by Hugh McArthur
ARTHUR is described in Welsh as Guledig (war leader), in Latin as Dux Bellorium (Duke of Battles) and in the first few pages of Mallory’s Morte d’Artur, as a Chieftain. In later literature he is described as King or even High King of the Britons. He was also the Pendragon, the head dragon. Arthur was a horse warrior, and one theory suggests that his dragons (Dragoons) rode with their spears upright capped with streaming dragon heads which whistled in the wind and roared under gallop.
The Annales Cambriae record that the legendary Arthur fell at the Battle of Camlann in 537AD. The Life of Saint Columba (521 – 597AD) states that Artur MacAedan (son of the King of Scots) died in battle against the Maetae in 590AD. He would have been about 45 years old, an age which corresponds to the legends, but due to the discrepancy on his date of death alone, it appears that these two characters cannot be one and the same, or are they?