From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail (Arthurian Characters and Themes) [Library Binding]

C. Scott Littleton (Author), Linda A. Malcor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1994 | Series: Arthurian Characters and Themes

This volume boldly proposes that the core of the Arthurian and Holy Grail traditions derived not from Celtic mythology, but rather from the folklore of the peoples of ancient Scythia (what are now the South Russian and Ukrainian steppes). Also includes 19 maps.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Teachers of Arthurian sources to undergraduates will find it a useful reference." -- Choice

About the Author

C. Scott Littleton is professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at occidental College in Los Angeles, California. He is the author of numerous books and articles on comparative Indo-European mythology, including the The New Comparative Anthology: An Anthropological Assesment of the Theories of Georges Dumezil (3rg Edition, 1982). He has also published extensively on Japanese Mythology and Folklore.
Linda A. Malcor is a California-based free-lance writer and researcher. She holds a Ph.D. in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA and occassionally teaches and lectures on the Arthurian legends. In addition to scholarly publications, she writes fantasy fiction and screenplays.

Product Details

• Library Binding: 424 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (May 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815314965
• ISBN-13: 978-0815314967
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,182,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars King Arthur was a North Iranian named Batraz?!, December 22, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Fremont, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail (Arthurian Characters and Themes) (Library Binding)

To laypersons with a passing interest in history and archaeology this book will seem both puzzling and difficult to swallow. The authors Littleton and Malcor don't claim to have all of the answers, but put forward an interesting and plausible theory regarding the origins of Arthurian legends. I heard about their work from an issue of Archaeology magazine and managed to purchase their book at one-third the price from a friend at a bookstore. The Roman occupation of Britain is a well known bit of history because without the Roman conquests there the world as we know it would have been a radically different place. What is not well known is that the Romans used Scythian horsemen as their primary occupation force (while stationing British conscripts in other lands). From the Scythians and their stories of Batraz (a hero king of the Caucasian people whose primary descendents today are the Ossetians) Arthurian legends came to be. Also worthy of mention is the daring theory about Lancelot being of Alannic extraction. What is presented is the impact of Iranian-speaking peoples (whose better known cousins established themselves in the Near East from Kurdistan to western Pakistan) upon European culture as part of Roman armies and "barbarian" hordes. These people are a fascinating and little known Indo-European peoples who were assimilated into the general populations of Europe, but live again thanks to the work of scholars like Littleton and Malcor. An interesting work that deserves far more recognition from people interested in Arthurian legends, the various peoples of the Eurasian steppes, or radical theories made plausible.

55 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Deconstructualist's Heaven, January 7, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail (Arthurian Characters and Themes) (Paperback)

While it makes for an interesting read as an opposing point of view to the current ideas concerning the origins of Arthurian literature, the authors, in their attempt to "deconstruct" the Arthurian myth and cut it clean from Celtic studies, often make outstanding leaps in logic (without sufficiently reliable sources being cited) and quite often mangle the Celtic evidence (which they are trying to discredit) by utilyzing incorrect etymologies of Celtic words and ignoring Celtic literary themes and archaeological evidence which would tend to discredit their Iranian-origin theories. By throwing the baby out with the bath water, they weaken their argument, for it has been consistently proved by other authors in recent years that there is, without a doubt, a strong Celtic influence over the entire genre of Arthurian literature. This shaky scholarship, coupled with a printing that is riddled with spelling/graphical errors unfortunatley leads to a strong warning of caution to any potential reader.

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Horrible history, funny to read, August 8, 2007

By 

psycho_reader (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail (Arthurian Characters and Themes) (Paperback)

I am a student of medieval history, and in fact am working on a research paper right now to determine if there was any kind of cultural influence on the Scots/northern British. I must say that this theory is the most ridiculous I've ever seen. In relation to cavalry, Malcor and Littleton completely ignore the fact that the Celts, Romans and Germans had cavalry, in most places before any contact was made with Sarmatians. Effective battle tactics are much more likely to be adopted than foreign legends. This alone negates their theory.

I emailed Dr. Malcor when I began my research because of the difficulty in finding information on the Sarmatians specifically; most of it was on the Scythians. She replied with the name Sulimirski, who I've read since and his own research contradicts hers. She sent one additional tidbit. There is a genetic study being conducted on families in Scotland, along the Hadrian's Wall area, and in NE Ireland. This study has found genetic markers unique to Eastern Asian and Scandinavian peoples. Malcor emphasizes the Eastern Asian connection, and pushes the idea that it is from the Sarmatians. However, any person even casually familiar with British/Irish history know 1.that Scandinavians settled, raped and raided in Scotland and Ireland both for centuries. A few thousand Sarmatians will not make that kind of difference. 2.The frequent movement between Scotland, Britain and Ireland, with settlements and marriage. Centuries of settlement and marriage will make a larger impact than a few foreign imports. These are more compelling facts than the Sarmatian theory.

Last, although Melcor and Littleton choose to emphasize the work of Sulimirski, they neglect to mention that of the 5,500 Sarmatian cavalry troops sent to the Hadrian's Wall area, and this is the only place they were sent by Marcus Aurelius, he acknowledges that 5000 of them are unaccounted for. The little settlement at Ribchester they make so much of was a typical veterans settlement, which would have only had 500-1000 veterans. The others disappeared from both history and Roman records. Most likely they were killed in combat or deserted.

The other assertion they had was that the Sarmatian/Alan cavalry was the inspiration and direct ancestor for the well-known medieval "knight in shining armor". The question I asked myself the entire time was "why did it take more than 1000 years for this kind of knight to develop in Europe?" It seems obvious that if both tribes had the kind of influence in Britain and Gaul that Melcor and Littleton insist on, the prototypical knight would have developed much sooner.

The shoddy research and manipulation of facts were very funny to read. If you want a good joke, by all means read this book. But if you want historical fact or plausible theory, leave it strictly alone.