Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/712

650 be content with such impressions as we can gather from his contemporaries, Myrdhinn and Lywar'ch. Lywar'ch, a bard and king, born about 480, was one of the companions of the valiant chief, Urien of Reghed, in Cumberland, upon whose death he composed a pathetic lament. He survived the death of his twenty-four sons in the last struggles against the Saxon, and in his old age, banished and a cripple, he wrote from his hiding-place a mournful hymn on his own and his country s decay, in which lovers of the poetry of despair have admired this verse worthy of Job : &quot;See yonder leaf driven by the wind; woe for him who has the like lot ! it is old, though born within the year.&quot; But the bard-king had only despaired after a life-long struggle, and in like manner the bard- prophet Myrdhinn had long sung in praise of peace before he went mad with grief, on the night of the battle of Arderidd, where the northern and southern Celts slaughtered each other to the profit of the Saxons. Before this fra tricidal struggle (the beginning of the 6th century) Myrd hinn had cherished the dream of the resurrection, of an ancient chief, whom he called Lemenitz:—

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By this chief of heroes, destined to bring back union, the bard meant his king and friend, Aurelianus Ambrosius, and after his death Arthur, his valiant successor, and Myrdhinn s own pupil. The battle of Arderidd came to dissipate the last of these illusions. One of the contending hosts consisted of northern Celts, bent upon imposing on all of their race yet unconquered in Great Britain the authority of Howell of Scotland, the brother of that Gildas who soon afterwards became a convert at once to Chris tianity and to Saxon interests. The other host, that of the southern Celts, was led by Aurelianus Ambrosius, whose favourite bard was Myrdhinn. After the final destruction of the Celtic power, the destiny of Myrdhinn is to reappear in legend with the Latinised name of Merlin. Aurelianus Ambrosius and Arthur, the two Celtic chiefs to whom the bard had been so loyal, undergo a like resurrection ; but their lives and exploits are confounded, according to the accumulative method of legend, with each other and with those of Yortigern, king of Kent. The Arthur of the legend more than realises all the prophecies of Merlin; and these prophecies in the process of oral repetition, and in travelling further from the place and the time of their origin, themselves were altered to an ampler tenor. They underwent one great degree of change in crossing the Channel, and another and greater in passing from the soil and speech of Brittany into those of France. With the tenor of the prophecies grow the proportions of the hero. The poetic Arthur pacifies the Celts, quells the Saxons, and ends by establishing a reign of justice upon earth. It is a hard saying, but true, that the key to all this is a certain sentiment which is the mark of conquered races. The Celtic genius after its defeat in arms would have revenge in songs. What happened was this. The Celtic chief, Vortigern, summoned to his help the Saxon chief Hengist. Now, let it be noted that, in the annals of the Saxon kingdom of Kent, the fourth king in succession from Hengist is the Saxon Ethelbert. Turning to the legend, it will be found that the corresponding fourth king in succession from Vortigern is the British Arthur. For in legend the treachery of Vortigern must not be allowed to bear fruit, the Celts after many a struggle must be left conquerors. The honour of giving the last blow to the Saxon invasion in Kent, West Wales, and elsewhere, is assigned in the legend to Arthur. And why to Arthur ] Because of the ancient prophecies of the resur rection of the fabled Lemenitz, with whom later times identified him, and above all, because the whole legendary structure hinged upon the impressive portraiture of Merlin, whose historical prototype had, in fact, been the devoted follower of the historical Arthur and Aurelianus Ambrosius. But this edifice of fable, under which the Celts strove to hide from themselves the real ruin of their race, was not built up in a day. The conquered people repeated and enlarged upon the prophecies of Merlin ; and with these grew the figure of Arthur, enriched by every noble trait which could be borrowed from the stories of the bravest chiefs, and made to accord with the prophecies. Round the main personage soon revolved other ideal types, and little by little was founded the harmonious hierarchy of King Arthur and his knights, such as it now remains in romance, and such as never existed in reality. The tales were then carried into France, for just as in England the Irish bards were held in higher esteem than the Welsh, in France the Breton lays were preferred to the songs of the trouveres. While this work of infiltration was going on, Geoffrey of Monmouth set down, in 1130 and 1147, the Arthurian legend in his Historia Britonum, and. embold ened by the popularity of this work, published afterwards a poem entitled Vita Merlini, which lent the authority of Latin to the tissue of fabulous successes. Robert Wace translated the chain of legends into old French, and Richard de Borron added his Saint Graal, which serves in some sort as a theological preamble to the Romances of the Round Table. At that time the poems of the Car- lovingian era had lost their hold on popular favour, as much from the unreality of their heroes, Charlemagne a la barle Jlorie, Roland, and La violente Blanchefleur, as because the dominant sentiment pervading these poems, as binding faith and loyalty between vassal and lord, had ceased to find an echo in the hearts and life of the people. An attempt was made to replace the Carlovingian Cycle by another formed from the various songs taught by Breton minstrels to trouveres and troubadours ; for Charlemagne was substituted the far more poetical type of Arthur. Languor, fatality, y&amp;gt;lasure, were all personified in Lancelot, Tristan, Gaurin, &c., and the Romances of the Round Table took the shape in which they now remain. Never theless, those who have traced the legend to its source, and for whom the ancient Celtic foundation is still visible, will regret in reading even the graceful paraphrases of Christian de Troyes, or the sweet and simple poems of Marie de France, their departure from the original types. The recent discoveries of Messrs Owen Jones and Her- sart de la Villemarque&quot; in Welsh literature show us how much the romances lost in elevation of sentiment and depth of thought as they varied from the Celtic model. To give an example of this revarnishing and its effect in concealing the primitive foundation, we may cite Tristan, who, in the original legend, drinks the philtre to obtain by it all know ledge, and his madness and despair that ensue are the madness and despair of one fatally gifted with universal insight ; whilst in the French romance the philtre becomes a vulgar love draught. This was only a preliminary step to the false sentiment of modern French romanticists, who have since, in their exaltation of the passions, dispensed with philtres altogether. In the same way Merlin, in the Welsh texts, is mad with grief on beholding a fratricidal war, and his madness, according to the old Celtic idea, endows him with the power of a seer and magician over all nature. In the romances his frenzy and magical power have no worthier cause than his love for Vivian. The figure of Arthur, on the contrary, seems to gain in dignity by the migrations of the legend. In the Welsh tale of Owain and Gherain (Ivain et Erec, with Christian de Troyes), we see him, it is true, holding his court during 