%0 Manuscript essay %A Rácz Bálint %E Dean Michael %D 1999 %G English %T The Man Beyond the Legend Was King Arthur a Real Person or Only a Man of Legend? %U http://diploma.bibl.u-szeged.hu/id/eprint/77115/1/1999_racz_balint.pdf %X King Arthur is a man of mystery and legend. His tales have been told and retold by numerous generations. He has fascinated countless storytellers, novelists, poets and screen writers alike. But did this man ever exist? Surely legends that have lasted so many centuries had to have had strong beginnings. The man called Arthur did exist but his legendary deeds are doubted just like the highest rank given to him by storytellers as being king. The real Arthur was not quite the romantic hero that we have imagined several times reading, hearing or seeing his stories, though he was definitely a hero of the Britons. Unfortunately, we do not abound in the written evidence from the Dark Ages and when attempting to clarify Arthur's identity we should turn to the only existing historical sources. These manuscripts and texts suggest that at the time of the Anglo-Saxon conquest there surely were three people who fit to the figure of the legendary Arthur. None of them was king but they were all brave warriors whose deeds might have been the base of the historic poems and stories which later culminated into the Arthurian legends. This paper endeavours to give the reader all the existin g information available about these warriors and examine th' evidence dug up and concluded by historians to make it clear: Arthur of history and Arthur of legend are not the same people.