Travel | Alternative Britain

King Arthur is on the Phone

On where the Druids come from and what they want

Image render by heywoody/Getty Images //via Canva

King Arthur is on the phone. He’s laughing hard at a story about the real roots of modern druidry. That’s Arthur Uther Pendragon, born John Timothy Rothwell, who sees himself as the reinvention of King Arthur’s spirit in the body of a modern-day warrior, biker, rabble-rouser, road protestor and, as English Heritage probably refer to him, ‘Stonehenge stakeholder’.

Arthur is talking about the National Eisteddfod, an event intertwined with the reinvention of druidry. “The first Eisteddfod wasn’t in Wales, or even in Welsh,” Arthur chuckles. “It was in English, on Primrose Hill in London.”

Arthur is referring to the Eisteddfod of 1792, the earliest agreed date for the rebirth of druidry (though some point to evidence of a gathering in 1717, held by Irish satirist John Toland). The history of modern druidry is full of twisted tales and diversions.

“The original druid revival was started by a couple of Christian priests,” says druid Adrian Rooke. English antiquarian and vicar William Stukeley and Welsh poet and literary forger Iolo Morganwg, who was as devoted to the Welsh Spiritualist Church as he was to druidry, brought druidry into the modern period.