If you haven’t read Stephen Lawhead’s “Merlin/Arthur” series, you should.
It is without doubt the best example of outstanding Celtic researched fiction that’s been written.
I am certain that you are correct, and I respect your opinion.
Unfortunately, after that abominable Clive Owen movie "King Arthur", I think that I have lost my taste for Celtic Fiction. That's a Movie that I've been hoping that Hollywood would make for so long (an historical account of King Arthur -- the Christian-Roman General Arturias and his Christian-Roman knights against the Pagan Anglo-Saxons), that I was almost willing to overlook the legion of historical errors which they incorporated.
The Legend of King Arthur IS, in my opinion, a Story that needs to be told. But the Movie, in question, did NOT "perform as advertised", shall we say.
At least they got the Political feel of Britain right, I guess... a worthless and soggy island at the very end of the world where the hardened Christian Knights of Rome could finish out their last days of slave-service to Rome against the invincible killing-machine of the Pagan German hordes -- THAT much, they got right. THAT is the original germ-seed of the Arthur-Arturias Legend.
"Merlin" himself is a hard historical figure for whom to account; perhaps a Byzantine Priest or alchemist who bore the recipe for "Greek Fire" to the last legions of Christian-Roman Britain? It is impossible to say; for though we know that "Arturias" was a True Christian-Roman General of accomplishment, recorded in History, the enigmatic figure of "Merlin" is much harder to pin down -- and yet, ever-present. Perhaps "your guess is as good as mine".
I do know this much, though -- it was pure Hollywood Anti-Calvinism for the Screenwriter to pretend that General Arturias was a follower of the Free-Will-ArchHeretic Pelagius, when in fact the Augustine-Pelagius Free Will-Predestination controversy had already been settled, in Augustine's favor, at least eighty years before the Action of the Story; and what is more, the fact is that Pelagius was hardly beloved in Roman Britain; all accounts indicate that he fled to Rome to find a greater audience for his Free-Will Theories, BECAUSE the Roman Christians of Britain were so resolutely committed to Absolute Predestination that they did not WANT a Heretic preaching "Free Will" in their domain.
"The All-Father wove the skein of your life a long time ago.
Go and hide in a hole if you wish... but you won't live one instant longer.
Your Fate is fixed.
Fear profits a man... nothing."
~~ Herger the Joyous, The Thirteenth Warrior)
It was absolutely asinine for the Screenwriters to pretend that the Roman General Arturias was a follower of Free-Will Pelagianism eighty years after Pelagianism had been run out of Britain due to the Predestinarian British hatred of the Heretical Doctrine of Free-Will. And of course Pelagius was NOT burned at the Stake; he was merely Excommunicated from the Church; And I rather think that the Commanding General of Roman Britain, General "Arturias", probably would have heard about all this in the EIGHTY YEARS since the Augustine-Pelagius controversy. (Especially given that, as a good British Christian, he probably aligned himself with the argument for Absolute Predestination!)
And at the end of the day, the invincible Martian killing-machines swept away all in their path, thus forcing us to work together.
The rest is History, and I shall leave it to better men than myself to write it.
I have written what I have written, and you all may sort it out as best you can. God knows I could not -- given the time I had. I shall now retire -- and pray God's blessings upon you all.
Good night.
OP