Chapter 1: Dr Daniel Jackson

We're going on a bear hunt.
We're going to catch a big one.
What a beautiful day!
We're not scared.

. . .

Daniel rushed down the concrete corridor from his lab and narrowly missed his research assistant Nyan in the process. Haphazardly juggling a pile of stuffed folders and books his mind was on the briefing in six minutes as he took the elevator down nine floors. Bouncing into the briefing room he was relieved to see his team present but not General Hammond so he had time to set up his presentation and hopefully put his notes into better order.

The data projector was already up and running—the doing of a technician or Sam he assumed—so he just had to plug in the flash drive with his presentation on it into the laptop and in a few clicks had it up on screen. That done, Daniel finished putting the collection of photographs, papers, books, and field journal into better order before General Hammond made his appearance.

"Dr Jackson," Hammond stated as he took his seat at the head of the table. "As you arranged this briefing, why don't you begin?"

"Right, thanks," Daniel replied happily. He got out of his chair, dimmed the lights, and standing beside the screen brought up the first slide of his presentation. In the picture's foreground was a DHD and stretching out over the landscape far over the horizon was row upon row of standing stones of assorted shapes ranging in height from knee tall to a quarter taller than a man. "Well, as you know sixteen days ago we were scheduled to go to P3B-327 but SG-5 was the one to perform the exploration mission and make contact with the native population."

"Because you got a cold," Jack teased from the table.

Daniel was irritated by the interruption and wasn't afraid to show it as he narrowed his eyes at Jack. "Dr Fraiser diagnosed me with the onset of nasopharyngitis and restricted SG-1's off-world travel until the labs confirmed the virus had cleared my system."

"You got a cold Daniel," Jack repeated.

Daniel ignored Jack this time as well as the half smile Sam hid and the eyebrow Teal'c lifted, to continue, "P3B-237—called Aballo by the natives—had been marked for exploration because UAV survey of the planet revealed extensive megalithic alignments radiating out from the stargate platform. Megalithic constructions occurred in Europe between 5000 and 1200 BC and as Ra's domination of Earth ended in 3000 BC it is quite reasonable to assume the natives were transported from somewhere in Europe to Aballo sometime between 5000 and 3000 BC and continued to practice their megalithic tradition, which accounts for the extent of the megalithic alignments."

Daniel paused in his lecture to take a look at those he was addressing. General Hammond as usual looked politely interested and Sam looked expectant. Teal'c looked intrigued, but it was a toss-up between interest in Earth's history or P3B-237's history and Jack, well Jack was looking just plain mystified and he wondered where he had lost the man.

"Hold on," Jack pointed to the picture of row upon row of standing stones on the screen, "alignments? What are you talking about Daniel?"

Daniel suppressed a sigh at Jack's confusion and answered, "An alignment is a linear arrangement of upright, parallel megalithic standing stones set at intervals along a common axis or series of axes. Alignments may be individual or grouped and three or more stones aligned constitute an alignment."

Jack frowned at him.

Daniel did sigh and resisted rolling his eyes. "A row of standing stones."

"Well, next time, just say that," Jack gave him an exasperated look.

"Doctor, if you would continue," Hammond intervened.

Giving the general a grateful nod, Daniel resumed speaking. "The natives, who call themselves Leode, carve selected stones in two distinctive ways. The first style is with curvilinear art—stones with circles, spirals, arcs, serpentine-forms, and dot-in-circles—and the oldest stones with this art also all have defaced areas of iconoclasm. The second tradition is runestones: that is stones with runic inscriptions. Curiously on Earth, the erection of runstones occurred between 700 and 1000 AD." Daniel saw the increased exasperation on Jack's face and jumped ahead in his presentation.

"Anyway, SG-5 reported that the Leode explained that their ancestors were captured by a ram-horned demon from Mittilagart and brought to Aballo one hundred seventy-seven generations ago. Then twenty generations ago a hero came to Aballo and rescued the Leode from their servitude to the ram-horned demon."

"Which means?" Jack crocked an eyebrow and waved a hand about.

"Mittilagart is one of the Old Norse variants for Earth which confirms they came from here. One hundred seventy-seven generations calculates to roughly 3300 BC, and then in about 600 AD—twenty generations ago—someone freed the Leode from goa'uld servitude."

"Do they, or we, know who the goa'uld was?" Sam looked interested.

"Thankfully, yes we do even though the Leode engaged in iconoclasm following the goa'uld's expulsion. The goa'uld's mark was recorded on the giant megalith erected to commemorate the goa'uld's downfall." Daniel began clicking through his presentation, bypassing some pictures showing stones with areas chiselled out, in search of the stone he had just mentioned. He stopped at a picture that detailed an area of a giant stone standing twice the height of a man—as indicated by the SG-5 commander Major Barlow in the frame—with runes painted red.

"I see the mark of the System Lord Camulus," Teal'c observed as his lips thinned.

"Right, it is Camulus's mark," Daniel cheerfully affirmed as he gestured to the mark in question carved into the rock amidst the straight bands of runic writing. "Now the reason that this mark was not defaced was because writing is sacred to the Leode because the hero was the one that gave writing to them. The runes themselves are called futhorc—the runic writing style that the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians used from between 400 and 1000 AD on Earth—which allowed me to translate the inscriptions that SG-5 recorded and explains the two distinctive art styles on the megaliths. The Leode carved circles and spirals under Camulus control as he probably banned literacy like Ra, and they carved runic inscriptions once freed by the hero."

"Does this hero have a name?" Jack tapped a finger tip against the tabletop.

"Yes," Daniel beamed at Jack in happiness at that question, "while the Leode simply carved the mark of Camulus and thus in the passing one hundred forty years lost his name, they wrote out the name of their hero: Arto-rig!"

Daniel wilted slightly when he saw that his grand announcement only earned him blank looks from Jack, Sam, and Teal'c and an expectant look from General Hammond. Drawing a breath he launched into his theory, "Arto-rig means 'bear-king' and is one of the etymological roots of the name Arthur. The Leode call P3B-237 'Aballo' which means 'apple' and it is one of the etymological roots of the word Avalon. According to the inscription, in the one hundred seventy-sixth generation the hero Arthur and maiden warriors came to Avalon, battled Camulus, and won the freedom of the Leode."

"Wait," Jack held up a hand, "you're saying that King Arthur freed those people? King Arthur of the Round Table? The guy whose wife screw—er, messed around on him?"

Daniel frowned at the crass summarization of the Arthurian legend but nodded. "I know it sounds crazy," he said as he turned the lights back up, moved to the table, and picked up one of the books he had brought to the briefing, "but everything just fits. The first mention of Arthur is in the 10th-century text Annales Cambriae, or The Annals of Wales," Daniel hefted the now open book he was holding to indicate it was the book in question and then looking down he translated aloud: "'The Strife of Camlann in which Arthur and Medraut perished.'"

Daniel looked back up from the book to the interested faces of Sam, Teal'c and General Hammond and Jack's scepticism. "The Strife, or Battle, of Camlann is dated to 537 AD and the Leode method of measuring by generations is by no means precise, so while I have said 600 AD for Arthur's arrival, it most likely means the late 500s. On Earth, it is said that after the battle at Camlann that King Arthur was taken by four enchantresses to Avalon to recover from his wounds and would return at a later time to rule again. On Aballo, the inscriptions say that after battling Camulus, Arthur and four score of maiden warriors travelled south to a cave of healing and would return to rule again."

"A cave?" Jack muttered beneath his breath. "I thought it was Merlin that got stuck in a cave."

"Stuck?" Daniel was puzzled for a moment. "Oh, you mean his enchanted imprisonment by the Lady of the Lake. Different prisons are variously described: yes a cave, but also a large rock, an invisible tower, or a tree."

"Ha!" Jack looked smug. "Always knew trees were dangerous."

Sam leaned forward, elbowing her commander, and addressed Daniel. "Wow, when you put it like that Daniel that does sound quite coincidental."

"I agree," Hammond nodded even as his brow furrowed, "however, Dr Jackson, I fail to see the purpose of what you have just told us."

"Don't you see General? If Earth's Arthur and Aballo's Arthur are one and the same, it could be the greatest revelation since the discovery of the stargate! More, it could help us. Arthurian legend speaks of Excalibur, a sword that cuts steel and blinds enemies and a scabbard that heals and those aren't the only weapons associated with him." Daniel picked up the remote again and clicked back to the full picture of the giant stone with its red painted runes. "Arthur of P3B-237 fought a goa'uld system lord and won and then he did not leave P3B-237 but went south—there is no telling what technologies he had with him or what we might discover if we look for him."

. . .

Uh-uh! Grass!
Long wavy grass.
We can't go over it.
We can't go under it.
Oh no!
We've got to go through it!

. . .

Daniel bounced through the wormhole to sunny P3B-237 and skipped down the platform steps, thrilled that General Hammond had agreed to a follow up exploration of P3B-237 by SG-1 to investigate his theory. Once his feet hit dirt, he stopped and just marvelled at the sight before him. The stargate was encircled by twelve giant stones of rough rectangular shape that matched the device in height. Outside the stone circle stood the magnificent runestone commemorating Arthur's victory over Camulus and stretching out east, rows of standing stones dominated the grassy landscape and disappeared over the horizon.

The megaliths near Carnac, France was the closest Earth came to supporting the same number of stones as this planet but even that was a piddling three thousand stones to the sixteen thousand stones that had been surveyed on P3B-237 with the UAV.

He would love to have time to catalogue and examine the landscape, but that was not the purpose of this visit. They were here to locate, and possibly visit, the cave that Arthur had travelled to. Behind him he heard the sound of his teammates tromping down the platform, and once Sam had checked the DHD and radioed a status report back to Earth, the wormhole shut down with its signature sound.

"Explain to me again how we're supposed to know which way south King Arthur went?" Jack stopped beside him to complain as he used a crooked thumb to point south. "South is a lot of ground to cover Daniel and on this planet leads straight into a mountain range."

Daniel looked in the cardinal direction Jack indicated. The south was visually dominated by mountains that surged to the sky and uniquely had no intervening foothills, simply running from wavy grasslands, to alpine forests on the mountainsides, to snowy peaks. It created a stunning vista.

"I have to agree with the Colonel, Daniel," Sam stopped on his other side with her UTD out and pointed south, free hand shading the small screen from the sunlight. "SG-5 didn't get any unusual energy readings while they were here, and I'm not either."

"Which is why, as I said earlier," Daniel explained, "that our first stop is in the Leode village to speak with Headman Bjorn about the runestone erected in memorial of his grandfather. SG-5 did not photograph the runestone well enough for a good translation but I could make out that on it Bjorn's grandfather tells of how he travelled south to the Cave of Artio."

"Who's Artio?" Jack asked. "I thought we were looking for King Arthur."

"Artio is a diminutive and related to other etymological sources of the name Arthur," Daniel explained. "SG-5 also mentioned that it is also the name that the Leode address the hero by."

"Well then, onward to speak with the head by all means." Jack gestured at the beaten path that led east towards the Leode village beyond the horizon. Putting his sunglasses on and adjusting the brim of his cap, he set off.

Daniel fell in line behind Jack, and Sam and Teal'c fell in line behind him. Daniel felt the team soon hit their stride as they left the stargate behind. Even weighed down with field packs and weapons, they made good progress over the easy terrain and moved a bit faster than if they were the ones performing initial recon into unknown territory. To either side of them the rows of stones ranging in height from three to nine feet and various widths and shapes, rectangles, rounded, and pillars, stood.

It was not long before they came upon more signs of habitation besides the forest of standing stones they walked among—grazing cows with belled collars. But not modern cows that one saw on Earth, but aurochs with lyre-shaped horns set at a forward angle and pale stripe down the spine, the greater than man-sized males with black coats and smaller females and calves with reddish coats.

"Well, those aren't something you see every day," Jack waved a hand at one of the aurochs grazing on the grasses amongst the stones as they walked passed.

"Cows Sir?" Sam sounded like she doubted their leader's intelligence and worried about offending.

"Rock art cows," Jack elaborated.

Daniel lifted an eyebrow in amazement and could not resist saying, "I'm surprised that you know aurochs feature in prehistoric artwork on Earth, like the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in France."

Jack opened his mouth to retort but to Daniel's surprise snapped it shut without saying anything as the man cast a scowling look over his shoulder and picked up the pace.

Walking further they encountered more aurochs and began seeing sheep and boy shepherds with their dogs. Most of the boys just watched them pass, but some waved and Daniel cheerfully waved back.

Daniel figured they had covered two klicks when SG-1 crested a small rise in the landscape and the megaliths petered out down the slope. They could see clearly the large collection of circular homes with conical thatched roofs that made up the Leode village near a river half a klick away. From here to the riverbank, and across the river for another klick, fields marked the landscape. Where the fields across the river ended, megalithic alignments rose up again and marched over the horizon once again.

Village in sight now, the distance and time to it passed quickly. When they reached its bustling boarders, SG-1 was enveloped by a small crowd of excited and curious Leode in their Bronze Age style clothing of long-sleeved tunics, trousers, and long skirts for the women. The natives swiftly conducted them to Bjorn's house upon learning they wished to speak with the headman.

The pace through the village did not give Daniel any time to examine the elaborate geometric artwork with stylised animal heads carved into the wooden walls of the homes. He found it quite fascinating that the Leode had at some time begun constructing their walls of wood and not wad-and-dab like traditional Earth Bronze Age homes and yet retained the circular shapes.

One of the Leode ducked through the cloth door into the headman's hut and re-emerged with a large man whose russet hair and beard was turning grey that appeared in his late eighties.

"Hail and welcome! I am Bjorn, headman here," the man greeted them with hand outstretched, grey eyes cheerful as he looked them over.

"Hello, I'm Daniel Jackson," Daniel responded as his hand was taken by Bjorn for a firm and enthusiastic shake. "This is Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Sam Carter, and Teal'c."

"Ah, brothers and sister of Major Barlow I see," Bjorn shook Jack, Sam, and Teal'c's hand in turn with cheerful enthusiasm. "What brings you to our village?"

Daniel launched passionately into detailing his interest in Leode history and the reason for SG-1's visit and was pleased that Bjorn seemed so happy with his fascination with the Leode cultural hero. Happy and willing to speak and share what he knew.

"You say you wish to see my grandfather's memorial so see it you shall and I shall do my best to do the tale justice," Bjorn declared. "It is unfortunate that our skald has gone to visit the village of his wife's family, for he would be able to speak with greater skill of Artio and the great deeds performed. But come, come."

Bjorn led the four of them from the village and Daniel made sure to walk beside the headman to ask the man about his grandfather as they walked back into the grassy forest of standing stones. Daniel learned that Bjorn had only been a boy when his grandfather had passed but recounted what memories he had with great fondness.

They walked for about fifteen minutes, passing plain and carved stones that were like large boulders or tapered pillars. They stopped before a squared off megalith that stood six feet tall and was marked on the south face by rows of futhorc writing crisply painted in red bound by curving runic bands ending in animal heads. Circular art had been absorbed back into the Leode artistic tradition some generations ago.

Daniel was so excited as he trailed his fingers over the runes that he began to read aloud immediately: "Stygur gaerdi kumbl pau aft Oyvind—"

Jack loudly cleared his throat and interrupted him.

"What?" Daniel frowned at Jack.

"I'm sure what you just said was fascinating, but do you think you could find out whatever you want to find out and then tell us?" he said pointedly.

"Ah, oh, alright," Daniel looked from Jack back to the inscribed megalith.

"Good. Well you do your stuff, we'll be... securing the perimeter," Jack declared. "Gotta watch out for those cows. Teal'c? You know anything about cows?"

"Nothing," Teal'c stated.

Jack gestured in a sweeping arch to indicate the surroundings and the two warriors retreated amongst the standing stones.

Daniel watched them leave and when he looked to Sam, his eyes caught hers and they shared a look of amusement. Looking from Sam to Bjorn he was further amused, and exasperated, by the perplexed look on the headman's face who had become another victim of Jack's skewed humour. "Sam?"

"I think they'll do fine taking care of the... perimeter, without me," Sam grinned. "Besides, I want to hear about this cave."

Daniel smiled happily as he turned back to the inscribed megalith and gestured Bjorn closer so they could talk. Then he launched into his first question, about the origin of the stone, and he and Sam were soon involved in deep conversation with Bjorn about the history of the stone and the history of the man it memorialised.

. . .

Swishy swashy!
Swishy swashy!
Swishy swashy!

. . .

SG-1 and Bjorn, fifty minutes later, were standing south-east of the 'gate in a different section of standing stones a good distance away from Bjorn's grandfather's memorial and the village. The megaliths here stood in higher grass not grazed by aurochs or sheep and were worn by age and time without even traces of pigment colouring the straight lined inscriptions.

"So, you're absolutely certain that this rock," Jack pointed to a pillar stone as tall as he, with a notch carved on its west side, "points the way to King Arthur."

"Absolutely," Daniel affirmed. "Take Callanish on the coast of Scotland's Isle of Lewis for example, its stones have notches and angles cut into many of them which creates sightlines used for astronomical alignments—"

"Daniel," Jack growled.

He adjusted his glasses. "The point is that like on Earth, the people here notched stones to create specific sightlines. Bjorn mentioned while we were translating the runestone that his grandfather had told him that the Cave had been found by finding a notched stone that did not point to the sun or moon. While talking with me and Sam, Bjorn realised that was not something that their skald speaks of when telling the tale."

"Aye," Bjorn nodded and sent his shaggy russet hair flying, "I am sorry to say that I had not realised it till this day. Many a young man has tried to find the Cave—from before and since my grandfather's time and only a few have succeeded. I myself never tried, but ah, it would have been a wondrous thing."

"And this stone," Daniel ran his finger along the edge of the notch, "Bjorn tells me is the only notched stone near the stargate—there are no other notched stones on this side of the river."

Jack looked doubtfully from him to the stone to Bjorn and back to him again.

Daniel could see that Jack was sceptical, in particular about the headman remembering now and not decades ago about a notched stone being the clue they needed. "Jack, I'm confident that this stone shows us the way. Bjorn also says that as far as he knows, this notch has no lunar or solar alignment and there is nothing significant about the area of the southern mountains it lines up with."

Jack this time looked at Sam and when she nodded, he sighed and grumbled, "Alright, we'll give it a try. Carter, get our bearing from the rock, and let's be on our way."

Daniel beamed happily at Jack as Sam set to work. Farewells were swiftly exchanged and SG-1 left Bjorn and the megalithic alignments behind and walked south into the open grassland. Teal'c led now with staff weapon at the ready, with himself and Sam flanking to visually cover more area, and Jack brought up the rear.

Daniel found himself listening to the rhythmic swishy swashy sound the team made in the knee high grasses as they walked, disturbing the insect life as they moved. Already warm and lightly perspiring from the warm sunlight and journey from the 'gate to the village and back to the 'gate again, he was grateful when a breeze began to blow in their faces from the south-east, coming over the mountains.

His eyes ranged over the grasses they walked through, to the green alpine forested sides of the mountains that were their destination. It took him some distance to realise that the grasses had inched up in height, first to his knees and then over his knees up his thighs, the swishy swashy sound louder now.

After noticing that, he found himself rubbing under his nose. From there the itchiness seemed to spread, from his nose, to his eyes that began to burn, and then to his throat. The itch in his throat was followed by noisy throat clearings and then one loud sneeze.

Daniel mentally groaned at the all too familiar symptoms affecting him—accustomed since childhood to the dreaded sensation of hay fever. Blinking against the burning of his eyes, that sneeze was followed by more sneezing and Daniel started searching his vest pockets for his handkerchief. He'd used it earlier and absentmindedly stuffed it away, so it wasn't in its usual pocket. Finding it, he blew his nose loudly.

Jack sighed with loud aggravation behind him. "Daniel, I thought the Doc said you were over your cold."

"I am—she did!" Daniel protested and then sneezed. "This isn't a—achoo!—cold."

"I think I have to agree with him Sir," Sam cast him a sympathetic look as she waved a hand at the grass they were walking in. "I think what Daniel's experiencing is his allergies—hay fever."

"Oh, for cryin' out loud," Jack exasperatedly exclaimed from behind. "Daniel, I thought you took stuff for that."

"I—achoo!—do, and I took it before we left," Daniel sniffled, handkerchief in one hand as he reached for his vest pocket that held his extra antihistamines. "But there must be something in this grass that's worse than usual."

"Do we need to return to the stargate DanielJackson?" Teal'c solicited from ahead.

"No, no," Daniel waved his handkerchief in the air and then blew his nose. "I should be fine if I take more antihistamines, thanks Teal'c."

Finding the packet of antihistamines, Daniel tucked his handkerchief into that pocket for the moment so he could use both hands to pop pills from the foil. Stepping forward he sneezed again and the pills flew out of his hands as the ground disappeared beneath his foot and he found himself flying headfirst.

Daniel felt like his face was the first thing to make contact with the ground as his team reacted in their distinctively vocal ways. After hitting the ground, he lay there for several painful seconds of surprise.

"Ow," Daniel moaned as he rolled over to sit up, unknown hands assisting with the bulky weight of his field pack. Upon sitting up he discovered that his helper was Sam. His hands went immediately to his watery eyes that were watering from pain as well now—from the frames of his glasses being shoved into his face—and pulled his glasses off.

"Daniel, are you okay?" Sam crouched beside him with half her face shadowed by her cap.

"Yeah," Daniel said, his voice muffled behind his hands as he rubbed at his face; hearing the swishy swashy sound of Jack or Teal'c moving in the long grass.

"Here, Daniel, stop that," Sam caught his hands and pulled them from his face. "Let me look."

Daniel squinted, watery eyed, at Sam and let her look him over. While his face hurt, nothing was excruciatingly painful so he figured he knew what her verdict was going to be.

"Well, the nose pieces of your glasses didn't cause bleeding but they did leave marks. You'll probably have bad bruises in a bit," Sam announced and let go of his hands.

Agreeing with a cautious head nod, Daniel sat up and still squinting through watery eyes, held up his glasses for examination. He looked at the slightly twisted frame and bent nose piece and then he sighed. First hay fever and now this and today had started out so good too.

Sneezing, he got his handkerchief and blew his nose—carefully—before reaching into the vest pocket that held his spare set of glasses. Casting a blurry look at the concave dip of grasses that he had fell within, having caught his foot on the lip of the hallow in the ground, he asked, "So, what is this anyway?"

Daniel looked up and saw Jack step down about a foot into the concave dip, take two steps to his side and then squatting down held out a small square of silver. Even without his glasses on yet, Daniel could tell Jack was holding his packet of antihistamines.

"Only you Daniel," Jack said with a crocked grin, "would manage to trip into a buffalo wallow."