Here’s an ambitious song I’ve been working on for quite some time, this time about the glorious King Arthur. The song imagines the Britons marching behind King Arthur to the Battle of Badon in 537, where they fought and beat the Saxons who had been conquering Britain for over a century (though the details are debated, as is much of Arthurian history). As a half-Welshman, I have always been fascinated by our legendary Warrior King, so I felt compelled to dedicate a song to him.
I have incorporated elements of his legend (such as Excalibur and the Knights of Camelot) as an extra nod to his rich cultural contributions. The song is written in a reconstruction of Late Proto-Brythonic, otherwise known as Late Common British (or if you want to be absolutely precise, Common Archaic Neo-Brittonic). I wrote this once again by using comparative linguistics, supplemented with help from the works of David Willis and the late John Morris Jones on Brythonic philology. Very little is known about the hypothetical British language (which had many dynamic phases of change), but there is enough evidence from the historical corpus and comparisons between the modern Breton, Cornish and Welsh
languages to piece together a phonology and grammar.
In this song, I have taken a phonologically conservative stance appropriate for the 6th century, generally favouring long vowels over diphthongs in the relevant positions, while employing the initial consonant mutations so unique to the Celtic languages that were thought to have developed just prior to King Arthur’s time.
Once again, there may be some errors in my attempt, and I can’t (and wouldn’t) claim that my reconstruction is perfect; however, I’m at least pretty confident that it’s close to
the mark.