The Scythian Origins of King Arthur

Welcome everyone to the first official episode of the Jonas and Dane show that we are temporarily calling barbaric banter or barbarian banter. Whichever one you guys like better, you're going to let us know in the comments. I'm your host, Jonas Kilker. I am Dane Miller-Hoss and it is my honor and pleasure to break in this first episode with you Jonas. Absolutely man, yeah this is something that Dane and I have been kind of talking about doing for a long time. We both have just been wanting to like find a place where we can sort of expand on ideas in a more kind of uncut way in the way that you would with a podcast and having been the second and first guest on Dane's podcast. A lot of people already thought that the show belonged to both of us anyways. So I figured why not just bring that to life. At the same time though this is going to be a little bit more of a topical web show. It's not necessarily just going to be like interview style back and forth obviously. So we do have some topics on the docket today and we're just going to break into them pretty quickly. But Dane, what do you have for us today? So today's going to be a pretty interesting episode because if you guys are already following Jonas on YouTube, which he should be, he has been talking of course about the Indo-European migrations and he recently did a very interesting episode on the Skithians. And in that video, which I learned a lot about, he explained how the Skithians and the Sarmations are most likely the same people, just the name that refer to them changed over the course of history, but they are same people. And recently I was doing a video on my TikTok and Instagram about the Draco standard, which was a military standard used and we'll explain kind of it's, we'll recap the origins and everything a little bit. But in my research, I found a link to the Skithians and the Sarmations. But in England, specifically the myth or legend in history of King Arthur, which Jonas has also talked about before the historical basis for King Arthur. And I've talked about Arthurian myth a little bit in my favorite, one of my favorite films, Excalibur, which is a take on the Arthurian myth. Love Arthurian legend and that period of history and I found that link very interesting. It was not a coincidence because we don't believe in coincidences here. But it was a synchronicity that I found a Skithian Sarmation connection in the topic I was researching and that happened to be what Jonas was covering recently. So hey Jonas, I found this in my research for my video and I would love to breach it with you and explore it. Yeah, I'm excited because I purposefully for the sake of this video did not research any of this Skithian, Arthurian legend for the sake of learning something live on the show. But also I'm not like surprised at all by this connection because I mean the reason that I even made the video in the first place was because there is so much interconnectivity between these proto-indulatory European peoples regardless of the direction that they migrated in. There just seems to be a lot of overlap anyways and obviously people at the time they were much less settled than we are today. So you know one branch migrates over, you have like the western Skithians and then the sort of thesis of my video was like the royal Skithians. Undergo this change into the Sarmations people that's why they become like the militarily dominant force on the step they intermix with the Goths yada yada yada. But the idea is that this interconnectivity existed so long before the actual interactions with these people that when they came in contact with each other and started sharing legends and myths and origin stories and that sort of thing. I think that they found common ground so quickly that they just sort of like it wasn't even a matter of like oh yes we accept your beliefs it's like oh yeah we have the same story. You know what I mean? And so I immediately recognize it as plausible but I'm very curious to hear exactly how this goes. So whenever you're ready show us what you found. Yes I'll tee it up a little bit with a little backstory if for those who hadn't seen my video on the Draco standard so Draco standard military standard that was most famously used by the Roman Empire but it came from the Dations the Dations were historical people. Kind of centered around modern day Romania and they were one of Rome's principal enemies kind of going into the early imperial period and the Draco standard was a dragon or serpent on a flagpole and it kind of had the head of a dragon but also had some wolf like features. And the body was made of cloth streamers or a tube of cloth so that when cavalry charged or the wind was fluttering it would look like the serpent came alive in the the bronze head piece would produce a noise kind of like a hiss. So kind of sound like a hissing serpent and you got to imagine like a cavalry charge or when the heat of battle this things flying and hissing in the so it likely originated with the Dations who you might famously know use the faults big two handed sword like weapon that actually forced the Roman troops to upgrade their armor just because it was that devastating in battle. And it's one of my favorite armor history facts and it's as soon as the faults comes back in stock I'm buying what it's my next. Nice word I'm purchasing it is one of my favorite pieces of weaponry to see used in like movies and TV and stuff I noticed a couple of them I don't know if you've ever seen the show barbarians on Netflix. Yeah I haven't sat and watched it I've seen clips I don't know if it's historically accurate at all for the Cherusky and the batavi and the macramani to have a falxes but they had a couple of them had it and I recognize it now is like that's that's a fox but that I don't know if that works but it's fucking super cool looking. Yeah it's an awesome weapon but the Romans adopted out of their whole conflict with with the Dations this drako standard and it became a mark the dracon areas was the kind of officer name for the trooper who carried the drako standard. I became a symbol of the cohort kind of the way the imperial eagle was the symbol of the legion so they placed great importance of it. And it spread all through the Roman Empire and was used even beyond the Christianization of the empire although it wasn't a Christian standard for the Dations it had very significant religious implications. And it was interesting relating to their mythology and their emphasis of faith and battle. And the Dations were not slobic yet by this time the slobic migrations had not occurred so these are like the indigenous I guess you would call them like a proto-Balkan Indo-Europeans I'm not sure. They would literally call them Dations they would just be the original Dations. Yeah these guys go way back and it's not entirely certain if the standard originated with them it might have gone even earlier to the schifians. Well so the dragon was a very popular symbol in schithian art tattooing that sort of thing with tons of like the even all the way in the east and the pazaric mummies that were found in southern Siberia I think there was a lot of dragon imagery tattooed on their bodies so it's like you know it's a very ancient symbol for them. Certainly and kind of serpent and dragon imagery can be found all over Eurasia and it's possible the parthians also use this standard or a variation of it kind of taking on some more bird like aspects from their Zoriashtrian influence and everything. So actually going into the Sasanians but this dress this the standard was very well used and the Sarmations also used it. So both the Romans and Sarmations were using it and. The theory is and all go ahead and share as I was peeking through one moment my. Double checking a few things on the sweet cappeti article you'll notice the section the legendary king Arthur and his nights may have had their origins in the Sarmation heavy cavalryman station. and Britain, with the surname Pendragon born by Arthur and his father, Uther, referring potentially to that Draco standard. And the source for that claim comes from the Osprey book, Arthur in the Anglo-Saxon Wars, beautifully illustrated by Angus McBride. I have used a lot of Angus McBride artwork in my historical videos. He's an amazing historical artist for a variety of periods. But I thought that connection was very intriguing because the Roman Empire's military as it sort of goes from the early empire into the later empire. It's continuously adopting local or mercenary or barbarian influence and troops. Now it never conquered all of the Sarmation lands, but Sarmation's indeed impossible. But some Sarmations fought for the Roman army and the Romans would station troops from different lands all over their empire. They would move slingers from the Bolleric Islands over here. They would move archers from Crete over here or Syria, kind of taking the advantages of the peoples they encountered in these auxiliary units and bringing them to the other places so that they could use those tactics there. And the heavy cavalry influence of the Sarmations, they were excellent heavy cavalry warriors as you attested in your video. They had a sort of adopt armor and more heavy cavalry tactics. So it is attested that Sarmation Calvarymen fighting under the banner of the Roman Empire were stationed in in Roman Britain. And of course the Roman army did pull out of Britain as the Western Empire sort of collapse. The Roman army withdrew and left the Roman Obrittans to their own devices. Some soldiers remained descendants of soldiers. And it's very possible that one of these cavalrymen or at least his ancestor had settled there and they had kept some of the standards. The standard was in wide use by a variety of Roman forces at this point and even barbarian forces other than the Sarmations, some other Germanics. It's quite likely that the Roman Obrittan warlords who began to fight against the Germanic angles, Saxons, Jutes, migrating in rallied around one of these beautiful, intimidating dragon banners. And of course, Penn Dragon, there's that whole kind of connection there. So what are your thoughts on all of that? My first immediate thoughts are the fact that the flag of Wales features this dragon. And also the original English code of arms was the three dragons. So obviously this imagery became extremely important to them very early on. I want to say, because even the Anglo Saxons adopted the dragon as their standard or the triple dragon as their flag. So clearly throughout all of Britain, even in the Celtic areas that had never become anglicized, the dragon was important. So I think it makes perfect sense. And it also makes perfect sense that it would have come, because I mean like I'm not necessarily sure. I would be curious to see what they're sort of like battle standards or symbols that they used in the Celtic regions of Britain before the Roman Empire. That would certainly be interesting. Real quick, I've got a, I've got pulled up on the, I don't know how to pronounce it, the Bayou Tapestry, which is of course documenting the Norman conquest of England. But you, you can see the Draco banner hit carried by Anglo Saxon troops. So you're absolutely right. It did was adopted by the Anglo Saxons. How could you not? And the dragon is just such a badass image that it's like it invokes fear in anybody. Exactly. And that's the whole reason the Romans adopted it in the first place. They saw their enemies using it and thought, wow, that's badass. Yeah, absolutely. The Romans were always the best at taking things other people did well and using it themselves. Including the people. Yes. Because that's one of the most fascinating things, honestly, about the Romans is that they were able to go to war with people that were perhaps like not tactically, but maybe just like by brute strength better in warfare than the Romans. But they didn't have like the tact or sort of knowledge that they had about military formations and that sort of thing. So their ability to take people and be like, look, you're never going to defeat us on your own, but you're giving us such an incredibly hard time just by like your strength and determination alone. That if you were to join us, you can have anything you want, you know, and thus where the idea of Roman federates or Fodrati comes from. And it makes perfect sense, you know, and like obviously these alliances would be relatively loose, like they would draw up treaties and they would break them whenever either side wanted to. But it's interesting that Rome is really willing to sort of take on anyone and just shape them into their own and then try and sort of put them back out into the world. Like one of the most interesting things that they did with all barbarian peoples is whenever they would like come into contact with them. If they were able to overrule just one tribe or something, they would have the tribes king or chieftain offer up their child as a hostage, along with obviously usually some men in the military as federates or auxiliaries, probably some like tax tribute as well. But the most importantly, they wanted to raise the children of the nobility. That way when the children turned 18, they grew up, they would send them back to their tribes, state them as the kings or chiefs of their tribes and then have them lead their people in a Romanized fashion, teaching them Roman ideals, teaching them about Roman gods, Roman battle tactics and that sort of thing. And sometimes that worked in their favor, sometimes it didn't and then you have, you know, you have battles like the Tutorburg Forest where Arminius was one of these people. He was a hostage who was taken at a young age, I think like six or seven years old. And then when he was 18, he was reinstated as the, what had been a king, a rake of the Cheruski and then they ended up annihilating an entire Roman army. But it worked out a lot of times. So they kept doing it over and over and over and over and over again until it got to the point where there was really no Romans leading the military anymore. They were all barbarian generals and thus you had the fall of the Western Roman Empire because it was literally just Germans fighting Germans. Yeah, it's so funny and Arminius, it's funny. He has a brother or had a brother who, no, Vars was his, was the Roman commander. He had a brother and Flavus. Flavus, that's right. There's also a hostage race, but he remained loyal to Rome and he fought his brother in Germanicus's reprisal campaign. Which, so yeah, it did work with some and who knows why one brother chose one fate and the other. But yeah, there's so fascinating and I've studied a lot of kind of the evolution of Roman structure with foreign troops. It goes all the way back to the very earliest days of Rome and Rome was just a tiny little town in Italy and it was sort of dominating other Latin and italic city states that would serve as, I call them all A or allies. In their system kind of evolved as they expanded and encountered more diverse peoples. I mean, when you're ruling over other Latin speaking cities, they had higher social privilege than like a, a kelter something. Of course, but they continued them the auxiliary system where men from foreign territories could enroll in the Roman army and by the end of their term they would gain citizenship and then later as you say the Fodorati, that's when things started to kind of really turn around and bite them in the butt because there weren't many Roman generals and there weren't many Roman soldiers anymore either. The citizens did not want to fight in the military anymore, the nobility did not want to fight in the military. It was a losing battle every single time. It just wasn't even worth it. And barbarians filled those ranks. And the east, but the east and the east it survived and they continued to use mercenaries all the way until the fall of Constantinople from. Anglo-Saxons to the Keven Rus, to Arabs. Even its Arabs Spanish, the Catalan company from Spain, was very famous in Byzantine or Eastern Roman history because they same kind of thing, they come over, they fight well for the Romans and then they decide, "Well, we're going to cause trouble and steal shit because we're the guys with the swords." Yes, exactly. The Romans, the Roman Empire was always using people of other countries. That is absolutely fascinating and they were very good about adopting tactics, weapons that worked, and implementing it into their own system. Just really anything that worked, that was like almost if you think about it. I was kind of talking, I'm currently writing a video, or it's already written, and I'm editing it right now, on the entire history of the Goths. One of the things that I find the most fascinating, and also was the greatest fucking headache when making this video, was the fact that it's not a clean tribal division of "You got Visigoths on the west of the Nipper River and Austro-Gots on the east" because then you also have the Gepids in the middle who are of somewhat gothic descent, but they're called "Gepids" because it literally means slow in their language, and in the mythology, there were three ships that came over from Sweden to Poland. It was the Visigoths, the Austro-Gots, and the Gepids, and the Gepids arrived much later. That's why they are not. Yeah, that's their myth. It's so funny because you think about it, these people are seen as the slow younger brother that never got to be part of the cool kids when the Goths established their kingdoms and stuff, and so while they're warring with these people, they're coming across their Gepid Kinsman, and there's a famous story where a Gepid general is confronted with an Austro-Gothic king in the middle of battle after the Austro-Gots were being defeated, the Gepids were serving as the Eastern Empire's sort of auxiliaries. And then he. One of the men yells at him and he says, "Dog, would you kill your own king?" That's when he realized it was the king of the Goths, because there was a mutual understanding, one, they spoke the same language, Gothic, and two, they had this mutual understanding that they all served the Gothic king, and so he ran him through with his sword immediately for the glory of the Empire, which as the Goths always sort of touted over the other Germanic peoples, is that they are only allied to Rome for the money. We are allied to the Goths for the sake of the sanctity of the family and our lineage and that sort of thing. They're very proud people, but that's what it is just so fascinating about all of this is like. You would find even pockets of Goths who. Not deserted, but sort of defected, I guess would be the word, from the Gothic military, from the Gothic kingdom, and they would serve in the Roman army as well. There were much smaller in numbers, because like I said, the Goths were very proud, so that was not typical amongst them, but there would be pockets of Goths fighting against other Goths at the time when the Goths were at their height, just because Rome was willing to offer them a lot of money. And it really just kind of shows you who is who, you know? It's like if you were fighting for Rome, maybe you were sold in there as a slave, maybe you were just a little bit greedier than your brothers and cousins. Yeah, yeah, there's always money for mercenaries, if you're a good fighter and you're willing to take the highest bidder. And if you're ever wondering why a more powerful army lost, like how a city was taken, or how a city was laid siege, when it just doesn't make sense the numbers don't add up, it's most likely because they weren't getting paid enough. I've learned that that is like a huge part of it, because you know that the Emperor has got to provide for them in some way, whether it's gold, whether it's plunder, allowed plunder from the city, whatever it might be, land. If the Emperor is not paying, we're opening the gates, we're not fighting. You know? Yeah, it's kind of funny because in modern times, especially war profiteering kind of benefits, you know, corporations, manufacturing companies, kind of the elites, if you will. But very often in ancient times, it's kind of the opposite. It's like the soldiers are the ones who are going to get rich and that's why they're going to fight. And if you can't make them rich, one way or the other, they're not fighting. They're not fighting anymore. Yeah, it is one of the sort of, one of those things that just keeps going back and forth in history, huh? If you look back like in the Bronze Age, for example, history was fought amongst the nobility. History was fought, or history. Wars were fought by the nobility, by the upper class, by the aristocracy. Then you have the collapse of the Bronze Age, and then you come into the Iron Age, and it's this period of like rebuilding, and now war has kind of become something more democratic that's like not only available to everyone, but is required by everyone, because the aristocracy is shaken, and in a lot of places there is no aristocracy anymore. So you have these coalitions of farmers who have to, you know, work their entire lives, but every once in a while they got a march into battle, and that's why you see the formation of things like the fail-anks, where you could teach it to a five-year-old in an hour. Don't move and just keep marching forward, and then war becomes kind of democratic again, where it's like everybody's taking part. And then it shifts back again in like, you know, the Roman period, you have like more of the aristocracy, the nobility fighting, and then you go into the dark ages, and it goes back to being like democratic and everybody's fighting, and then you have the chivalric period, and it's again the nobility, and only the nobility is fighting, and they're protecting the serfs. And you know, we keep kind of, I'm not even exactly sure what it is that causes that. Obviously, economic collapse to some degree, but it is interesting to see that reversal constantly taking place. In some periods, the nobility is paying the commoners to fight, and in some periods, the commoners don't have to fight, they're protected by the nobility. And we're definitely in that period of time right now, where the commoners are fighting, and the nobility sit up in their, in their Christ of Palaces. They never see war in their lives. Yeah, tons of things that could be explored with that. Definitely the conditions of modern war make it very hard for, you know, king can't really ride into battle when you can get blown up with the rocket. Yeah, for miles away. But what's interesting kind of going back to the legend of Arthur, it's kind of one of those flux periods we're talking about because the Roman, after the Roman conquest of Britain, the Roman army, garrisoned Britain against raids from the north and from other peoples, the Roman army protected the Romano-Breton people, the Celts that lived there, and then the Roman citizens that had moved in the mixes between them. The Celts could drop their own kind of local fighting culture because while they lived under Roman rule now, Roman soldiers did all of the garrison duties and protected the borders, fought against raids, so they didn't need to be, especially after they revolted a few times and the Romans and were just quiet. They didn't take kindly to that. They were kind of demilitarized and even the Roman citizens that lived there, even veterans who settled down and everything, they didn't need to fight. They could enjoy living relatively peaceful lives while the Roman army kept order, but then in this sort of collapse period of the Western Empire. You've got the army withdrawing and the Romano-Breton people are begging for support. There's some correspondence that they send to one of the rebel emperors in Gaul in the fifth century where they're like, "We're starting to get raided. Can you please send some soldiers?" I don't say that it might have been the emperor Jovenius because he was like a usurper king. All their names get kind of jarbal in this. Especially in that period when every general with two guys is like, "I'm emperor now!" I think he would have been a little bit early because it looks like he died in 364 and I believe that the Roman army pulled out of Britain a little bit later. They pulled right before Rome was sacked by Alleric a couple years before. So, 408 around there? Yeah, late fourth century, early fifth century, the Roman army was out. 408 to 410, was exactly. So then you got a whole populace that lives there and the majority of their protections gone and these invaders from Scandinavia and Germany are coming over and starting to not just raid but conquer. And the people kind of have to re-militarize somehow or get killed. older conquered and democratically. Yeah. The average peaceful, but also we start to see a little bit with someone like Arthur, maybe the genesis of a new warrior nobility. If he was a cavalry officer, that remains behind or at least descendant of. Maybe he busted out that old banner and is like no one stepping up to the plate. I'm going to lead you guys. Yes. Yeah. Train you guys and give you guys hope carry this dragon banner and you looked into a little bit the historical officer that might have been Arthur. But whoever he was had some success in repelling the Anglo-Saxon and Jutenvators and Wales when you bring up the Welsh flag with the dragon. Wales is kind of a little bit the Romano Celtic or Romano-Briton area that the Germanics could not push everyone conquer. Yeah. They kind of what remained of the Romano-Briton resistance if you will. And it's very funny that their flag is exactly that standard. Yeah. And of course as we said, even the Anglo-Saxons adopted it. And it's kind of funny too because the Anglo-Saxons, the English adopted Arthurian legend as their own. Despite King Arthur the historical, Arturius being an enemy of the angles and the Saxons and the Jutes. But he cut the myth of Arthur kind of seeps into their culture. Yeah. And by the time of England as a proper medieval state, the one we think about, King Arthur is an English figure more than anything. So which is interesting too because the first ever writing of him, I know that we mentioned this already, but the first ever writing of Arthur comes from Neneus who is a Welsh monk. So the first time that you ever see his name in writing, I'm sure there was obviously an oral tradition much earlier. But Neneus in Wales is the first to write about King Arthur and he writes about him in a very sort of historical way. It doesn't really sound fantastic. You don't have the island of Avalon. You don't have the nights of the round table. It's just Arturius was a Roman Britain warlord who assembled them all, led them in battle. He was able to fend off the angles in the Saxons for a period and then he wasn't anymore. He was killed at the Battle of Comlon I think. Was it something like that? And thus ends the story onto the next thing. And it's like, and then you have somebody who just picks up the Christian day, is a French name I can't remember. Troyes or something like that. He picks it up and then he starts adding like the elements of the nights of the round table in Merlin and Guenovir and these sorts of things. And then the ball starts rolling, which obviously those things are going to be picked up on from different aspects of whatever's going on in the culture. But I think it just sort of gets to a point where you have like once you had, because let's see, the king Alfred the Great, he established the kingdom of England. I want to say like the very late 800s or really 900s. Yeah, I want to say, or 850 or something like that. I want to say it was 9th or 10th century. So yeah, 800, 900. Right around that turn of the century. And you have this person who's been living in these Celtic territories, these previously Celtic territories for hundreds of years now. So obviously some myths are going to be exchanged adopted. They have some interactions with France and the Normons. So there's going to be like some mythological overlap that gets added to this character. At some point or another, it becomes a part of everybody's mythology just because it's like maybe there was a bit of it that's like purely angle of Saxon. Like maybe the whole round table thing. This is something that I've thought of. Maybe the round table is a sort of homage to the all thing that the Germanic tribes would hold the Fulkmut where the Germanic tribes would come together. They would put their swords aside in the way that the Knights of the Round Table would put their swords in the middle of the table at the Fulkmut. They would all put their weapons aside because nobody's going to fight. We're just going to speak. And maybe that was an Anglo-Saxon Germanic tradition that carried into the King Arthur story. And at some point it just starts to blend. It becomes everybody's story. And then yeah, it becomes Britain's story. It becomes England's story. One thing I did want to mention really quickly because this will come out after the video that I'm supposed to be keeping a secret will come out is that the people might have seen my story about my 33rd great-grandfather that was just discovered. I am the 33rd great-grandson of King Alfred the Great. What? So King Alfred the Great is my direct 33rd grandfather on my father's mother's side. My father's paternal lineage comes from North Rhine, Westphalia, Germany. Their family had been there for generations never left. That's where the kilker name comes from. But my dad's mom's side, my grandmother's side, comes from England. Specifically, she is the 31st great-granddaughter of King Alfred. And so it makes sense too because when I did my G25 coordinates and the DNA stuff and all that, it said that I was primarily of all things, medieval Anglo-Saxon, was like the one that turned up the most. And I think that that might be because the Anglo-Saxons were like a very predominant people. We still have a lot of their sort of archaeological, like a grave findings and all these things. And the more well-preserved culture is archaeology, the better that we can trace their genetics and DNA and stuff. Yes, they are very well archaeologically attested. Yes, exactly. So we have a lot of their genetic remains. And because of that, I think that they were just, it was one of the things that they were able to trace in my DNA the best, which I thought was super interesting because you know, somebody called me. I was talking about the Spanish a lot. I was talking about my mom's side, her Portuguese roots. And they were like, you're not even fucking Portuguese, you Anglo-Saxon, why don't you? You know, and I was like, wow, that's correct actually. I am in very Anglo-Saxon, at least a quarter. So yeah, so I thought that that was a cool little bit of history. But there's a good video that my friend who does genealogy, he offered to do like, because I have done an extensive ancestry on my dad's side of the family, mostly on the German side. And I didn't really know that much about the English side funny enough. And this guy was able to help me find a bunch of my ancestors going back way further than I ever could. And his favorite finding was that King Alfred is my 33rd great-grandfather. Very cool. Hey, what are we debating for? Tapping in those blood memories. And that's what we're saying. We'll see that. That's what actually got me thinking about. I started thinking I was like, what about this King Arthur legend resonates with me in a sense? And I really liked the idea of the whole like, chivalrous nights of the roundtable thing. Because I am a believer in Jesus Christ. I'm a, the, you know, some people say I'm not a Christian because of my other beliefs and stuff. We don't need to get into that right now. But I think I think it's very interesting the sort of Christian ization of the King Arthur legend. Because obviously Christianity was not incredibly popular. It was the religion of the Roman Empire at the time when they were in Britain. So obviously there was some you know Christian influence there. But the Anglo-Saxons who came in were absolutely not Christians yet. It took them a while to become Christianized. They eventually were. And then they were the ones who evangelized the Vikings, the the Swedes and the Norwegians and the Danes and that sort of thing. And so I thought that the roundtable thing which came about in I believe the 11th or the 12th century AD is a perfect illusion to the sort of Christian chivalry and ancient pagan Germanic ethos being sort of intertwined. That's, it's very fascinating. Yeah, because the, as he said, the Romano Britons by the time of the Roman withdrawal were Christian through and of course they weren't originally the Celts who lived there weren't Christian and the Romans weren't Christian when they conquered them. But by the time that it had been the Empire's religion and these Germanics come and their pagan, their own Germanic paganism. But I read an interesting article where the Anglo-Saxons actually reproduced a lot of earlier Celtic art like they would find old Celtic religious designs and motifs and stuff and they must have thought, oh this is that's awesome. It must have passed. Yeah, yeah, it must have resonated with them. They're more pagan beliefs. in the modern Romano-Britans, the descendants of the Celts who had made this stuff, had kind of disavowed that for their Christian beliefs. And it's kind of like, it's kind of funny that the Germanic came over and was like, "Oh, look at all this cool stuff you used to do." Yeah, yeah, yeah. But of course then the Anglo-Saxons themselves became Christian and it's interesting. Now Excalibur obviously is not a historical film at all. But one of the things it kind of wrestles with is the coming, the departure of the old gods and the coming of the new god. Right. It occurs right Merlin and Morgana and the dragon, which I'll want to talk about a little bit later as a metaphysical concept in the film. But they're part of that old fairy pagan world and their power is kind of fading as Christ comes into the land and the Arthurian kingdom becomes Christian. Yeah. And there's also sort of that imagery of Christianity because in the sort of Nietzschean ethos Christianity is anti-nature in its worst aspects. And so they kind of play on that in the film where Merlin is this god, like he speaks for the forest and he speaks for nature. And as nature dies, or as Merlin dies, nature begins to die too because he's like the last of the sort of pagan nature worshipping remnants. And I think that they did a really good job at showing that. Yeah. Nietzsche talks about this. He does. He literally does. I have not read that much Nietzsche, but I have read Beyond Good and Evil and I can tell you that he does word for word say nature exists beyond good and evil, meaning beyond morality. I got to love that reference. You really do. It really is the most anti-Nichin thing to actually read Nietzsche. Yeah. So yeah, the film because John Borman, the director, his whole thing was giving the Arthurian legend, a legendary mythical quality. That's why it's so surreal. And why it takes from so many different traditions of Britain. You've got Christian influence. You've got Germanic influence. You've got Celtic influence. Kind of wrapped up all in this ball of very chivalry. I mean, they're wearing a armor. Yeah. That's the end of the time. It's going to say it's like the armor being anachronistic, but so fucking cool. Yeah. And Mordred has a very pagan-looking armor. It's almost like Greco-Roman. That kind of plays into the whole pagan versus Christianity aspect. I hadn't thought about that. The fact that he's got that mask that kind of almost looks like a Greek theater mask. Yeah. That musculata kyrus. That kind of like a hot light or a Roman officer would wear that my it's kind of shaked my mind. I've never noticed that. That's a good way. Yeah. Yeah. That's all great movie. By the way, if you guys haven't seen it, you need to go watch it. Oh yeah. I reference it too much. And it's kind of it, but the Rome, the legend of Arthur, like we were just talking, evolved with the Times. And for like an English knight in the Hundred Years' War, his conception of Arthur's a lot closer to that chivalrous, nightly Christian warrior king. But for the Romano Bretons, Arthur was like he was by war leader right there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like my dad's cousin. Yeah. This legend's kind of adapted over time, but the bring it kind of full circle like an arroborist or an oroboros, depending on how you pronounce it. I got some flack for pronunciation. Scythean, Scythean, it's all the same shit. So we see how this legend of Arthur goes from, you know, post-Roman Britain to through the medieval age. But this Sarmation, Scythean connection makes it reach all the way back into like the Bronze Age potentially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can trace that standard, that dragon imagery all the way back to like Bronze Age Scythean's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it survived into these Sarmation warriors who, as you said, were basically just the royal Scytheans who ended up in Britain under Roman service and then had to fight against Germanic invaders. It's just the timeline of this dragon motif tying a huge swath of history and culture and in mythology together. Over thousands of it's it's kind of mind blowing. It really mind how far back it reaches and how far distance from the step to the British Isles. It's wow. It's very, it's very impressive. It's very exciting. It does. Yeah. It does. It just love how all kind of ties together. It does lend a lot of credibility to the fact that, you know, there is, it's very likely that there were some heavy Sarmation cavalry serving in Britain at that time because of the, you know, the the photo-rati, the the auxiliaries, the barbarians that were incorporated into the military. The Sarmations were a huge portion of that. And, you know, or even their their distant cousins, the Allens. There's so many sort of barbaric Germanic adjacent step societies or confederations that became very heavily romanized. And so I really like that idea. I didn't know how that was all going to go, but it makes perfect sense to me. I'll say that. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's kind of funny, I guess, if he was a Sarmation or descendant of a Sarmation cavalryman, I guess he would be Germanic adjacent leading Romano Britons against other Germanics kind of a Germanic fighting Germanics again. Wouldn't be the first fucking time. Except this time without pay. Yeah. I was in the Empire. That's the other thing too is like it's so interesting because, you know, I made this, I made that video about the the first episode of the proto-indulter European migration series was on the Celts and the Germans. And more so than the other three parts in that series, that video was a lot more analytical and like philosophical because I thought it was just so fascinating that the Celts and the Germans. They sort of they come from roughly genetically the exact same line of people other than the fact that the Celts had more Western European farmer DNA than the Germans. But as we know with the step societies, the men for whatever reason, outcompete the local farmer men. And so their why DNA, their genetics like tend to win out in the end. Long story short by the let's say middle iron age like around 500, 600 BC area that era, the Celts and the Germans genetically were very, very similar. And then all of the Celtic territories just explode outward and they're interacting with Rome and they're migrating to the farthest stretches of Britain in the north and all the way to southern Spain and Portugal and the south, all the way to Anatolia, Turkey and the east like they just explode everywhere from this little central European region centered around Austria where they're the first Celtic culture culminated around like 700 BC I believe. And then the forests in Germany and northern Europe and Scandinavia just dead silent until about 100 AD that's like when Tacitus is writing his Germania and that's like when they just 600 or 700 years of them just being like no we're cool here, we're cool here. Not going to do anything. And then they just like I don't know if it was planned or not they struck while the iron was perfectly hot. And that's why we all look German. That's why we all look a little German. Everybody if you're Italian you have Austro-Gothic or Lombard DNA if you're if you're a Spanish report you've got visit Gothic DNA if you're French you've got Frankish DNA if you're English you got Anglos Axon it's literally like everywhere that was a Roman province now has Germanic DNA to some degree. It's pretty incredible. Yeah they they made their way around that's for sure. Real real quick we I think we kind of hit a crescendo. Yeah that's wrapping everything together. I did want to one last little interesting note just more out of curiosity than anything. If we go with the theory that Artorius was a cavalry officer, Sarmation or not it's interesting that the Anglos Axons by the time of the Norman invasion They used horses for transportation into battle, but they didn't actually really fight as cavalrymen And the Normans did and that was one of the reasons the Normans the Norman Knights proved to be able to pick apart the shield wall with their Fane retreats and of course Going into the middle ages the The Frankish and Norman model of heavy cavalry Explodes into into knighthood and in knights Tactically speaking go well into the gunpowder age. Yeah So that idea of heavy cavalry really takes off, but it's kind of funny since the Sarmations were Masters of heavy cavalry warfare in their time. It was like Fartorius was a Sarmation cavalrymen Eventually the Anglo-Saxons even though they picked up his standard They must they must they must they must to ditch the whole Ride horses into battle type thing and maybe it was a sticking on foot Maybe maybe it was because that because you know another another reason too is like a lot of it has to do with Geography that's one of the main reasons that like you know for example the Celts in Like France and Spain maybe not Spain, but like Southern France southern goal where there's a lot more like open planes and stuff a lot more use of chariots But no use of chariots like at all in England and it's probably just because the territory didn't really allow for it So maybe it had something to do with the fact that Germans were not really fighting on horses all that much because they lived in like Swamps and marshlands and heavy forests like it didn't really make sense to have any cavalry attacks So I think it was very much just one of those things where they're like you know Hey, we saw that that worked, but we haven't been doing that for a thousand years. We're not adopting horses in warfare yeah With cavalry especially you need Specialized systems to take care of horses raise horses learn how to and they had horses they just For whatever reasons probably multitude of reasons they just Didn't until the Normans kind of kicked it into them and then yeah It's interesting that the Normans and the French would have been using it more like I said You see more you see more chariots and just use of horses in general in that area where there's a lot more open planes So maybe that had something to do with like it was a Celtic tradition that just turned into a Roman tradition in that area that became a Frankish tradition and so on and so forth and then it just evolved into the Normans Yeah, yeah, and the Normans must have got it from the Franks because Normans were Vikings who settled in northern France and they they must have picked up horses somewhere because Vikings didn't really use cavalry either Yeah, exactly too dense of forests marshlands swamps that sort of thing. It's just not gonna work transporting them on boats is also not the Yeah, easiest thing. No, I've done it trust me But yeah, it's all it's all just fascinating how everything in history ties together somehow everything if you go back far enough if you follow a thread far enough It all connects and the other thing too is if you ever want to make sense of something that you quite can't quite make sense of Look to the mythology. What does the mythology say the mythology will usually tell you more than the history will We people are quick when we talk about you know our Thurian legend to say oh He didn't exist the holy grail didn't exist All the fantastical elements of course, and it's like that's not the point but it reflects very Legitimately the evolution of the culture and the area and of his figure and what it meant to the people who lived there and the people who believed in him and how his story evolved and accurately portrays or reflects the values of of those very real societies and people Speaks last little note Dragons and Arthurian legend I don't Because Arthur slays a dragon and some Arthurian legends. Yeah, it's kind of funny that uh He goes from carrying a dragon potentially historically to killing a dragon right Maybe it's doing away with the old culture and the news sort of thing. Yeah, the dragon kind of goes from this powerful beast to gain favor under into more of a villainous And of course we see dragons laying myths all over medieval Europe But that that's kind of funny in the film Excalibur the dragon is not actually like a it's not like a reptile or like a physical beast the dragon is like this metaphysical Concept of the world enter the dragon. I think Merlin says at one point. It's like the dragon is the beast some yeah the world is the beast. It's a it's very kind of metaphysical and Abstract conception of the dragon remember as a kid at the first time I really watched well the first time my dad tried to show me it I was like seven in one night gets hit by an axe and some blood flies out and I was I was like nope nope Funny sort of off but the but the first time I actually sat and watched it I was confused when he would call upon the dragon to do something because I'm like well where the fuck's the dragon? Yeah, I don't see a dragon flying around But now now I kind of get the more mythological Mythological or abstract conception. Yeah The dragon is just anything that you don't want to face the dragon is just like the It's the danger looming in the distance wherever it might be Yeah, I've got actually this all ties into a video. I'm doing about dragons and Why we go to the gym? I just went to a gym called dragonslayer here and yeah here in town that's kind of famous and It made me think because I was just asking all my followers why they trained Right and then I was thinking about dragon slaying legends dragon layers the hero goes in kills the dragon And it's that facing that when you enter the layer of the dragon You're going to face whatever danger or threat Maybe and you have to prove your skills and your wit in your strength and battle and it's I'm gonna cover it all there But nice looking forward it all ties together it all ties from Skithian dragons to a gym that I train at it's like It all it all is is connected somehow nice. It's beautiful how history Does that we're still to this day Arthur his legend and all these things still mean things to us right now Yeah, absolutely. That's part of part of my project Yeah, I Can't flip my camera, but I also have Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can kind of see it Yeah, we are still interpreting and adding on to these legends today They still very much are alive for for us. That's absolutely awesome Well, I think that that's a perfect place to wrap up. There is There they're I wanted to do a sort of section like it just to kind of talk shop for a little bit Dana and I are planning on trying to turn this show into a live show So that we can have a little bit more interaction with you guys we both Are keen on live streaming more, but it's just harder to kind of pick dates and logistically in yada yada I think it'll be a lot easier if we can just agree upon one day a week to sort of do this Which will probably be like a Friday or Saturday because both day and I still work We're trying to change that Yes, you can help us, but yeah, so we're gonna we're gonna figure out a way to do that that way We can make the show a little bit more interactive and maybe at the end next time we will save some time for a little bit of a Q&A For anybody who wants to ask questions that sort of thing so Go ahead and drop us in the comments Please what you like better barbaric banter or barbarian banter Not very different or if you have an entirely different idea for a name feel free to Float it to us and Yeah, I think that's gonna be just like the sort of engaging question for the week next time we'll have another one for you guys But thank you guys all for tuning in to the very first episode and We will see you guys in the next one All right, see you guys on the next one (upbeat music)