasure my name has been Davis cars
And you can follow me on social media the links will be in the description, and I'll see you all next week