Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/68

 36 WORKMEN AND HEROES parently historical facts are inextricably welded together. A powerful repre- sentation of the Siegfried tale is given in the series of large pictures, at Munich, by the distinguished painter Schnorr von Karolsfeld. KING ARTHUR BY REV. s. BARING-GOULD (ABOUT 520) ARTHUR, king of the Siluri, or Dum- nonii British races driven back into the west of England by the Saxons is represented as having united the British tribes in resisting the pagan invaders, and as having been the champion not only of his people but also of Christianity. He is said to have lived in the sixth century, and to have maintained a stubborn contest against the Saxon Cerdic, but the " Saxon Chronicle " is suspiciously silent as to his warfare and as to his existence. Indeed, the Welsh bards of the earliest period do not assert that he was a contemporary, and it is more than doubtful whether he is an historic personage. It is worthy of remark that the fame of Arthur is widely spread; he is claimed alike as a prince in Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Cumber- land, and the lowlands of Scotland ; that is to say, his fame is conterminous with the Brithonic race, and does not extend to the Goidels or Gaels. As is now well known, Great Britain was twice invaded by races of Celtic blood and tongue ; the first wave was that of the Goidels, and after a lapse of some considerable time a second Celtic wave, that of the Brithons, or Britons, from the east, overran Britain, and drove the Gaels to west and north. Finn and Ossian belong to the mythic heroic cycle of the Gaels, and Arthur and Merlin to that of the Britons. These several shadowy forms are probably deities shorn of their divinity and given historic attributes and position, much as, among the Norsemen, Odin, when he ceased to be regarded as the All-father, or God, came to be reckoned as an ancestor of the kings.