Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/550



long before the birth of the historic Arthur. This Ogygia, says Plutarch, lies due west, beneath the setting sun. According to an ancient poem published by M. Villemarqué, it is a place of enchanting beauty. There youths and maidens dance hand in hand on the dewy grass, green trees laden with apples, and behind the woods golden sun dips and rises. A murmuring rill flows from a spring in the midst of the island, and thence drink the spirits and obtain life with the draught. Joy, song, and minstrelsy reign in that blessed region. There all is plenty, and the golden age ever lasts; cows give their milk in such abundance that they fill large ponds at a milking. There, too, is a palace all of glass, floating in air, and receiving within its transparent walls the souls the blessed: it is to this house of glass that Merddin Emrys and his nine bards voyage. To this alludes Taliesin in his poem, “The Booty of the Deep,” where he says, that the valour of Arthur is not retained in the glass enclosure. Into this mansion three classes of men obtain no admission—the tailors, of whom it takes nine to make a