text:
Continuous Integration (CI) Best Practices with SAP – CI/CD Practices
The terms Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are both widely used in software engineering: CI as the adoption of agile principles; CD as a combination of agile methodology techniques and a high-quality delivery process. Whereas CI addresses building a software product from the contributions of single members of a development team in a controlled though lean way, the goal of CD is validation of every change, preferably in an automated way, so that it is potentially shippable.
What "shippable" means depends on the context. It could mean, for example, moving a web application feature into production mode or making software available from a download site. Both CI and CD serve one-person-shops as well as multiple teams working on one product. They can be adjusted to individual requirements and constraints. They are also flexible in that you can decide "how agile" you want the delivery process to be, which means you need not implement practices that do not suit the environment. At the same time, you can expand the process as needed.
The next section outlines best practices for both CI and CD.
Continuous Integration, Delivery and Deployment
The practices of Continuous Integration are well-known. There are many sources for developers or build operators to get advice including the following:
Wikipedia: Continuous Integration
Martin Fowler: Continuous Integration
Continuous Integration (CI) focuses on the controlled integration of any change that is created in a collaborative software project into a common main line.
The CI practices are:
- Keep everything under version control
- Automate the build
- Run unit test in the build
- Commit early and often
- Build each change
- Fix build errors immediately
- Keep the build fast
- Test in a clone of the production environment
- Make it easy to get the latest build results
- Ensure that the build process is transparent to everyone
- Automate the deployment
Continuous Delivery (CD) adds the following aspect to the Continuous Integration practices:
Any change passing the tests is immediately ready to be deployed to production, both from a technical and from a quality standpoint. This means that the most current version of the product is successfully built, tested, and provided in a shippable format. With a press of a button at any time, based on a release decision by the development team or delivery manager, it can be shipped to customers or deployed to production. You can find additional information about CD from the following sources:
Wikipedia: Continuous Delivery
Martin Fowler: Continuous Delivery
By contrast, Continuous Deployment, which is not discussed in this document, means that each change is automatically built, tested, and deployed to production without manual interaction.
Keep Everything Under Version Control
Anyone who has participated in collaborative development, or even worked as a single developer, has been confronted with the necessity of developing and fixing bugs in parallel and is familiar with the difficulties and challenges of doing so. There are two basic principles you can implement to avoid this problem:
- Define a single source of truth.
- Place everything under version control.
A source code management system provides the single source of truth for the delivery process. It predicts the outcome of all the results in the CI process including your final product. Everything must be reproducible out of it, and ultimately, it defines the contents of your product, including its quality. Any other system (such as an artifact repository, which is discussed later) is of secondary importance. For example, if you have doubts about the validity of build or test results, always rely on the source code and rebuild the artifacts, and run the tests again from the source code.
The first and most important duty of the build operator is maintaining the health of the source code management system and treating it as the leading system in the landscape. However, simply using a version control system is not enough. The manner in which it is used is also important.
The Main Line
The contributions of any developer must converge into a common result, and therefore the definition of a common main line or main integration branch is crucial. Any changes that are not integrated into the unique main line do not become part of the final product.
There are many models for setting this up. In the simplest case, one main line can be sufficient. When a developer starts implementing a feature, he obtains a copy of the current snapshot ("pull") of the main line to a local disk. The developer begins coding once the local version on the PC is up-to-date. When feature coding is finished, the change is integrated ("pushed") into the main line.
In general, the main line has evolved in the meantime, the developer must rebase his change. This means, he must fetch the current version from the main line and merge it into the local changes. As a result, the local change is a successor of the main line's current version. All versioning tools come with features that support this kind of merging in one or another way. The technical details are not of interest here and especially, the high-level term "rebase" used here should not be confused with a Git feature having the same name.
After rebasing, the developer can push the change safely into the current main line, without the risk of introducing any regressions into the current main line. The change then becomes a part of the most current snapshot and can be pulled by other developers.
Feature Branches
Imagine the following more complex scenario:
- A lot of developers, for example, more than 10, are working on the project.
- Not all changes are meant to be integrated at once into the main line. It is a common practice of especially big organizations that larger features and prototyping are isolated from the main line first and integrated into it at a later point in time.
In these cases, so-called feature branches, which are created for a given amount of time as children of the main line, are the common solution.
Developers who work on a dedicated feature are not working directly with the main line, but with a feature branch. Though the mechanism is the same, the developers of the feature are using the feature branch as their integration branch. It becomes interesting when the team decides that a feature is ready to be integrated into the main line. A responsible person must rebase all the changes in the feature branch to the current version of the main line. Similar to the single developer scenario, this means that the current version of the main line is merged into the feature branch to make the current version of the feature branch a successor of the current version of the main line. This can cause a high merging effort. Therefore, you should rebase changes as frequently as possible.
The principle of the fetch - develop - rebase (merge) - push cycle is the same for any level of the branch hierarchy of the development project. Even sub-feature branches that are essentially children of the feature branches can be handled in this way.
Key Learning
- Define your main line.
- Place everything under version control.
Automate the Build
The stories of developers who complain about broken builds and comments that "it works on my machine" are legendary. The solution is an automated, standardized build procedure with an automatically running "central build". The build result is the only reference to decide whether the project is broken or clean from a build perspective.
For the sake of being reproducible for all team members, the build description must contain, and declare all the dependencies that are needed to execute the build, including the environment in which the build runs. Ideally, calling the build tool can be implemented as a bootstrapping mechanism that guarantees the proper, standardized installation of the build tools and checks their up-to-date state. In this case, the developer doesn't need to worry about the installation at all, and the risk of build problems caused by improper installations on the developer's PC is minimized.
A build scheduler such as Jenkins is useful when operating a central build infrastructure:
- It offers a convenient UI for end users to trigger builds, monitor them, and so on.
- It provides interfaces that integrate the builds with other components of the CI process.
Key Learning
Set up a central, reproducible build.
Run Tests in the Build
Builds are not restricted to validating the syntactical correctness of the code. There are several kinds of tests:
- Component (unit) tests
- Static code checks
- Scenario tests
The differences between these types of tests are as follows:
- They operate directly on build results (unit tests) or sources (static code checks), or,
- they require the newly built application to be installed and started (scenario tests).
In any case, you should ensure that appropriate tests are automatically run during the build, enabling developers to avoid regressions and failures in an early state. Always include automatic unit tests, and also invest in scenario tests and scripts which automatically install, start, and test your application.
Unit test frameworks are available for many source code technologies, most prominently, JUnit for Java. There are many tools that let you run tests that automatically execute software interactions, and verify the results. There are frameworks, such as Selenium, which can test graphical user interfaces and browser behavior.
A good build process is not restricted to the pure role of syntactical validation of the source code and production of the build artifacts (which could ultimately turn out to be unusable from a functional point of view). The build also acts as a hurdle to ensure the functional correctness of the product (see also "Build Each Change").
Implementing these tests early as part of the build that can be executed on the developer's workstation saves time that might otherwise be required to address bugs discovered late in the development process.
Key Learning
Automate as many tests as possible in the build.
Commit Early and Often
As stated earlier, in a distributed development project with multiple developers, every developer aims to integrate his or her changes with the main line (the same applies for feature branches and their integration into the main line). We recommend to integrate as often as possible for two reasons:
- Merging local changes with the main line becomes more and more complicated and time-consuming as the main line evolves.
- From product quality standpoint, the risk of instability introduced by a new change increases when the distance between the original base of the change and the current main line version has increased.
Every developer, whether working with the main line or with a feature branch, should push at least once per day. This principle seems easier to accomplish with feature branches, but in very active projects you have to balance that with the potentially high effort of merging or constantly rebasing. There is no "golden rule" or "one size fits all" solution.
Key Learning
Integrate in small steps. Do not accumulate changes and attempt bulk merges into the main line.
Build Each Change
Each change must be integrated into the main line at some point. However, each single change bears the risk of destabilizing the main line, and affecting other developers who rely on its integrity. To balance the conflicting interests, a continuous build mechanism builds each change to be integrated into the main line. This may be the principle that represents best the basic idea of a CI process.
The typical CI build stores any commit in the main line as soon as it integrated there, and tests the build result automatically. This enables the developer or team to identify whether the change does any harm. To maintain constant monitoring of the quality of the main line, a CI build is mandatory.
A broken CI build requires immediate action as it indicates a severe problem with the quality of the main line. Developers must fix this as soon as possible, so it can be built again and development can continue. This is potentially rather expensive since, depending on the frequency of commits being entered into the main line, a broken build blocks the entire evolution of the main line. It is much cheaper to avoid this situation in the first place.
It is impossible to avoid broken main lines completely; however, you can avoid most such problems by using voter builds, also called "pending head".
The developer first proposes a change that is not yet integrated into the main line, using for example a "push for review" in Gerrit or the "pull request" mechanism in GitHub. Builds can be scheduled automatically on the proposed change before it is integrated into the main line. The voter build is measuring the quality of a change, identifying problems before they pollute the main line and require re-work.
Voter builds alone are not sufficient to prevent quality issues in the main line, as source code versions on which voter builds run differ, in general, from the versions on the main line.
Assume a simple scenario, where changes run into the main line sequentially without overlapping. The figure below shows that one developer creates a change based on version 2 and proposes it. After a successful build, it is merged into the main line as version 3. Another developer may take this new version as a basis for his change, which is finally integrated as version 4 into the main line.
In this example, the results of voter and CI builds are identical since the merge is trivial. Content-wise, it results in the same version.
But when there are more frequent changes, the chance of overlapping changes increases. A situation as shown in the next figure is rather common, where two changes, both based on version 2, are created in parallel proposals. The "Creation as proposal" on the right side of the figure "wins" in the sense that it is built and merged into the main line as version 3 before the change depicted on the left has the chance to.
In most cases, the left change can be merged into the main line as version 4, applying an automatic optimistic merge strategy, which applies if the two changes affect completely different code sections. Most source code repositories offer optimistic merge strategies that in the generic case work very well without requiring manual interaction. But it is clear in this case that the voter build and the CI build are operating on different versions.
In the end, it is only the CI build that determines the quality of the main line.
An optimistic merge does not always work, namely when the two changes overlap. Such a case, the developer who authors the change shown on the left must first rebase his or her change to version 3. Doing this ensures that the change integrates into the main line as version 4.
What are the technical requirements that ensure that the voter and CI builds are reliable? These builds must run on a separate build machine which is set up in a reproducible way and managed by a build operator. By contrast, builds on a developer's workstation will not be reproducible, as they are unlikely to use standard and consistent setups.
In a more complex development landscape that uses feature branches in addition to the main line, we recommend that you set up central CI and voter builds in the same way as for the main line. Not implementing automatic builds and tests on the feature branches leads to a much higher integration effort to push from the feature branch into the main line. Apply the principle "fail early and often".
Key Learning
- Keep the main line clean.
- Build and automatically test each change that flows into it.
- Implement CI and voter builds.
Fix Build Errors Immediately
The "build each change" principle obliges developers to immediately react on build errors. This is quite obvious in a monitor build - which is not recommended - because a change affects the entire team. In the worst case, developers cannot continue working. If voter builds are applied, the risk of spoiling the main line is minimized, so the build errors by one developer do not affect other developers. Nevertheless, developers who break their own builds are urged to fix them immediately. Otherwise, any further build by the developer fails and problems accumulate from change to change.
Combining these two principles guides the developer's workflow toward "change - commit - build - fix".
Key Learning
Fix build errors as soon as they are identified; do not accumulate them.
Keep the Build Fast
The build and test steps that are executed automatically after proposing a change make up a central part of the developer's workflow.
He or she should not have to wait too long for CI build and test results; therefore, good performance of CI builds, including tests, is of vital importance.
There is always a conflict of interest: You want to integrate new changes into the main line as securely as possible. At the same time, building, validating, and especially scenario testing can be quite time consuming, thus conflicting with the desire for a fast build.
For example, a 15 minute wait time might be acceptable for small projects. As the project grows larger, and the amount of time that build and tests take increases, acceptance decreases.
Therefore, you must find a compromise between different levels of acceptance criteria:
- Those that are considered as crucial for the quality of the main line. Each change merged must fulfill them.
This includes of course the syntactical correctness, but also unit tests and fast-running scenario tests. They have to run in the CI builds and maybe even in the voter builds.
- More exhaustive scenario tests that take longer than what would be acceptable for a CI build.
For running these tests, additional scheduled builds could run independently from the CI builds. They do not block the developer, since their processing time does not play such an important role.
The frequency of the scheduled builds depends on how often the current snapshot of the main line should be intensively tested. Even a test of every single change that is integrated into the main line would be possible. Scheduled builds for subsequent changes may eventually overlap in time, hence they require enough machine capacity.
For scheduled builds, we recommend that you reuse the build results from the most recent, successful CI build instead of doing the same build again.
Key Learning
Balance between build performance and the number of tests that are required to be run inside the CI build.
Test in a Clone of the Production Environment
Different setups and different environments at different stages of a production pipeline are often cause of errors. What is obviously true with respect to the relationship between local builds on the developer's PC on the one hand, and central builds on the other hand, cannot be omitted with respect to the relationship between test machines and productive landscape. Make sure that the machines on which scenario tests are executed are comparable to the final production landscape.
The challenge lies in achieving this. When using traditional physical hardware with manually installed and configured software, it is almost impossible to avoid divergence: across time, production and test machines, or any two different environments, diverge.
The solution to this problem is to treat the setup and configuration in the same way as writing code (this principle is sometimes referred to as DevOps). Any software and configuration that is installed on a machine is described in source files, which enables you to re-create the machine set up at any time. Use automation tools, for example, Chef, Puppet, Salt, Ansible, and so on. Configuration changes are made by applying a change to those scripts. This enables you to roll out changes in a controlled and reproducible way. This approach is especially well suited when working with virtual hardware. Setting up new virtual machines, providing them with the software and putting them into production can be completely automated by pressing a single button.
Rather than install software directly on the hardware (be it physical or virtual), we recommend that you run the applications inside containers (like Docker) that are instantiated from predefined images.
The key principle is that the setup of the machine is always reproducible. Make sure you can set up a dedicated machine again in exactly the same way by simply pressing a button.
Key Learning
Use the infrastructure-as-code approach to set up your landscape in a reproducible way.
Make it Easy to Get the Latest Build Results
In addition to automatic build and testing, the CI infrastructure needs to support the need to do some manual test or experiments with the newly built application. The build infrastructure itself, that is, the build servers, should, for security reasons and to minimize the risk of spoiling build results, run without being disturbed by any unauthorized access. However, this also means that developers who have a valid interest in getting the latest build result cannot be allowed to download it directly from the build server.
Therefore, you must also maintain a central location, from which developers can get the newest versions (and also older versions) of the artifacts. This location should fulfill the following criteria:
- Developers can easily find what they are looking for.
- Only official build results are kept there. Unauthorized changes on the artifacts (for example, manual replacement of build results) are not allowed, under any circumstance.
The approach "just store the artifacts to a central share" can cause problems when:
- More than one application has to be stored.
- More than one version has to be kept.
- The application has to be built for more than one platform.
- More than one build variant is needed, and so on.
A central repository for artifacts is the appropriate solution for storing and providing build results for developers as well as for other processes that may rely on artifacts. There are some products offered on the market. In the Java world, Nexus is one of the most common ones.
Key Learning
Define a unique and well-organized place for storing build results. Use an artifact repository manager.
Ensure that the Build Process is Transparent to Everyone
The status of the build process, and therefore the quality of the product, must be visible for everybody. For a developer, the following questions are of interest:
- Was my last (or any) change built?
- Was it tested?
- What were the build and test results and was my change merged into the main line?
The same questions apply to a change of another developer that I am relying on.
After a change was committed by a developer, it is processed in the CI process chain. Different tools are involved: the source code management tool, the build scheduler, the test landscape, the artifact repository and maybe some others. At any point in time, a change is in a dedicated state (for example, pushed, waiting for build, built with success/error, being tested, and so on) and might be processed by one of the listed components. Everybody must be able to easily get the status information on every single change.
A central entry point to access the information is key. The provisioning could be done by some kind of orchestration tool that could cover both: the control of the complete process pipeline and the transparency of the process state to the developers. In the sample cases described in the later sections, we will see that a change review tool (for example Gerrit) will play this role in tight collaboration with a build scheduler (for example Jenkins). Gerrit acts as entry point for the changes, it can be accessed by anybody and any tool playing a role is able to write back a notice such that the overall status is always reproducible there. Another approach is to use Jenkins with the Flow plugin which offers to developers and build engineers an end-to-end overview of the CI pipeline.
Key Learning
Implement a single entry point to retrieve status information.
Automate the Deployment
Deployment, that means the installation of the application to a runtime system, should be done in an automated way. This can be achieved in several ways and for different purposes:
- Automated scenario tests that already run in the build, or as a separate process that can be triggered by or after the build (which does not make any difference from a semantic point of view). The intention is that the scenario tests that must connect to a running application are part of the acceptance process for a change proposed or committed by the developer. Different implementations are possible.
- A single runtime system (like a JEE server) that is waiting for deployments can be sufficient in the beginning, but this approach has some drawbacks. Since it is a single instance, the test requests out of the CI process would have to be serialized to avoid clashes from two parallel test requests. A high amount of changes will make this instance a bottleneck.
Additionally, reusing the same instance again and again bears the risk of degeneration of the system with time. A better approach is to install and start the runtime system on demand during the build. This could be done on the temporary file system that is dedicated to the single test execution instance, or using container technology (like Docker) to bring up the runtime system on demand in a well-defined state and to remove the container after use.
- Provisioning of a test system for manual tests: In a CI build scenario, this might not be appropriate since the frequency and time of the validation of new commits is not really predictable. It makes much more sense to provision manual test systems from a scheduled build that, for example, runs daily at a given time, deploys to the test system, and notifies the tester after successful deployment. What concerns the implementation of runtime system, all what was said before applies here as well though the risk of bottlenecks and collision of different tests is not given here. So one single runtime instance dedicated for this purpose could do the job in a satisfying way. This approach is also capable of supporting a staged environment (several test instances of different stages, that means, quality levels), as desired.
- The ultimate level of automation is the automated deployment into the productive environment. As a post-step of the CI build, you should only do this if the risk of breaking something is minimized. This approach applies only when manual tests are not needed any more and every test is already done automatically.
Therefore, it is more common to trigger the deployment to production manually after a conscious decision to release. Nevertheless, an automated framework should support this manual step as much as possible. For example by just pressing a "release" button, the process framework should automatically start the deployment job to the productive system.
Keep in mind, Continuous Delivery doesn't require every change to be deployed to production automatically. Continuous Delivery means that any change integrated is validated such that it is ready to be deployed to production.
Key Learning
Do deployment as automatic post-build step. Also deploy automatically to production systems, but manually triggered.


text:
Oscar Pistorius: Will he be granted bail?
- Pistorius%27 bail hearing continues Friday in Pretoria
- Judge could take away athlete%27s passport%2C restrict him to his home
- Suspects awaiting trial are held in prisons in South Africa
The comparisons were inevitable. High-profile athlete. Sensational crime. Police bungling. Twists and turns. Global media attention.
But the Oscar Pistorius case, and the legal system under which it will be adjudicated, differs significantly from that other headline-grabbing murder trial, held in the mid-1990s.
In South Africa, Pistorius will not be tried by a jury as O.J. Simpson was in Los Angeles. Jury trials were abolished during the apartheid era in South Africa.
Pistorius is expected to be granted bail after final arguments are made Friday, several experts in South African law told USA TODAY Sports. The Olympic and Paralympic track star was charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine's Day.
SHAPIRO:Simpson lawyer says cases very different
"In my view, he has established that he should be released," said Cape Town attorney William Booth, the chairman of the Criminal Law Committee of the Law Society of South Africa. To be granted bail, Pistorius' lawyers must prove that an "exceptional circumstance" exists and that Pistorius is not a flight risk.
Booth said he doesn't believe Pistorius would be considered a flight risk and also cited concerns with the strength of the prosecution's case. "They could set bail at a very high amount under very strict conditions," he said.
Rodney Uphoff, professor of law at the University of Missouri who runs the school's study abroad program in Cape Town, also expects Pistorius to be granted bail. The judge could take away Pistorius' passport and restrict him to living at home, Uphoff said.
"That would probably be a more appropriate resolution to the bail issue rather than sending him to prison," Uphoff said, adding that in the U.S. suspects are often held in county jails but in South Africa they are taken to prison while awaiting trial. "(Prison) would create some security issues because South African prisons are not the safest places to be. For a high profile defendant like him, I'd think there would be a serious risk of potential harm for him. I think it would be a security nightmare for the prison authorities."
At the London Olympics last summer, Pistorius' worldwide fame skyrocketed; the first double amputee sprinter to compete in the Olympics became an inspiration to millions.
If bail is denied, Pistorius can immediately appeal to a higher court. If freed on bail, the trial wouldn't likely take place for months, at the least, legal experts said.
"In South Africa there are many criminal cases pending," Booth said. "People have been in custody for years on murder, robbery and rape and there is such a high incidence of those cases in South Africa. It could take a couple of months, maybe up to a year. Maybe even longer than that."
The high court in South Africa won't have to worry about the challenge high-profile U.S. cases face: seating an impartial jury in media-saturated environment. Instead, a single judge will hear the entire case and then rule on Pistorius' guilt or innocence.
The judge can be assisted by two advisers — highly trained lawyers — during the trial. Those advisors can outvote the judge, said Richard Goldstone, a judge for 23 years who served on South Africa's highest court. Goldstone now teaches at the University of Virginia School of Law.
If found guilty, Pistorius can appeal the ruling or sentence. Premeditated murder can carry a sentence of life in prison. There is no death penalty in South Africa. A lesser murder charge carries a sentence of 15 years to life. Pistorius maintains he accidentally killed Steenkamp.
Plea bargaining is rare in South Africa, but used a bit more in high-profile cases, Uphoff said.
Robert Shapiro, who represented Simpson in that notorious trial, told MSNBC the Pistorius case is very different except both "have superstar athletes that are accused of killing beautiful significant others."
Simpson never testified in his trial. Pistorius has already stated his case in an affidavit during the bail hearing, which was a mini-trial in itself.
"Most defense lawyers, at least in the States, wouldn't have their clients making any statements at all at this point until the defense has a better idea of what was going on," Uphoff said. "Under (the U.S. legal system's) standard, the defendant has no obligation to speak."
The Pistorius case has something else in common with Simpson's: the questioning of an investigator's integrity. Wednesday, the chief investigator in the Pistorius case, Hilton Botha, provided testimony damaging to the prosecution because of several missteps. A day later he was removed from the investigation after this bombshell: Botha is facing attempted murder charges stemming from a 2011 incident.
"It throws a bit of a question mark on his credibility," Booth said. "But more than that, it places the whole investigation in rather a bad light. You can't come to court and oppose bail for somebody when you yourself are also facing serious charges."
Contributing: Roxanna Scott

subset: commoncrawl


text:
$80,000 for a 100 day gig in Afghanistan?
That's what we heard today from an ex-military/private contractor lady who says she was offered a job to transition the contracts of KBR employees to what she said was DynCorp. 5,000 KBR contractors have to sign a new one. She would get to travel all over Afghanistan.
This story is unconfirmed and details seem to be hidden fairly well if you search the internet but it falls in line with recent investigations of KBR.
Switch the ownership of the contracts to a new company, basically the same as the old company, under the guise of competitive bidding and so it can be seen as 'change.' The money just moves around a little between the criminal war profiteers.
DynCorp has long sordid history so there's not much hope for improvement.
There are always at least two winners in 'war.' Bankers and corporate contractors.
The lady who told us her tale has been to Afghanistan before and said that one of the most beautiful sights she has ever seen was the massive opium poppy fields in full bloom.


text:
Tie public schools and public safety together
Lorin Bristow, a partner at Galain Solutions, a firm that helps public safety organizations secure grant funding, says that police departments have a very good opportunity to secure money in the U.S. Department of Education allotment of the so-called "stimulus package" for the purchase of mobile data networking infrastructure.
Bristow tells PoliceOne that one of the originally stated intents of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which is distributed through the Department of Education, is to help "stabilize state and local government budgets in order to minimize and avoid reductions in education and other essential public services."
"It's kind of strange to think about using [education funding] for buying public safety equipment, but you have to tell the message beyond the technical capacity — it may be more of a political kind of a message that has to be sent here, both up the chain and as well as to the surrounding communities as to what some of the benefits to the investment are. For other grants, for other types of monies, that's not really necessary because it's more obvious. But that's part of why the juvenile delinquency part of this seems to be getting lots of play. There's a natural tie, of course, with education and youth and juvenile delinquency that makes this palatable and makes it workable in many communities."
Bristow confirms that just one example of such thinking might go like this:
Your "pitch" could be to put into your local schools some form of mobile data infrastructure that will enhance the classroom and the campus. Maybe that's some 802.11 WiFi infrastructure, maybe it's some other form of wireless data connectivity backhaul. The point is that you're addressing a need that helps the community's youth in a positive way, with the intent to prevent juvenile delinquency. At the same time, you add to the purchase proposal a plan to extend that mobile data connectivity infrastructure to other areas of the town so that public safety agencies can use the technology to respond to crime, juvenile delinquency included.
"There probably are plenty of other good ideas of how you could tie public schools and public safety together with a single purchase, but that gets you thinking in the right direction," Bristow says.
What do you think? Add your comments below to let us know what your agency is doing to secure funding for mobile data infrastructure purchases.
Request product info from top Police Communications Interoperability companies
Thank You!


text:
Young readers eligible to receive free burgers
Readers ages 4 to 12 are eligible to receive free In-N-Out burgers through the Cover to Cover Club reading program at Douglas County Public Library.
The program will take place through April 13. Young readers must fill out a file card at a branch of the Douglas County Public Library to enroll in the program. They will earn an achievement award redeemable for an In-N-Out hamburger for every five books they read at their reading level. Each participant may earn up to three certificates. Children too young to read on their own may have a parent read to them.
The Cover to Cover Club is a joint program between the library and In-N-Out Burger.
The Douglas County Public Library is located at 1625 Library Lane in Minden, Nev., and 233 Warrior Way in Zephyr Cove, Nev. For more information, visit douglas.lib.nv.us, or call 775 782-9841.


text:
LHP Jack Leathersich gave up the tie-breaking three-run homerun in the bottom of the eighth. His line: 1.1 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 1 HR, 1 HBP. Leathersich's ERA rose to 4.46 and his WHIP to 1.43 in 36.1 innings in advanced-A.
A: Greensboro Grasshoppers (MIA) 5, @ Savannah Sand Gnats 2
Perhaps the finest moment of this game was first pitch. It rained for about four hours in Savannah, and the Gnats staff and grounds crew did a really impressive job getting the puddles of standing water off the warning track to set up a first pitch at 8:25 pm.
LHP Jimmy Fuller could not finish the fifth: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 5 K.
C Cam Maron was 2-for-4 to push his season line to .296/.386/.404 in 72 games.


text:
Fully Managed
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Jet Li to Send Relief Materials to Sichuan
Jackie Chan Arrives in Quake-Hit City
Jackie and singer Sara
Hong Kong ups visual f/x profile
http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798 ... =3057&cs=1
Polybona: Eyes on stock
http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798 ... =3057&cs=1
J.A. Media: High-profile action
"Miao Mia" and Stephen Fung's "Jump" on slate
http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798 ... =3057&cs=1
Huayi Brothers: Private-sector success
http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798 ... =3057&cs=1
Shanghai Media Group: Looking long term
http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798 ... =3057&cs=1
Enlight Pictures: Filling the pipeline - targeting global partners
http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798 ... =3057&cs=1
Edko backing comic book adaption "Dance Subaru" featuring Momoi Kaori
http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout ... 85772&cs=1
James Hong profile
From Clark Gable to Kung Fu and Seinfeld
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/movies/art ... 5hong.html
Run Run in talks to sell his Shaw stake
Trading suspended
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_deta ... con_type=1
Run Run leads way as hearts and wallets open to disaster victims
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_deta ... con_type=1
Shaw actor Wong Yupassed away of pneumonia (Thanks, Fan)
http://www.singtao.com.hk/breakingnews/ ... 221419.asp
Singapore Redux
Interview with three filmmakers
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 87,00.html
Kung Fu Panda review
Po and Shifu dueling with chopsticks...is an instant classic.
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0 ... 10,00.html
"Kung Fu Panda" a martial arts masterpiece
http://www.reuters.com/article/entertai ... =0&sp=true
Kung Fu Panda reviews
http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyP ... ryID=38856
Shanghai International Film Festival turns spotlight on co-production
http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyA ... &Category=
Sam Lee in Hung Yun Yun's "Broken Net"
(5/10/2008) Sam Lee Chan Sam and model Janice Man Wing San yesterday
attended a Disney product press conference. They even tried their hands
on graffiti and put Mickey Mouse in graffiti art.
Even though his fashion business is doing well, Sam has not
forgotten his film career. In days he will head to China to continue work
on the film POR MONG (BROKEN NET), the first action film for director
Xiong Xin Xin (Hung Yun Yun) since his return from Hollywood. The female
lead Chiang Luxia was a Beijing wushu academy student and has been called
China's Tony Jaa. Sam joked, "Although she and I have a lot of scenes
together, she is responsible for protecting me so I don't have to fight."
Herman Yau's "Classmate" features Shawn Yue, Ada Choi, Ella, Chapman To
(5/8/2008) The film TUNG MOON (CLASSMATE) two nights ago held a
production start ceremony in Sham Shui Po. Director Herman Yau Lai To
and actors Shawn Yue Man Lok, Ada Choi Siu Fun, Elanne Kong Yeuk Lam, Ella
Koon Yun Na and Chapman To Man Jat attended. Because the film would be a
mob film, the film company held a street red wine banquet as the cast
boldly drank. Choi Siu Fun who has not made a film for a long time
explained that she returned to film because she has always wanted to work
with director Yau Lai To. She believed that her acting would be on
display in this film. Later she would head to Thailand for location
"The Moss" with Shawn Yue opening this month
(5/8/2008) Shawn Yue Man Lok and Bonnie Sin Sik Lai's new film THE MOSS
(CHING TOI) will be released at the end of the month. Lok Jai in the
film would play an undercover cop. Although in recent years he has been
productive he has never played this type of character. He said that he
resembled a Wise Guy more than a cop. He had to play a cop who was very
glad to do his job with the prostitutes, which was not easy to play but
was very refreshing.
Isabella Leung's contract dispute hampering "Missing" promos
(5/6/2008) Isabella Leong Lok Si due to Emperor's contract dispute has
skipped all of her jobs, including her film with Angelica Lee Sinjie, SUM
HOI CHUM YUN's promotional poster shoot. The film will be released on
June 12. Its film company Mandarin felt helpless because the contract
stipulated that the poster must have Isabella's photo, otherwise the
contract would be violated. Thus the film company still has not been
able to release a film poster and had next to zero promotion.
Mandarin boss Raymond Wong Pak Ming after discussions with his
lawyers decided to sue Emperor. "During the contract signing Emperor
requested the additional condition of Isabella must be on the film
poster and the size of the photo must be the same as Lee Sinjie's.
Isabella also had the exclusive right to sing the film theme song.
Earlier for the film poster shoot, Isabella originally agreed to show up
but finally skipped out. The film will be released on June 12, now even
the film poster still has not been released. We can only used a woman's
back for the promotional poster. In additional Isabella didn't sing the
theme song, We can only find someone to make music for the film and lost
the karaoke promotional opportunity. Ultimately we couldn't do a lot of
promotion. I understand that Emperor and Isabella are in the midst of a
lawsuit, I too want to settle the matter privately; but after the lawyers
saw the contract they told me to file a lawsuit as protection. Because we
are ultimately a public company we have to answer to stockholders. The
impact on the box office definitely is very impacted. If we knew it would
turn out like this, initially we wouldn't approach Isabella and would get
another for the female lead."
The World of Zhu Shilin is an important study program of Hong
Kong Film Archive and the Hong Kong International Film Festival this
year. Its run continues until May 12.
Zhu Shilin (1899-1967) was a previous generation famous director.
During the turmoil before and after World War II he became the mainstream
pillar of the Shanghai and Hong Kong film industry. 41 years after his
passing he finally had a more official retrospective exhibition,
unfortunately it was not complete; especially missing was his work
during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai -- the background where LUST,
CAUTION (SIK, GAI) took place and remains sensitive and controversial
even until now.
Although it is not the whole picture, this time is still a very
rare screening opportunity that can confirm when he came from Shanghai to
Hong Kong, made SORROWS OF THE FORBIDDEN CITY (CHING GUNG BEI SI) and the
following few years, his creative quality was the best.
Yet, is Zhu Shilin is a film master? Honestly, the more I watch
his films, the more questions I have. Back then Chinese film overall has
many restrictions of technique, ideas and subjects. He occasionally made
good films but even more ordinary ones. His artistic achievement
obviously cannot compare to famous Japanese masters of the same
generation Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu.
No matter what, SORROWS OF THE FORBIDDEN CITY and SHOULD THEY
MARRY? are the best among Zhi Shilin's work that can rival famous films
around the world that year.
Since then he made the career and residence issues of Hong Kong's
poor and feeble with a lot of real life feel. As for his descriptions of
the low to middle income family couple comedy films they tend to be
superficial and studio styles. THE THREE PEARLS' concubine storm remained
real in the 50s, but today it seemed very outdated.
The 1964 GARDEN OF REPOSE was his final film, which was made
entirely in the old studio style that adapted Ba Jin's famous work GARDEN
OF REPOSE into something dead and dull, not as good as his earlier
adaptation of Cao Yu's work THUNDERSTORM.
Zhu Shilin's late style was very conservative, luckily back then
the Hong Kong film industry had a flood of new blood (including his
Phoenix and Great Wall descendants) that raised a wuxia action new wave
that transformed Hong Kong film.
GARDEN OF REPOSE was not great but represented Zhu Shilin's
nostalgic sorrow, difficulty of forgetting the lost nation and old dreams,
and guilt of the nation's troubles. It could be said that the older
generation's sorrowful farewell work during a turbulent new era.
Bao Fang in GARDEN OF REPOSE played a fallen father who confessed
to have failed his family and died a tragic death. The film foretold the
future. Several years later Mao Zedong sentenced SORROW OF THE FORBIDDEN
CITY as a treasonous weed. Upon learning the news Zhu Shilin passed
away that night in Hong Kong. Many celebrities during the Cultural
Revolution had to admit that they were guilty.
In my impression, these two are Zhu Shilin's best made films.
Lately I have caught up and rewatched many of his work and still I feel
these two films are the best.
The 1948 SORROWS OF THE FORBIDDEN CITY was renowned on its own,
later due to Mao Zedong's personal verdict it also took Zhu Shilin's life.
This black and white film has good set up and strong drama. The Beijing
Forbidden City was built in Hong Kong Wing Wah film studio. The set,
costumes, lighting and camera adjustments are excellent. It is very
influential to Li Han-Hsiang's Qing Palace films.
SORROWS OF THE FORBIDDEN CITY has already been talked in every
aspect, this I have to mention set designer Bao Tianming who was from
Shanghai. I once worked at the Cathay era's Wing Wah studio and stumbled
to become one of Bao Tianming's last assistants. Occasionally I heard
how serious and difficult that production was and it sounded legendary.
As for the 1951 black and white film SPOILING THE WEDDING DAY, its
renown is no match for SORROWS OF THE FORBIDDEN CITY and style drastically
differs, but I like this romantic comedy in poverty even more. In the
film the romance between the trumpet player and the factory girl is lively
and interesting, full of the realism of the Mainland immigrants in Hong
Kong then. They in order to wed work part time selling wonton noodle.
They also have to find a place, build a wooden home, all are very
intimate and are the collective memory that is gradually lost but should
not be forgotten.
Zhu Shilin is always shooting small business, middle class and the
worldly, but SPOILING THE WEDDING DAY is about the lower class laborers
yet it is unusually energetic and fun. Perhaps he and his younger
co-director Bai Chen have set off spark?
Han Fei and Li Lihua gave performance that was full of life and
comedy. Li Lihua's young and simple female worker image was even rarely
brilliant. The film's teahouse, shared rooms, facotry, wooden house
areas and streets are full of solid flavor.
In the following years Zhu Shilin's reality reflections like THE
DIVIDING WALL, HOUSE REMOVAL GREETING, BETWEEN FIRE AND WATER and FESTIVAL
MOON all described poor, small employee romance in narrow living
conditions and all were variations of SPOILING THE WEDDING DAY. Living
conditions once were old Hong Kong films' important and frequently made
subject. Zhu Shilin has contributed a lot in this area.
Bai Chen later returned to Mainland to write and direct, Ren Yichi
who played the young left wing "progressive" female worker in SPOILING THE
WEDDING DAY was one of Zhu Shilin's students. In this retrospective , the
Ren Yichi, Chen Jingbo co-directed (Zhu directed), Zhu Hong and Gao Yuan
starred PRECIOUS LITTLE MOON was then a refreshing, straight lace
secondary school girl's basketball team youth comedy.
PRECIOUS LITTLE MOON had left wing education, stressing group
cooperation and opposing individualism. Fortunately it had a lot of
actual locations, healthy and simple, a viewing today would be cute.
Tian Zhuangzhuag's "The Warrior and the Wolf" poster
Ivy Ho's "Claustrophobia"
Cannes Film Festival summary
Ting Che / Parking (Taiwan)
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archiv ... 02546.html
Ocean Flame (China)
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archiv ... /2008.html
My Magic (Singapore)
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archiv ... /2008.html
24 City (China)
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archiv ... /2008.html
The Chaser (South Korea)
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archiv ... /2008.html
Tokyo Sonata (Japan)
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archiv ... /2008.html
The Good, The Bad, The Weird (South Korea)
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archiv ... /2008.html
Ashes of Time (Hong Kong)
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archiv ... /2008.html
August 15th (China)
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archiv ... /2008.html
Taiwan Pop Stop
Vivian Hsu, Stephen Fung, Jaycee Chan
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar ... 2003412028
Shu Qi, Jose Ho, Patty Hou in Beijing
http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/h/p/2008-05-16 ... 9193.shtml
Woman charged for murder of elderly
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_deta ... 80516&fc=8


text:
Book extract:
The Traveller's Guide to ARTHURIAN BRITAIN
A guide to the history and fantasy, poetry and romance,
A "biography" and its setting
Monmouth, Geoffrey's presumed birthplace, is on the south-east fringe of Wales. His family background is unknown, but he was familiar with Welsh traditions, and interested in the Celtic Britons from whom the Welsh were descended. A cleric, and probably a teacher, he was at Oxford from 1129 to 1151. In the late 1130s he produced a Latin History of the Kings of Britain covering a stretch of time not far short of two thousand years. It makes out that wandering Trojans founded a monarchy in the island then called Albion and re-named it Britain. Geoffrey runs through a long series of British kings including Shakespeare's King Lear, nearly all of them fictitious. When he gets to the Roman conquest, and thus to recorded history, he has to be a little more factual. But he claims that it wasn't a true conquest, and British kings went on reigning as tributary rulers.
Britain, in his narrative, breaks away from the Roman Empire, and here he begins building up to an Arthurian climax. He tells us that a sinister British noble, Vortigern, made himself king, and two rightful princes went into exile. The usurper had trouble with the Picts in the north, and invited some Saxons, led by Hengist, to cross over from the Continent and settle in Britain as auxiliary troops. More Saxons flooded into the country and got out of control, seizing land for themselves and spreading chaos through Britain. Vortigern fled to Wales, where he encountered Merlin, who prophesied his doom and the advent of a deliverer. The princes returned, Vortigern was killed, and the Saxons were partially contained, though still turbulent and aggressive.
The elder prince, Aurelius Ambrosius, reigned for a short time. His brother Uther succeeded him. At a banquet in London Uther was seized with ungovernable desire for Ygerna, the wife of Gorlois, duke of Cornwall. Gorlois withdrew from the court taking her with him. Uther considered himself insulted and led an army into Cornwall to ravage the ducal lands. Gorlois left Ygerna for safety in a fortress out on the headland of Tintagel, accessible only along a narrow ridge, and marched off to oppose the king. He was outwitted. Merlin gave Uther a magic potion that turned him into an exact replica of Gorlois, and in that effective disguise he entered Tintagel past its guards and found his way to Ygerna, who, thinking him to be her husband, made no difficulties. She conceived Arthur. The real Gorlois had just fallen in battle, so Uther resumed his own shape and made Ygerna his queen.
Uther was poisoned by a Saxon, and Arthur became king while still in his teens. He soon showed gifts of leadership, and launched a series of campaigns, routing and dispersing the Saxons and subduing the Picts and Scots. He had a special sword called Caliburn, forged in the Isle of Avalon. He married Guinevere and made himself popular with his subjects. Next he conquered Ireland, and then Iceland (which would not have been difficult, because in those days Iceland was uninhabited). Twelve years of peace and prosperity ensued. Arthur founded an order of knighthood enrolling distinguished men from various lands. Britain was fast becoming pre-eminent in Europe. This was the time, or at least the beginning of the time, when the adventures related in romance were said to have happened.
The Roman Empire still had a shaky hold on Gaul, now France. Arthur had designs on the Empire himself. He won over many Gauls to his side, crossed the Channel with an army, and took possession. Around this part of the story we are beginning to get familiar names in the royal entourage – Gawain, Bedivere, Kay. Some years later Arthur was holding court at Caerleon in Wales when envoys arrived from Rome demanding that he restore his conquests and pay tribute, as earlier British kings had done. Judging attack to be the best defence, Arthur led another army to Gaul, leaving his nephew Modred at home as his deputy, in joint charge with Guinevere. While he was away Modred proclaimed himself king, conspired with the Saxons, and persuaded the queen to live in adultery with him. Arthur, who had got as far as Burgundian territory, was forced to return. He defeated and killed the traitor in a battle by the River Camel in Cornwall, but was seriously wounded himself and "carried off to the Isle of Avalon so that his wounds might be attended to", handing over the crown to a cousin. It is not stated that he died. Geoffrey knew of a folk-belief that he was still alive, and left the door open for it, but did not commit himself.
As to the time when all this is supposed to have happened, an important clue is that western Europe still has a Roman ruler. Since there were no emperors in the west after 476, Arthur's continental exploits must be before that. Allusions to a real emperor Leo, who ruled in the east from 457 to 474, narrow the range. This context for Arthur is in harmony with his family relationships. Unfortunately Geoffrey's readers are also given something rare in his History, an exact date, and it doesn't fit. Arthur's passing is assigned to the year 542. Its total incompatibility is one of several reasons for thinking it an error, and it can in fact be brought into line as an error of a known medieval kind, which we need not go into. If we dismiss it and take everything else together, we see a fairly coherent picture of a reign lasting twenty-five to thirty years, largely in the 450s and 460s.
So again, where did Geoffrey get this from? Did he get it from anywhere? Or was the entire Legend born in his imagination?
We need to understand how he works. In the previous part of his History dealing with the Roman period, where there is solid information, we can compare. First, he is not really writing history and he can never be trusted for facts. What he says about Julius Caesar and others is a travesty of the truth. Secondly, however, it is a travesty of a truth which is on record, and which he does to some extent know. He habitually uses history, or what he would like to think is history, to evolve his fiction. Except in the early chapters on mythical Britons in an impenetrable past, he doesn't contrive major episodes out of nothing at all. He draws his inspiration from real events or established stories or names or monuments; always from something. With his biography of Arthur, we can be sure that he has some basis for it ... or thinks he has.
As far as the hero's setting is concerned, he has. Post-Roman Britain is very poorly documented, but we can allow that his story shows knowledge of things that actually happened. Archaeology, while not supplying all the support we could wish, does supply some.
Most of Britain was under Roman rule for well over three hundred years. Its people were British Celts, ancestors of the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons; there were no English as yet. The upper classes received a veneer of imperial civilization and, in course of time, Christianity. As the Empire weakened in the west, under pressure from barbarians, the island on the fringe was exposed and hard to defend. Britain was beset by Irish, Picts and Saxons.
About 410, political upheavals cut if off from the centre and it broke away. The emperor authorized the Britons to look after themselves.
The administration carried on for a while, but regional chiefs were rising in importance, and one of them seems to have attained paramountcy over a good deal of the country. This was the Vortigern whom Geoffrey medievalizes as a crafty usurper. He played a leading part in a policy on imperial lines, providing a group of barbarians with land and supplies in return for keeping order and driving off other barbarians. Saxons, Angles and Jutes, ancestors of the English, were settled in Britain on this basis to contain the Picts. Here again, in the tale of Vortigern and Hengist, Geoffrey romanticizes facts. More settlers arrived without permission. Somewhere in the 440s the reinforced Saxons allied themselves with the Picts they were supposed to contain and began raiding far and wide, right across to the western sea. This phase of revolt probably dragged on into the 450s, a side-effect being a flight of Britons across the Channel, laying the foundations of Brittany.
At last the raiders withdrew into their authorized enclaves. The sequel was without parallel anywhere else. Alone among Roman ex-provincials, the Britons had become independent before the barbarians moved in. Now, alone among Roman ex-provincials, they cared enough to fight back. A noble, Ambrosius Aurelianus, organized counteraction. His name shows that his family was still Roman in its traditions and sympathies. To-and-fro warfare followed, and Saxon incursions at new points. Britain probably had long spells of partial and even general peace, but fighting in the 490s culminated in a British success at "Mount Badon", unidentified, though almost certainly in the south. For a while the situation was stabilized. A brief Celtic resurgence was marked by activity in the Church and swift growth of the colonies that were forming Brittany. Eventually the Anglo-Saxons took over most of the country and made it England – Angle-land – but the Britons' descendants held out in Wales and elsewhere, handing down songs and stories about the phase of independence.
Gildas, a monk writing in the 530s or thereabouts, testifies to the main post-Roman course of events. He is a sermonizer, not a historian. He makes terrible mistakes, and the only Briton whom he names between the break with Rome and his own time – a stretch of well over a century – is Ambrosius. Nevertheless he is an early witness for the Saxon disaster, the partial recovery, and the battle of Badon.
Geoffrey, in his corresponding chapters, is giving his own treatment to these happenings. He knows of Vortigern and he knows of Ambrosius Aurelianus, whom he turns into King Aurelius Ambrosius. Since he did have some awareness of this near-anonymous turmoil, we can reasonably ask whether he found a real Arthur in it – not, of course, the King Arthur of the Legend, but some Briton whom he built up into his towering monarch.
If we could trust his preface the answer would be "yes". He claims that he translated the History from "a certain very ancient book in the British language" given to him by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. The British language could be either Welsh or Breton. Geoffrey and Walter were acquainted. Moreover, Geoffrey makes one specific statement about the book's contents, that it gave him information on Arthur's downfall: hence, presumably, on his reign. What he says about the book is, alas, incredible. He is simply trying to make his inventions more respectable by alleging an older source for them. Other medieval authors do much the same. Still, the touch about Arthur's downfall is an extra. Geoffrey may have had some Welsh or Breton text, now lost, that told of him.
While "may have" is not an argument, an original Arthur would at least fit into the sequence of events, as a leader during the phase of British recovery. There is a curious piece of evidence for him. His name is a Welsh form of the Roman "Artorius". It suggests someone from a family like Ambrosius's, still not remote from the imperial world. It doesn't suggest a Celtic god or fairy-tale paladin. Such a being would hardly have had a Roman name. The name is actually on record in Roman Britain, proof that it was known. Lucius Artorius Castus took a legion across the Channel in 184 to suppress a rebellion. He is much too early to be the original, and the notion of his having descendants or namesakes is a pure guess. But after a long gap with no other men so called, we begin to find several in the sixth century, up and down Britain, even in Scotland. It looks as if some saga had elevated a post-Roman Briton into a national hero.
We may be closing in on him. Failing the ancient book, what can we say Geoffrey of Monmouth knew that gave him inklings of such a person?
Arthur in Wales
Before his time, Welsh bards, story-tellers and clerics had generated a varied body of literature – much more, written and oral, than survives today. Arthur occurs in several connections. Poems extolled him as proverbial for prowess in war, and one said there was a mystery about his grave, though it stopped short of saying he was immortal and never had one. Other poems gave him a train of followers, some decidedly larger than life and credited with slaying monsters as well as enemies. Popular tales abounded. Most of them are lost, and we must infer their contents from tantalizing summaries grouped in threes, called triads. Early triads mention Arthur quite often, attesting his fame, but they are not much help as background for Geoffrey's narrative. From that point of view the only interesting ones are a few that refer to a sort of feud between Arthur and "Medrawd", and to a fatal battle at Camlan. There are hints here for Modred's turning against Arthur, though not for the circumstances, and for the final clash by the River Camel.
A single pre-Geoffrey tale has survived complete, composed in its present form late in the tenth century. Culhwch and Olwen ("Culhwch" is pronounced Kil-hooch, with the ch as in "loch") is colourful and extravagant and savage and comic. Arthur is the chief prince of Britain with a court assembling most of the men and women of note in Welsh tradition, as well as many mythical figures. Pre-Christian Celtic beliefs make their presence felt. One was that there are "Otherworld" regions – places not in our world yet somehow in contact with it – which are abodes of spirits and fairy-folk. An Otherworld ruler, Gwyn, is among the characters. Arthur and his company have fantastic adventures. They hunt a colossal boar, Twrch Trwyth, who is really a wicked king under a spell. This boar-hunt has left its mark on local lore. Apart from its literary merits, Culhwch and Olwen is a storehouse of information on Welsh legend. However, it is hard to trace any use of it by Geoffrey. He may have got the idea of Arthur's court from it, but the court he portrays is very different.
Finally, several Latin "Lives" of Welsh saints include anecdotes of Arthur. They are rather hostile, and inconsistent, making him sometimes king of Britain and sometimes a war-lord or "tyrant". A recurring motif is the saints' superiority, shown when their supernatural powers make him repent of his misdeeds.
From this Welsh matter, Geoffrey picked up some notions, and he picked up some characters – Merlin (originally Myrddin), Guinevere, Kay, Bedivere, Modred. However, none of it adds up to a real source for his Arthur story or any large part of it. Fabulous adventures, as in Culhwch and Olwen, don't disprove Arthur's reality. Fabulous adventures were ascribed to Alexander the Great and other real people. But we are certainly a long way from history.
Just two Welsh items – Latin items from Wales – are on a different footing. A tenth-century chronicle, the Annales Cambriae or Annals of Wales, has a couple of Arthur entries. It notes the victory of Badon, noted long before in Gildas's tract, and assigns Arthur a major role in it, saying he "carried the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ" – probably meaning an emblem, or one of the reputed fragments of the True Cross that were treasured as relics. Arthur is a Christian champion here against the heathen Saxons, as he is not in the Saints' Lives. The Annals also note "the strife of Camlann in which Arthur and Medraut fell". While Medraut is Medrawd or Modred, the chronicler does not say that he was a traitor or even that the two were opposed. Attempts have been made to argue that the Camlann entry was posted from a more trustworthy chronicle nearer to Arthur's time, but there is no sound reason to think so.
Delving back farther, we come to a book written early in the ninth century, the Historia Brittonum or History of the Britons. It is attributed to a monk named Nennius, perhaps wrongly, but it is convenient to say "Nennius" to mean the author. The book is a medley of Welsh legend, just-possible history, and fantasy. It includes two local legends bringing in Arthur. If we stick to the parts that may have some relation to fact, we find an account of Vortigern, his opening the door to the Saxons, and the consequent catastrophe. There is also an account of his meeting a mysterious boy-prophet in Snowdonia, named Ambrose, with discouraging results for himself.
Nennius has a chapter on Arthur. Dropping out of the blue without much preamble, it consists of a rapid survey of twelve battles which he is said to have won against the Saxons. It may be based on an older Welsh poem in his praise, though no such poem exists now. Nennius is unclear as to his status. He makes him the British warleader, dux bellorum, co-ordinating the efforts of Britain's "kings" or regional rulers. This chapter was used briefly before Geoffrey by two non-Welsh historians, William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. William infers that Arthur was a great, charismatic warrior in Ambrosius's service, not a king himself; Henry, that he was "the leader of the soldiers and kings of Britain". Both might have been the case at different stages of his career. Arthur is a Christian champion here too, carrying a holy image.
Nennius mentions Mount Badon, credited to Arthur as in the Annals, and presented as the climactic twelfth battle. The others build up to it, identified by puzzling place-names. The most comprehensible are in different parts of Lincolnshire, in the "Forest of Celidon", and in "the City of the Legion". The Forest of Celidon was in southern Scotland. Another passage shows that for Nennius the City of the Legion was Chester. All these battles, seven out of the twelve, would fit best into a mid-fifth-century setting. The Lincolnshire battles would have been against Angles encroaching up the Wash and Humber. There were no Saxons in Scotland till long afterwards, but during the anarchic phase of revolt and cross-country raiding they had Pictish allies who might have provoked reprisals. Chester, too far west for relevant war later in the century, could be allotted to the same phase, as the target of a cross-country raid.
Geoffrey makes use of these two texts. He improves Nennius's account of Vortigern, the Saxons, and the young prophet, though he makes out that the prophet was the youthful Merlin, thus introducing his second most famous character. He adapts some of the battles. He turns Medraut into Arthur's nephew Modred, deputy-ruler and traitor. He has Arthur fall at Camlann, revised and interpreted as the Camel. So parts at least of his Arthur story draw on earlier matter and are not total fantasy. His habitual practice is confirmed. However, if we are looking for real history, and particularly if we are looking for a real Arthur, the earlier matter is not early enough. It is written closer to the events, if any, but still centuries after them. And it already has touches of legend that cast doubt on it. At Badon, Nennius assures us, Arthur killed 960 of the enemy himself in a single charge. Heroes' deeds get exaggerated over the years, but not to this extent in contemporary reports. Because the Welsh present Arthur in such different guises – as a feuding chief, as a protagonist in impossible exploits, as a foil for the saints, as Britain's war-leader – sceptics have urged that he is too inconsistent to be true. Not so. The best parallel here is not Alexander but a more recent person, the American folk-hero Davy Crockett, given juvenile cult status by Disney during the 1950s. Born in Tennessee in 1786, he hunted in wild country and fought Indians, then went into politics, entering Congress in Washington as a picturesque backwoodsman. In 1836 he joined the Texan volunteers defending the Alamo against a Mexican army, and died there. In his political campaigning he had made his mark by telling tall tales from the frontier and encouraging supporters to embroider his own life-story in the same spirit. After 1836 legends clustered around him. Within a year or two he was alleged to have killed 85 Mexicans during the siege – not 960, admittedly, but the time for exaggeration was shorter. He was rumoured to be still alive. Yarn-spinners took up his tall-tale aspect in print, going beyond anything in Culhwch and Olwen. Their fictitious Davy rode on the lightning, climbed Niagara on the back of an alligator, greased the earth's axis to set it spinning again in a freeze-up. An American historian once complained that Crockett's biography could not be written because there were half a dozen of him. Yet he existed, and he shows that Arthur's inflation and diversification don't disprove his own existence.
To revert to Nennius, he need not be rejected as dis credited. He may be giving us facts, and so may the Annals. Some at least of the battles may be authentic; Gildas's tract is a much older testimony to Badon. But if we do try to treat this matter as history, we face an immediate problem. It makes Arthur's life-span absurd. The most acceptable battles, before Badon, only make good sense in the middle of the fifth century. Badon itself occurred not far from the year 500, probably a little before. So we would deduce from what Gildas says ... but the Annals contradict him, putting Badon in 518. They put Camlann in 539. To cover all the data Arthur would have to be an active warrior when over a hundred years old.
If these texts gave a chronological fix – a statement calibrating him with known history – we might be able to pin him down somewhere in the time-range, and then find explanations for whatever won't fit. The Welsh matter never gives such a fix. It never says Arthur was born when X was emperor, or died when Y was pope. Historically he hangs in a void.
Outside Britain?
All is not lost, however. We have one more resource, Geoffrey's account of the Gallic warfare, and it is far from negligible. It takes up half his Arthur story. Assessed by allocation of space, his Arthur is more a continental campaigner than anything else. He thinks this part of the king's career is very important. Romancers after him do not go so far, but their Arthur often has a continental domain. Modern readers and novelists are not sympathetic. After all, contemporaries across the Channel don't seem to have noticed any major British invasions. Yet if we dismiss this part of the story as imaginary, we must assume that Geoffrey is fabricating half of Arthur's career out of nothing at all. It is not his style. There has to be something, and since Welsh tradition has no trace of it, it must be elsewhere.
Furthermore, in his Gallic chapters he supplies what the Welsh never do, a chronological fix – the only one Arthur ever gets. The Gallic campaigns happen in the reign of the aforesaid Leo, emperor in the east from 457 to 474. Clues from other names tie down the final campaign much more closely, to a couple of years, 469 – 70. Geoffrey's indications of date are not often so precise. When writing of the final campaign he is thinking of something relevant which happened about then.
Something did. We are touching bedrock at last. In 467 Leo appointed a colleague, Anthemius, to take charge in the west. Anthemius tried to retrieve the situation in Gaul, much of it overrun by an assortment of barbarians. He negotiated an alliance with a man described as "the King of the Britons", who crossed to Gaul with 12,000 troops. Historians have underrated him in the belief that he was only a chief of Bretons, but that opinion no longer holds. He did come over from Britain. One historian, James Campbell, suggests that he had authority on both sides of the Channel.
After a pause north of the Loire, when he may have aided British settlers against marauding Saxons, he marched into central Gaul to oppose the Visigoths who were advancing from Spain. But Arvandus, the imperial governor, had been acting treacherously, proposing to the Visigoths that they should crush the Britons and share out Gaul with the Burgundians, who held parts of the east and south. Though Arvandus was detected, the Visigoths pushed ahead to Bourges, which the "King of the Britons" had occupied. After fierce fighting he retreated into Burgundian territory, probably in 470. No more is said about him.
Here we have raw materials for Geoffrey's story. The "King of the Britons" was in Gaul with his sea-borne army at the right time. He advanced to the Burgundian neighbourhood. He was betrayed by a deputy-ruler who conspired with barbarians. When we last see him he is even moving in the direction of a real town called Avallon (still there). Geoffrey's Latin form of that place-name doesn't correspond to its Welsh original and may well have been influenced by the town in Gaul.
Several authors have noticed this king and wondered if he was Arthur. The drawback is that he is referred to, with slight variations, as Riothamus. The h is due to scribes copying manuscripts with notions of their own about spelling. The correct form would have been Riotamus. Anyhow Geoffrey almost certainly has him in mind when relating Arthur's continental adventures. He inflates wildly, he changes the politics, he invents British successes – things he does in other parts of the History. But here, at last, the trail leads back to someone living at the right time who could be the original. Riotamus is the only documented person who does anything Arthurian, and he really is documented. We even have a letter to him.
The natural objection is, "Yes, but Geoffrey just took a hint from what this man did and made out that Arthur did it, or an exaggerated version of it. That needn't mean he thought Riotamus was Arthur. After all, the name is wrong." That fails to settle the question. Other people did think Riotamus was Arthur. A Breton, probably before Geoffrey and certainly not copying him, introduces a legend of a saint with a preface reviewing events in the fifth century, and sketches the activities of "Arthur, King of the Britons" (the same title) in terms that fit Riotamus. Half a dozen chroniclers, later than Geoffrey but still not copying him, concur to give Arthur a reign running from about 454 to 470, the year when Riotamus drops out of the record. Apparently they see the two as the same, and very likely they draw on somebody earlier who took that view. One other chronicle has an intriguing touch. It calls Arthur's betrayer Morvandus, which looks like a mix-up of "Mordred", the more literary form of the traitor's name, with "Arvandus", the name of Riotamus's actual betrayer.
As it seems that these authors equated Arthur with Riotamus, Geoffrey is probably doing likewise. The identification means that there has to be a solution of the name difficulty. Otherwise it could never have happened. It could be that Riotamus simply had two names, as some Britons did, that the other name was Arthur or rather Artorius, and that he passed into tradition under that one. A less conjectural notion would follow from the meaning of "Riotamus". It is a Latin version of a term in the British language, Rigotamos, "supreme king" or "supremely royal". It may have been a sobriquet, even a title, bestowed on a man after he rose to prominence, and used in addressing him or referring to him. He could have been Arthur.
That is to assume that "Arthur" came first and "Riotamus" was additional. It might have been the other way round, with "Riotamus" as the king's original style: more likely perhaps, since it appears later in Welsh adaptations as a proper name. As noted, a previous Arthur, Lucius Artorius Castus, took an army across the Channel. A leader taking another army across the Channel might have been hailed by some knowledgeable poet as a "second Artorius". And there is a last possibility, which is odd yet worth mentioning. If "Riotamus" was the king's original name, "Artorius" could have been a sort of nickname derived from it. ARTORIUS is almost an anagram of RIOTAMUS, and could have been suggested by a reading of the letters on (say) a medallion. RIOTAMUS, plus an r for rex, king, can be arranged quite neatly to give that result.
RIOTAMUS reads clockwise, omitting the R, which is slightly nearer the centre. The reading counter-clockwise, starting from A and bringing the R in, spells ARTORIUS. The M is left out, but it doesn't break the sequence of letters. Frivolous? Maybe. Still it is interesting that this can be done at all.
Nothing is on record concerning Riotamus, as such, back in Britain before he went overseas. However, he was important enough for word of him to reach Rome through the tumult of western Europe, and cause an emperor to seek his alliance. "King of the Britons" looks like an excessive title, but he was king of some of them and probably a good many, since he could raise a substantial army and assemble a fleet to carry it. His cross-Channel contact suggests that he ruled in the West Country, Arthurian territory, and he could just about have initiated the biggest "Arthurian" project revealed by archaeology, the refortification of Cadbury Castle, reputedly Camelot. If he was involved in the anti-Saxon resistance, all of Nennius's locatable battles could find a place in his timeframe. By the date of his overseas expedition, Saxon pressure had presumably eased.
We have a provisional answer to the question "Did Arthur exist?" though not the impossible yes-or-no. Arthur is almost entirely legend, at one level or another, but he has a real original, and that original may well have been the King of the Britons who went to Gaul. There is no firm evidence for any rival "real Arthur". Yet when we study these beginnings, we face legend-making in Britain as far back as we can get, even apart from the slaughter of 960 Saxons. No single leader is likely to have done everything Arthur is supposed to have done, fighting all the battles and falling at Camlann, especially if the Annals are right in putting Camlann in the sixth century. The Riotamus candidacy works well in the early part of the time-range. It gives an answer, if any is needed, to a cavil sometimes heard – that Arthur's name doesn't appear in Gildas. If he lived that much earlier, beyond living memory, no reader who has struggled with Gildas will be surprised that it doesn't. However, the candidacy runs into trouble later. If we forget all the medieval growth, Arthur still has to be a composite figure. The same could be said of Merlin, who presents difficulties of much the same kind.
In Riotamus we may have an authentic glimpse, a moment in continental limelight. But when he or some unknown became a British hero, under the great name, the saga absorbed the exploits of others, possibly others called Arthur. A Welsh poem indicates that a war-band known as "Arthur's Men" may have continued in being after his death, perhaps long after. If so, bardic praises of Arthur's Men, on dimly-recalled occasions, might have inspired legends of their founder's presence in person when he was long since dead. In discussing places associated with Arthur, we must sometimes content ourselves with meaning "the man who is said to have done such-and-such at this place", with no commitment as to identity. The mystery, in the end, abides.
Arthur transfigured
The Anglo-Normans who ruled England in Geoffrey's time were receptive to his History, partly, no doubt, because it put the "Saxons" whom they had conquered in a poor light. Their successors ruled a large part of France as well, and were glad to have their parvenu empire given proud antecedents. In 1155 a poet named Wace, from Jersey, produced a free paraphrase of the History in French verse that made it more accessible. It was giving shape and coherence to a process which Wace noticed, the spread of other Arthurian matter. The saga which had grown up in Wales, and in Cornwall and Brittany too by now, was being disseminated piecemeal. A book by a French priest had recently recalled a visit to England as early as 1113, when West Country locals pointed out Arthurian sites, and, in Bodmin, insisted that King Arthur was still alive. Bretons were saying the same. There were at least two versions of this belief, that he was on an enchanted island – Geoffrey's Avalon – or that he was asleep in a cave. Either way, his return was hoped for. Breton minstrels said many other things about him, and spread through French-speaking lands and farther. Arthurian characters were carved over a doorway in Modena Cathedral, in Italy.
Without Geoffrey and Wace, it is unlikely that the scattered traditions would have converged in a single body of literature. Because of them, however, the latter part of the twelfth century saw the beginnings of an outpouring of narrative poems and prose tales in several languages. The great name is Chrétien de Troyes. The romancers created the full-blown Legend. New characters took the stage, among them Lancelot, and the Lady of the Lake. Merlin, who, in the History, had virtually dropped out after masterminding Arthur's birth, became the wonder-working sponsor of the whole reign. Other themes from Geoffrey were taken up and improved upon. He had introduced the knighthood, but the actual Round Table, imported by Wace from Breton folklore, became a ritual piece of furniture with symbolic meanings. Geoffrey had made Arthur hold court at Caerleon, an already-existing Roman city. Now he was given a headquarters of his own, Camelot. His sword Caliburn became Excalibur. Sometimes drawing on Celtic sources, more often not, romancers developed themes that are now familiar: the sword-in-the-stone test proving Arthur's right to the crown; the loves of the principal women; the fall of Merlin through his own love for an enchantress, who trapped him in a magic imprisonment; the acts of the ambiguous Gawain, though his greatest adventure, with the Green Knight, was a later topic; and the Quest of the Grail.
The last of these themes raises issues beyond the scope of fiction. Underlying it are pre-Christian myths about magical cauldrons and other marvellous vessels, and possibly, also, idiosyncrasies in the practices and beliefs of Celtic Christians. At its literary debut the Grail has a strange and rather disquieting ritual context. When fully Christianized it is explained as a cup or dish used by Christ at the Last Supper, with miraculous properties. It came to the "Vales of Avalon" in Somerset through the agency of Joseph of Arimathea, the rich disciple who provided Christ's tomb. He had caught drops of the Saviour's blood in it. Some time after its arrival in Britain it passed into the custody of a succession of guardians in an elusive castle. Many of Arthur's knights went in search of it. The romances are puzzling and contradictory. In the most important, the vision of the Grail is a spiritual initiation which only Galahad is worthy to achieve fully.
The key to the symbolism may have been lost. Ecclesiastics generally ignored the Grail and made no attempt to interpret it. From their point of view the stories, however Christian, were suspect. However, Joseph was named as the builder of the first church at Glastonbury, in the "Vales of Avalon". There, the monks of the Abbey had nothing to say about the Grail. Their chief chronicler made some use of the romances, but he told only of two small vessels called crnets which Joseph had brought to Britain, containing drops of the Lord's blood and sweat. These were holy relics with no mystical implications.
Glastonbury was also woven into the legendary fabric by the Abbey's assertion that Arthur was buried there and it was the real Avalon. Some accepted the claim, some did not, though no one seriously challenged it with a rival grave. In a famous version of his passing, when lying wounded after his last battle, he tells Bedivere to cast Excalibur into a lake. The knight demurs twice but finally complies, whereupon a hand rises out of the water, catches the sword, and draws it under. The king is then taken away to an Avalon that is not defined, perhaps to be healed and wait undying till the hour comes for his return. His golden age may not be lost for ever, it may be reborn.
Throughout much of the medieval period, the romances enjoyed a large public among the aristocracy and upper middle classes. One reason was that women were gaining ground socially, and their literary tastes carried weight. Unlike the martial epics of earlier days, Arthurian fiction had something for everybody. The love-stories – Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Iseult – were a novelty, and while Guinevere was slow to mature as an interesting character, Iseult was always vivid and capable. Lords and ladies held "Round Table" entertainments at which the guests enacted Arthurian roles, feasted, and engaged in jousts and other suitable sports. Ironically, Arthur became a national hero of England, his role as enemy of the early English forgotten. Plantagenet sovereigns took him seriously. Edward I held five Round Table entertainments, and bolstered his claim to rule Scotland by saying Arthur had ruled Scotland. Edward III contemplated reviving the Arthurian knighthood, though, in the end, he founded the Order of the Garter instead.
The Arthurian wave gradually ebbed, but during the Wars of the Roses some of the best-known romances, most of them in French, were adapted by Sir Thomas Malory. More than an adapter, he made contributions of his own, one of them a great enhancement of Guinevere as a character. In 1485 Caxton edited and printed his writings, and Malory's version became the standard presentation of the cycle in English. It was the basis for many later works including Tennyson's Idylls of the King and the novels of T. H. White.
New perspectives, new departures
To sum up, the Arthurian Legend is a complex growth. Some of the stories belong to history, after a fashion. Some are myths and folk-tales that have been worked into the saga, and date from earlier ages as well as later. Some are barbaric, wild, timeless – products of bardic imagination. Some are due to the courtly romancers, and portray the king and those around him transformed into medieval figures. Stories appear on more than one level and in different forms. Even names vary widely and confusingly. "Drystan" and "Tristan" and "Tristram" all stand for the same person; so do "Medraut" and "Modred" and "Mordred"; so do "Gwenhwyfar" and "Guinevere" and "Ginevra"; so do "Essyllt" and "Iseult" and "Isolde".
Arthur can be pictured in quite a variety of ways. T. H. White, in The Once and Future King, was still sticking to Malory in the mid-twentieth century, though he superimposed modern ideas. But Arthurian authorship was already beginning to be affected by new research. Historians were re-examining sources, archaeologists were probing legendary sites.
An influential step had been taken in 1936 by R. G. Collingwood. Accepting Nennius's chapter on the battles, he suggested that Arthur was a Roman-style commander-in-chief who organized a cavalry corps and routed the pedestrian Saxons. The poet Charles Williams, and C. S. Lewis, adopted Collingwood's theory. Others thought the cavalry fanciful, but, for several decades, were prepared to endorse the military view, sometimes looking toward the early sixth century rather than the fifth for Arthur's main activities. At length more critical studies swung the pendulum back toward scepticism. However, the "historical Arthur" issue had been raised and could not be exorcized. Riotamus, who had been noticed as a possible original long before (long before Collingwood, as a matter of fact), was rediscovered in the 1980s.
Archaeology had results which many found more exciting. Though never a deliberate search for Arthur, it drew attention to three places outstandingly linked with him: Tintagel, the scene of his conception and presumably birth; Glastonbury, with its Grail associations and grave; and Cadbury Castle, a hill-fort reputed to have been the real Camelot. In all three cases, the connection does not appear in written records for many centuries. Yet in all three cases, excavation showed that the places were British-occupied and important in the appropriate period. While it revealed nothing about Arthur, it proved that the people who focused on these places knew something about them and located him credibly. A purely accidental three-out-of-three score would have been too much. Knowledge of Arthur's Britain clearly persisted through a vast stretch of time. The story-tellers, therefore, were entitled to a hearing on other counts also.
When researchers dug into the strata underlying romance, some critics complained that their work was either destructive or pointless. New creative writing inspired by it refuted them. Rosemary Sutcliff in Sword at Sunset, Mary Stewart in novels of Merlin, Persia Woolley and Bernard Cornwell and others, bypassed the medieval scene and tried to recapture the world of Arthur as it might have been in its post-Roman reality. Marion Zimmer Bradley, in The Mists of Avalon, invented a new myth of her own with a woman as narrator. John Arden and Margaretta D'Arcy in drama, John Heath-Stubbs in poetry, approached the subject by other paths again. Extension of knowledge has done no harm to the medieval cycle, which remains immortal literature. But it has enlarged and enriched the mythos itself with new insights into the enduring impression which Arthur and his companions have made.
It is because of this impression that "Arthurian Britain" is a meaningful term. Arthurian names, Arthurian lore, spread in a network over the land – a network of history and fantasy, poetry and romance, tradition and fable. Yet Arthurian Britain has an elusive quality. The map is unfamiliar. Oxford, Birmingham, Glasgow, do not appear on it. Zennor, Aberffraw, Drumelzier, do. Except at a few spectacular places like Tintagel, what often confronts the traveller is a kind of enigma: a landscape where a legend hovers; or some natural feature, an Arthur's Cave or Arthur's Hill; or a standing stone or fortification which is linked with his name or the name of someone in his circle. Why the legend, why the name? Even when a reason can be inferred, explanation may be in order.
Yet the quest is worth pursuing, the presence can be evoked. The tradition takes remarkable forms, clinging as it sometimes does to earthwork "castles" or hill-forts dating from the pre-Roman Iron Age, and to prehistoric structures older than that. With a few hill-forts such tales have a degree of substance, because they were re-occupied by Britons of Arthur's day. Sometimes, however, we get a name or a story only. We seldom know why the name was localized or when the story took shape. The process began more than a thousand years ago and has gone on into recent times.
It is striking that the Arthur of local legend appears as he does. He has very little fame in great cities and major historic settings. We are apt to find him in out-of-way places and on sites of immemorial age. Legend and folklore may belong to a half-barbaric fairyland, or carry echoes from unseen "Otherworld" realms of Celtic myth. Since the romantic image of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table has so long been the accepted one, it is strange how little impact it has had on place-lore. Moreover, most of the sites are in parts of Britain – the West Country, Wales, Cumbria, southern Scotland – where Celtic people, descendants of Arthurian Britons, kept their identity longest and in some cases keep it still. Even today, after all the literary development, Arthur's presence belongs mainly to regions where he could actually have flourished, not to the more English parts of England. As with the three archaeological sites, we glimpse a body of tradition that is rooted far back beyond the romances.
Sample two:


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