CAMLANN
Cambala, Camball, Camblan, Cambul, Cambula, Camel, Camelford, Camlan, Kamblan, Kemelen

The site of Arthur's third and final battle between him and his usurping nephew Mordred, where Mordred was killed and Arthur mortally wounded.

The name Camlann comes from Welsh tradition, where its extensive proliferation indicates an actual battle was probably fought at some place with that name. These bardic tales, annotated in the Triads, portray a different conception of Camlann than what we have come to accept through Geoffrey of Monmouth and Malory. One Triad mentions the warrior Alan Fyrgan, who was apparently killed there after his warriors deserted him.

Another tells us that it was started when Guenevere’s sister, Gwenhwyfach (Gwenhwyach), struck Guenevere. A third suggests that Arthur’s defeat could be attributed to the method by which he divided his battalions. Some of these Triads probably developed after the Annales Cambriae, in which Camlann is listed in the year 537 as the battle where "Arthur and Medraut fell." The Annales, contrary to later tradition, do not indicate whether Arthur and Medraut (Mordred) were fighting on opposite sides.

The location of the battle has been subject to many interpretations. Geoffrey gave the site of the final battle as the river Camel in Cornwall; Layamon specifies the town of Camelford. A majority of scholars seems to accept this identification. Another suggestion involves the river Cam near Cadbury. Since cam is the Celtic word for 'crooked', it is a root of a number of rivers. A possible source for the name is Camboglanna, meaning 'crooked bank'. Camboglanna belongs to a town in Rheged and has been proposed as the site of Camlann by proponents of Arthur as a northern hero. Camelon in Scotland is another possibility.

The Vulgate Mort Artu substitutes Salisbury for the location of the final battle, which Malory follows. Counterpart locations in other sources include Trent, Urbano, the Humber, Ireland, and Lyonesse.

The name corresponds to the British Camboglanna 'crooked bank' (i.e., of a river), or less probably Cambolanda 'crooked enclosure'. There is a place called Camlan today, a valley in Merioneth with a small river flowing down it, but several rivers have the "crooked" element in their names. Geoffrey of Monmouth chooses the Camel in Cornwall. Another candidate is the Somerset Cam, which is nearby Cadbury-Camelot. A multiple burial is said once to have come light in the fields below the hill. The original British form Camboglanna is actually found as the name of a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, allegedly though questionably Birdoswald, high above the River Irthing, which runs through a valley and is suitably crooked. Naturally, this fort has been favored as the site.

Wherever the battle was, it may be accepted as historical. The question is whether the involvement of Arthur is also historical. On the face of it, this is a different case from that of Badon, because bards would have wished to connect him with a victory but not with a dismal inter-British quarrel. Perhaps, then, the facts were too clear to set aside. Yet an Arthurian battle in 539 (no other source offers any alternative) seems very late; it is suspect because the same chronicle almost certainly errs about Badon; and it is further suspect in view of evidence from the Welsh saints' lives that legend did come to involve Arthur in activities extending far into the sixth century, activities that were certainly fictious.

Nevertheless, some scholars have picked out the Camlann entry in the Annales as the one reliable Arthurian statement, partly because it is free from manifest legend, partly on the ground that, although it occurs in a tenth-century text, it was copied (or may plausibly be supposed to have been copied) from a contemporary record. But the form of the name tells against this argument. If it started as Camboglanna, it would have become Camlann in Welsh, but it would have passed through an intermediate form Camglann and taken a long time doing so. Hence, the Annales entry mentioning "Camlann" is not contemporary or anything like it. A copyist might have modernized the older spelling, but it cannot be proved that the older spelling was there for him to modernize.