Every once in a while, I come across a story that I think is interesting or funny or just worth telling but that doesn’t fit into my main post. I’ll offer these stories in episodes of From the Cutting Room Floor, available to paid subscribers only.
Part of what makes the story of Saint Geraint complex is that there is another, 8th century King of Cornwall who was also called Geraint. We learn about him from the Saxon historian, Saint Bede, who tells us that this Geraint fell in battle with Ine the Saxon in 710. Obviously it’s tempting to conclude that this battle took place at Llongsborth, but that makes the association with King Arthur impossible, and the dating for the battle elegy of Saint Geraint doesn’t work out either.
So it’s likely that there were several kings of Cornwall named Geraint. And after all, the Saxons raided Cornwall for a very long time.
The King Geraint who died in 710 had a correspondence with a particularly surly Saxon Bishop named Aldhelm - but you can’t deny that he knows how to craft a violent metaphor.