it is complicated mike, it cost alot of lifes to, but i know where your coming from! sorry if my fore fathers expelled you skip and you would be welcome anytime! emmets? i never heard off.

I for one would not be in favour of having my ugly mug anywhere on this board.Some of my friends don't know why i visit Amsterdam.The last thing that i want is for them to find out.Embarasment City.

You had to be there at the time mate.

woah, wait a sec..Did I hear skipexcalibur mention that "It was England when it counted... in Arthur's day" !! It most certainly was NOT!!

Britain in Arthurs day was Britain, as in the country inhabited by the Celtic Britons...England came about due to the germanic invaders taking a large part of Britain and drving the natives to the fringes...i.e. Wales and northern england and scotland...hmppf!

Weeeeelllllll, if one were to be pedantic...

Being a sheep fancier, you no doubt know, and are alluding to the idea that many peole think that Arthur means aB Uther because the celtic R was written like a French B and the two became mixed up in written records around 1066 when French became the official language for a bit. Except it never really caught on. thank God. Ab beng Welsh for "Son Of". Hence Arthur's dad was Uther Pendragon. Pen meaning chief and dragon meaning warrior.

Basically, Arthur's name meant, "son of Uther the big bad guy of the village". A Welshman. like you.

England merely means Ingle Land (or Angle Land). the Angles (Ingles) are from Friesland in Holland, so called because they worshiped Ingle the pagan God of Fertility.

At that time (whenever that time was exactly, we do not know) England had several small kingdoms such as Mercia and Wessex. There was no "England" as such, it was probably just a generic sort of name. There was no collective English concienceness or identitiy. In fact the North and East of England was under "DaneLaw" (The Norse basically) and it shows in my area of the country to this day.

So, I agree, there was no England as such at that time and Britain is even more confusing. Britain was the roman name for the Island, and would havefell into disuse largely. But Brittany (North France) was also called Brittain and is still stubbornly called so by many French people. Some say it was a Roman Name from the god Britania, BUT what I want to know is, were the people of Northern France and England all called "Britains" first, and "Britannia" an adopted God into the roman religion; or were the people named after the God and the land named after the people who inhabited it.

Chicken or egg? Answers on a postcard please...