Everyone is familiar with King Arthur and the Knights if the Round Table. Intrigued as we are when we look for the inspiration for these tales we really do not find an adequate source. Searching the Norse and Celtic mythos we fail to find any meaningful parallels. Looking back in History and further to the East, we find that the Romans conscripted several tribes to fight for them and settled them in different parts of Europe. The tribes were all inter related. Scythian, Sarmatians, Iazagese ,Ossetians and Alans.
Not much remains of these tribes. The Ossetians who live in Georgia are descended from the Alans. With them came the Nart Sagas. The Nart Sagas focus around Batraz, who avenges his father to claim kingship. He is aided by a sword and there is a grail like object that he is questing for. Once Batraz dies he commands a warrior underneath him to cast the sword into the lake. This is very similar to the King Arthur mythology. There is the pulling of sword from a stone and retuning it to the source.
The parallels are with near eastern mythology from northern Iran. The Scythians were horseback warrior who hailed from the Iranians steps south of Siberia. They are the ones who spread burial mounds through out Europe . They were called the Lizard People due to the scales on their armor. After they settled in motifs started showing scaly warriors. The Sarmatians flew a dragon banner when doing into battle. Hence we can see the source of Pendragon or son of the dragon. The burial mound would have stones with swords driven into them with only the rightful heir being able to pull them out.
These parallels are not found in Celtic or any neighboring mythology. Arthur was modeled off of Batraz.Batraz lost his father as did Arthur and he had to claim the sword and avenge his father in Order to get his kingdom. Lancelet as well is a reflection of Batraz as well. The lady of the lake correspond to Lady of the Lake. Seems that many motifs come from Ancient Persia.
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