Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/69

 KING ARTHUR 37 In the lays of the Welsh bards, supposed to be as early as the sixth and seventh centuries (although no MS. is extant of older date than the twelfth cen- tury), Arthur and his brave companions are celebrated, but modestly and without marvels. It is possible that there may have existed in the sixth century a prince bearing the already well-known heroic name ; and if so, about him the myths be- longing to the remote ancestor or god have crystallized. The legendary addi- tions begin to gather in the history of the Britons by Nennius, a writer supposed to have lived at the beginning of the seventh century ; but Mr. Thomas Wright has shown (" Biographia Literaria," Saxon period) that his history is a forgery of a much later date, probably of the tenth century. Mr. Skene, however (" The Four Ancient Books of Wales "), makes fight to give Arthur an historic place, and we do not deny that there may have been a prince of that name. Next in order come the so-called Armoric collections of Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford (latter part of eleventh century), from which Geoffrey of Mon- mouth professes to translate, and in which the marvellous and supernatural elements largely prevail. Here for the first time the magician Merlin comes into association with Arthur. According to Geoffrey, Arthur's father, Uther, con- ceiving a passion for Igerna, wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, is changed by Merlin into the likeness of Gorlois, and Arthur is the result. After his father's death Arthur becomes paramount leader of the British, and makes victorious ex- peditions to Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, and also to France, where he defeats a great Roman army. During his absence his nephew, Modred, revolts, and seduces Prince Arthur's wife, Gweniver (Gwenhwywar). Arthur returning, falls in a battle with his nephew, and is carried to the Isle of Avalon to be cured of his wounds. Geoffrey's work apparently gave birth to a multitude of fictions, which came to be considered as quasi-historical traditions. From these, exaggerated by each succeeding age, and recast by each narrator, sprung the fa- mous metrical romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, first in French and afterward in English, from which modern notions of Arthur are derived. In these his habitual residence is at Caerlon, on the Usk, in Wales, where, with his beautiful wife, Guinevere, he lives in splendid state, surrounded by hundreds of knights and beautiful ladies, who serve as patterns of valor, breeding, and grace to all the world. Twelve knights, the bravest of the throng, form the centre of this retinue, and sit with the king at a round table, the " Knights of the Round Table." From the court of King Arthur knights go forth to all countries in search of adventure to protect women, chastise oppressors, liberate the en- chanted, enchain giants and malicious dwarfs, is their knightly mission. The earliest legends of Arthur's exploits are to be found in the bardic lays attributed to the sixth and seventh centuries (" Myoyrian Archaeology of Wales," 1801). A Welsh collection of stories called the " Mabinogion," of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1849, gives further Arthurian legends. Some of the stories " have the character of chivalric romances," and are therefore probably of French origin ; while others " bear the impress of a far higher antiquity, both as regards the manners they de-