Elsewhere, Arthur is described not as a king but as a great warrior (Dux Bellorum, or leader of battles) fighting alongside the British kings rather than noted as one himself; he fought twelve battles against the Saxons and won them all. Our sources do hint at a British revival or survival – certainly a number of former Roman towns were still functioning and in British hands, and ancient hillforts were reoccupied as elite residences.
AD 539 – The conflict at Camlann in which Arthur and Medraut perished; and there was pestilence in Britain and Ireland.
Another early reference exists in the northern British war poem Y Gododdin; Arthur is mentioned in just one line, describing a different warrior:
He glutted black ravens on the wall / of
