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Ancient History

The Dark Side Of King Arthur & Other Disturbing Legends From History

dark side of king arthur

A Tangled Family Life

King Arthur ordered his own version of the biblical Massacre of the Innocents. Quite Irregular

When Arthur’s father Uther married his mother Igraine, she already had two daughters with her late husband Gorlois: Morgana le Fay, and Morgause. As a child, Arthur didn’t know his half-sisters, because he was raised not with his father and mother, but anonymously in the household of some knight. When he grew up, he ran into either Morgana or Morgause, and unaware of the family relationship, got it on with her and got her pregnant. The incestuous affair produced a son, Mordred.

Legendary - King Arthur's and Mordred's final duel
King Arthur’s and Mordred’s final duel. Wikimedia

The legendary king’s reaction to news that his sister had given birth to his son was pretty extreme. Taking a page of the Bible’s Massacre of the Innocents, Arthur ordered that all babies born on that day in Britain be slaughtered. Many babies were murdered, but Mordred wasn’t one of them. Understandably, the kid ended up with some serious daddy issues. He grew up to seduce Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, who thus cheated on the legendary monarch not only with his best friend, but with his son as well. After many adventures and travails, the toxic father-son relationship finally climaxed in a dramatic duel, in which both Mordred and King Arthur perished.

Written by

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.

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