ARTHUR, or ARTUS, a hero of the Welsh Tales, the Chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the Romances of the Round Table. His exploits, even the most fabulous, passed with historians, before the days of historical criticism ; subsequently a reaction led to the figure of Arthur being regarded as nothing but a Celtic myth. The truth, so far as it is possible to arrive as it, lies between these two extremes. There was a real Arthur, one of the last Celtic chiefs in Great Britain ; but there is no single trait of his real character and exploits which legends, working according to laws to be presently discussed, have not remodeled and transfigured or disfigured ; while the scarcity of documents makes it impossible to reconstruct a coherent historical picture. Thus the work of comparison between the historical and the legendary personages, such as has been performed for Charlemagne by MM. Gaston Paris and Léon Gaustier, is impossible in the case of Arthur. We can only study the legend and analyse its elements.

There is an error, not so popular as it once was, which suppose that myths and legends are arbitrary creations, and does not recognize them as having an origin in regular causes, and therefore a rational history, before the period when they are crystallized into their final legendary forms or are merged in the current of a literature in that later and artificial stage when it disinters and refashions old materials. Before Arthur took his final French form in the Romances or of the Round Table, he was a Celtic hero in the Breton, and more specifically still in the yet earlier Welsh, legends. And behind these is the original Arthur, of whom we must be content with such impressions as we can gather from his contemporaries, Myrdhinn and Lywar’ch.

Lywar’ch, 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 is twenty-four sons in the last struggles against the Saxon, and in his old age. Banished ; and a cripple, he wrote his hiding –place a mournful hymn on his own and his country’s decay, in which lovers of the poetry have admired this verse worthy of Job:—"See yonder driven by the wind ; woe for him who has like lot ! it is old, though born within the year." 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 fratricidal struggle (the beginning of the 6th century) Myrdhinn had cherished the dream of the resurrection of an ancient chief, whom he called Lemenitz:—

"My prophetic soul foretells it ; discord shall reign among the British tribes until the federation which shall be formed by the chief of heroes, Lemenitz, when he comes back to the world. Like the dawn he will arise from his mysterious retreat."

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 Christianity and to Saxon interests. The other host, 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 Latinsed 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 these of Vortigern, king of Kent. The Arthur of the legend more than realizes all the prophecies of Merlin ; and these prophecies in the process of oral repetition, and in traveling 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 and 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 resurrection 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 chief, 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 trouvères. While this work of infiltration was going on, Goeffrey of Monmouth set down, in 1130 and 1147, the Arthurian legend in his Historia Britanum, and, emboldened 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 Carlovingian era had lost their hold on popular favour, as much from the unreality of their heroes,—Charlemagne à la barbe florie, 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 trouvères and troubadours ; for Charlemagne was substituted the far more poetical type of Arthur. Languor, fatality, pleasure, were all personified in Lancelot, Tristan, Gaurin, &c., and the Romances of the Round Table took the shape in which they now remain. Nevertheless, 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 Hersart de la Villemarqué 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 philter to obtain by it all knowledge, 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 philter 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 philters altogether. In the same way Merlin, the Welsh texts, is mad with grief on beholding a fratridical 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 Troves), we see him, it is true, holding his court during Easter and Pentecost at Caerleon on the Usk, but as a little exalted, a roi-bonhomme, asleep on his throne, while the chiefs of his following relate at their ease all their adventures. Here we find preserved the idea of the individual independence of all the Celtic chiefs, whose king, only primus inter pares, must necessarily have been as little of a sovereign as possible. After the legend has passed into France Arthur becomes a sort of rival Charlemagne holding supreme and boundless sway, though, never as a real feudal emperor (they were tired of that in France), but rather as a Marcus Aurelius—a monarch, half philosopher, ruling chiefly by his wisdom and subtlety, and still more a judge than a general over his people. The type is one which belongs essentially to the Celtic mind, more akin to the Greek than any other, and naturally as far removed from the Roman as from the Saxon turn of thought.

Among the writers of the 17th and 18th centuries the historical existence of Arthur was, with a few rare exceptions, denied, and the Arthurian legend regarded purely as an invention of the worthy chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth. Pinkerton bestows a moment’s notice on "the king whose exploits fill all the poetry of the Middle Ages, and whose very existence is doubtful," and then passes on. The difficulty of establishing the filiation of Arthur perplexed Milton, who says, "As to Arthur, more renowned in songs and romances than in true stories, who he was, and whether any such reigned in Britain, has been doubted heretofore, and may again with good reason. No less is in doubt who was his father ; and as we doubted of his parentage, so may we also of his puissance." Guinguené settled everything by the unwarranted explanation, that English romances had invented an Arthur out of jealousy of the French Charlemagne. English writers of Guinguené’s caliber in mythical science replied, that Arthur was a French invention of Richard or Elie de Borron, or of the Anglo-Norman Mapes, basing the assertion on an expression found in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Ampère, deficient here in his usual pentration, throws entire discredit on the good faith of Marie de France, who speaks of having seen and handled the original Celtic MS. Fauriel, and with him the other French savans, would fain have attributed the Arthurian legend to the troubadours rather than acknowledge its Welsh origin. He asked for the tests which have since been discovered by Mr Owen Jones and commented on by M. Mersart de la Villemarwqué with perhaps indiscreet zeal. Sir Walter Scott’s excellent historical instinct had already exhibited a part of the truth in his edition of Thomas of Ercildoune’s Rhymes. We may now, therefore, venture on being more positive than Southey, and less skeptical than Mr Thomas Wright, the two modern editors of the translation which Sir Thomas Malory made in 1634 of the five Romances of the Round Table (he "compiled the booke oute of certaine bookes of Frensshe, and reduced it into Englysshe"), and we may follow almost step by step the development of the legend, and of the various Arthurs, from the British Arthur of history to the mythical Arthur of Cambrian and Breton tradition, and lastly to the French Arthur, the rival of Charlemagne.

We shall conclude by noticing the main features of the character of Arthur, and indicating their origin.

Historic Facts.—The general belief regarding Arthur has been that he was a leader of the Celtic tribes of the west of England against the Saxons. It is recorded that, about the middle of the 5th century, Kent, after suffering from famine and pestilence, was invaded by the Picts and Scots, while at the same time another struggle, longer and more keen, was taking place in West Britain against another Saxon invasion. The longer and braver resistance of the Western Celts is partly set down to the merit of their leaders, Aurelianus Ambrosius and Arthur. The men of Kent, however, after a vain appeal to Aelius, prefect of the Gauls, were induced by Vortigern, their mot important chief, not only to make peace with the Saxons, but to invoke their aid against the Picts and Scots. Hengist was appealed to, and the looked-for Saxon alliance became the Saxon invasion and conquest of Kent, after Hengist, heretofore a Heretegen, became4 a king. Whilst his immediate descendants were establishing themselves in succession to him, the contest in the plain of Arderidd took place, which occasioned Myrdhinn’s frenzy. Arthur was slain in the battle called by historians the victory of Mountbadon near Bath, 520 A.D.

[The historical Arthur is now regarded by many as having been a 6th century leader, Guledig, or "Dux Bellorum" of the northern Cymry of Cumbria and Strathclyde against the encroaching Saxon of the east coast (Bernicia) and the Picts and Scots from beyond the Forth and Clyde. For such would appear to be the, at least approximately certain result of recent researches, in opposition both to the skepticism of the 17th and 18th centuries as to the existence of an historical Arthur, and to the popular notion of him as a West-of-England king, or king Wales, or Cornwall. This conclusion had, however, been more or less distinctly suggested by Chalmers, by Sir Walter Scott, by a writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine (1842), by Mr Nash, and by Dr Burton. Yet this result of special recent researches is still so far from being generally known and accepted, that it may be desirable briefly to indicate the arguments in support of it.





First, then, we have the facts of the northern extension and conflicts of the Cymry in those five centuries, from the 6th to the 10th, which may be distinguished as the Premediaeval Period. For these facts our first authorities are the only premediaeval British historians, Gildas and Nennius—the Historia and Epistola of the one having been composed in the 6th, and the earliest of the works that go under the name of the other in the 7th century. Now, in the former there is, at least, nothing, to favour that popular notion us to Arthur which is derived from the mediaeval chronicles ; for the words in the Durham MS., "Qui prope Sabrinum ostium habetur," are now acknowledged to be an interpolation of the 13th century. And the latter is an interpolation of the 13 century. And the latter is most naturally interpreted as positive affirming that Arthur’s conflicts were with the Saxons of Bernica (North-umberland and the Lothians). It has been contended that this could not be meant, because the Teutonic settlers in the north were Angles. But, in answer to this, it can now be affirmed that the earlier Teutonic settlers in the north were Frisians, a tribe of Saxons ; and that the northern settlement of the Angles did not take place till 547, after the time of Arthur. Besides, the bards of the 6th century, to whom are attributed those historical poems, which do not, however, appear to have taken their earliest consistent shape farther back then the 7th century, and which have been recently edited by Mr Skene under the title of the Four Anceint Books of Wales,—these Cymric bards—Merlin, Taliessin, Aneurin, and Llywarch Hen—are all connected with the north ; of a large proportion of their poems are, in fact, the literature of the Cymric inhabitants of Cumbria and Stratchclyde before these kingdoms were subjugated by the Saxon king, Edmund of Wessex, and by him ceded to the Gaelic king, Malcolm king of Scots, in 946; the warriors, whose deeds are celebrated in these poems, were "Gwyr y Gogledd," or men of the north ;and the historical Arthur, who figures in five of them is no southern king, but a Guledig, whose twelve battles are in the north. And, finally, in evidence of the former northern extension of the Cymry, it is as Bretts and Welsh that the inhabitants of Cumbria and Strathclyde are referred to by the contemporary Saxon chroniclers, and in the charters and proclamations of the Scottish kings, David I., Malcolm IV., and William the Lion. So late, indeed, as 1305, we find a recognition of the Cymry as a distinct element of the population of southern Scotland, in the enactment that "the usages of the Bretts shall be abolished and no more used." And it is to Welsh that we must still look for the etymology of the names of the great natural features of that district of southern Scotland which would appear to have been the scene of the battles of the historical Arthur. From Welsh the names Tweed, Teviot, Glyde, Nith, and Annan, and the numerous Esks, Edens, and Levens, &c., are all derived. From Welsh, also, we explain Cheviot, and the names of the border hills. And where the eminences of southern Scotland are not hills, fells, laws, or knows, they are pens, as in Wales or Cornwall.

But if, as thee various facts (and particularly the connection in which Arthur is mentioned in contemporary, or approximately contemporary, histories and historical poems) lead us to believe, Arthur was a leader of those northern Cymry afterwards absorbed in the population of southern Scotland and the English border, then, in this district, we ought certainly to find localities which can be more or less clearly identified with those mentioned in the earliest historical notices of Arthur ; and localities also which, in their names or the traditions associated with them, commemorate his story. Now, it has been shown that such localities are not only found in the district thus defined, but are found there in such numbers as can nowhere else be paralleled. And a very important verification is thus obtained of what, from scantiness of the earliest sources, might, if thus unsupported, be regarded as a mere hypothesis rather than a theory, with respect to the scene of the battles of the historical Arthur.

Scotland, however, is but the northern extremity of a long line of country in which Arthurian localities are found. What we may call the Arthur-land extends from the Forth and Clyde, or rather, from the Grampians, in Scotland, to the Loire in France and includes (besides the south of Scotland and the north of England) Wales, Somersetshire Cornwall, and Brittany. It is certain that the scene of the battles of a historical Arthur of the 6th century could have been but a comparatively small area of this vast territory. There must, therefore, have been a migration of Arthurian traditions from the south to the north, or from the north to the south. And if, on quite independent grounds, we find it more probable that such migration of tradition was from the north to the south, rather then from the south to the north, it is evident that we shall have a still further verification of the hypothesis suggested by our examination of the earliest historical records. Now, considering these facts,—Cymric migrations from, but not to, the north; the northern descents of some of the southern dynasties ; the upburst of Cymric literature (which belongs in the main to the mediaeval period) contemporaneously with the last struggles for, and final loss of, national independence ; and the satisfaction, too great to be regardful of historical truth, which a conquered people would have in locally commemorating former victories and heroes of their race—we cannot but see conditions in the highest degree favourable to the importation from the north of the Arthurian traditions of Wales, the south-west of England, and the north-west, of France On the other hand, we not only find no conditions favourable to the importation of Arthurian traditions from the south into the north, but, conditions that would have been positively inimical to the preservation of such traditions, and conditions, therefore, that would seem to make it impossible to explain the existence of Arthurian localities in the north, except on the hypothesis of the north living been the scene of actual Arthurian events. Such conditions are to be found in these facts:—the absorption of the northern Cymry by a kindred race with whom they had never, save temporarily, been at war, viz, the Scots, a brother of whose king they had themselves voluntarily elected to the throne in 918, previously to their being regularly incorporated with the Scottish nationality after the treaty of 946 between Malcolm II. And their Saxon, foe, Edmund of Wessex ; the preparation for this political incorporation in the 10th century by an eccelesiastical incorporation in the 8th century, through the subversion of the native Cymric Church by the opponent Irish or Columban Church of the Scots with its Gaelic language, whence followed the dying out of the Cymric language ; and, finally, the possession by the Scots, with whom the northern Cymry were thus incorporated, of a traditional and poetic literature of their own, which must certainly have greatly opposed by introduction, after their incorporation of the Cymry, at Cymric poetry and tradition, and been highly unfavourable to its preservation, if it had any other than a native historical origin. But yet, further, it is to be noted that Arthurian localities are, speaking generally, found in Scotland only where, in the 6th century, there was a Cymric population ; that that part of Scotland in which Arthurian localities are, speaking generally, not found, coincides with the ancient kingdoms of the Picts and Scots, and is dotted all over with localities belonging to the other great cycle of Celtic tradition, the Fenian, Fingalian, or Ossianic ; and that, while Fingalian localities are not found at all in the Arthurian district, Arthurian localities are found in the Fingalian district, or in the ancient territory of the Picts, only in cases in which their being found in that territory is a strong indication of their having originated in such historical facts as they commemorate. (J. S. S.-G)]

Additions to Historic Facts and Introduction of Mythological Element.—From the Saxon invasions resulted two emigrations closely succeeding each other of Britons into French Brittany ; and the impenetrable forests and mountains of Wales afforded a refuge where the more recent fugitives from Wessex or the north mingled with the earlier exiles from Kent, and hence the subsequent confusion of historic facts. Vortigern of Kent became in the legend the kinsman of Ambrosius of Wessex ; the gaps in the history were filled up by mythic reminiscences, and to Arthur was assigned a celestial and miraculous parentage from Uthyy Pendragon, that is to say, Head of the Dragon. Under the form of a cloud this Celtic Jupiter became the father of Arthur, who in the same mythological order gave his name to constellations, Arthur’s chariot, i.e., the Great Bear, and Arthur’s lyre. But the word for cloud in Welsh was Gorlasar. Now, whilst the legend was carried from place to place acquiring new force, the Celtic world had made a stand against Roman and Teutonic ideas ; three was, as in Greece, a tendency to explain the earlier myths, no longer understood, into the gross elements of adultery and incest ; bastardy was not censtured, &c. Thus the Uthyr Pendragon of the Romances of the Round Table is a real Jupiter. The cloud becomes a man, Gorloes ; and there is an Alcmene, Ygierne. In-short when Molière has, with more genius than morality, diverted so many generations by his Amphitryon, he is striking an old Celtic and Welsh chord. Then Arthur is another Hercules. An advantage, from a national point of view, gained to the legend by Arthur’s celestial and pagan origin, is that he becomes by it at once above to all the Celtic chiefs. All the chiefs become his brethren ; their sons, who flock to fight under his banner, his beaux neveux,—though one, indeed, among them is the traitor Medrod of the Welsh legends, Mordred of the romances. So in dreamwas founded besides the Round Table which never existed, the Celtic family, which had exited only to destroy itself.

Gradual Formation of the existing character of Arthur in the French Romances.—We have noticed the bonhomie which was the chief characteristic of the early Cambrian Arthur. The Arthur born of the recollections and resentments of exile has a more terrible shape. In Brittany, the land of exile was elaborated this type of a national avenger—a more moral David (Arthur slays his giant), a Solomon without his skepticism (Arthur was a great author of proverbs). In exile this figure of a Celtic Messiah was graven with some of its most indelible traits. Arthur’s own device is very far removed from the gospel ; he out-Herods Herod, and, franker than the Jesuiticial cruelty of the twelve tables or of Shylock, he goes beyond the lex talionis ; "a heart for an eye, a head for an arm," he says, Alain de Lille relates, in his commentaries and explanations on the prophecies of Merlin, that in his day any one who, drinking with the Bretons, would tell them that Arthur was dead and never to return, was in danger of being stoned. "Like the dawn, he will arise from his mysterious retreat."

To return to the Arthur of the Round Table, nothing in the romances is touched with more generous sentiment than his invariable affection for Ken (Kay of the Welsh legends), his cunning but clownish, friendly yet treacherous seneschal. For the infant Arthur had been confided by Merlin to Antor, and believed himself his son, while Ken, the real son of Antor gives place to Arthur, is neglected, and all his evil qualities are derived from the wicked nurse to whom he had been given away from his mother ; so Arthur was bound to be patient and kind to Ken in after life, and forgive him many times for being "fol et villain et fel."

We shall not described the trials to which Arthur submits, those of the sword and of the anvil, for instance, nor the essay in royalty he makes without taking the title of king, though the idea of being made a king, not only by election, but even after examination, is remarkable. Nor shall we relate how, in disguise, aided by his friends Ban and Bohor, he rescues Leogadan from the "Saisnes" (Saxons) and Danes ; in disguise, as Merlin explains to Leogadan, who had thrown himself at the feet of his deliverer to entreat to know hi name—because thus, without himself, should a hero, who is the son of a king , seek out and win his wife. So Arthur woos and weds Gluenever, Leogadan’s daughter, the Gwenhwyvar of the Welsh tales. The Welsh would have their Arthur cross the Channel to succour their kindred allies in Brittany ; the Bretons, in the same way sent their Arthur into Great, hence confusions which explain each other. One reproach, which has been made at all times, by Mr P. Paris, as by William of Newburgh, to the revengeful instinct which was the soul of the Arthurian legend, is its monstrous vanity, which has depicted Arthur as an opponent and conqueror of the Romans. William of Newburgh has said, "the Britons were little to be feared as warriors, little to be trusted as citizens ;" and this passage curiously resembles one in the legend where a Roman knight, before battle of Langres, is made to exclaim,

"Behold truly the Britons—slow in action, ready in menace!" Whence has arisen this battle of Langres, where Arthur, allied with Claudas, king of the "Terre Déserte," conquers the Romans and destroys their empire. Strange to say, the fictitious battle of Langres has an authetic foundation in history, being but an echo in tradition of the obstinate and successful resistance to the Romans carried on by the Celts of the vast district called the Tractus Armoricanus,—a resistance out-lasting, indeed, the Roman power, till Clovis turned it to as account and destroyed it; and of Clovis, the treacherous ally of the Armorican Celts, the portrait is easily recognized in the Claudas of the romance.

Rome has been cursed in history more often than she is named in Camille’s imprecation in Corneille’s play, and we need not wonder at the legend, wherein Arthur calls together a confederation of Greeks, Africans Spaniards, Parthians, Medes, Libyans, Egyptians, Babylonians, Phrygians, &c, in fact, all nations, against Rome. The legendary hero falls at last, in all his glory and in the midst of his reign of justice, on the field of Camlan. But he is not deserted by that fairy world with whom Shakespeare’s soul delighted to dwell ; magically transported into the Isle of Avalon, his body is cured of its wounds, and his soul sleeps, while rests his enchanted sword Excalibur, till that day comes when he shall rise again from his mysterious retreat. But that day must dawn for all nations at once, as in the veins of all peoples of Europe is hidden some Celtic blood. On the other hand, progress is barred and darkness dwells where the Celtic race remains unmixed. So it is the destiny of some peoples, while buried for ever as a temporal power, because of their irreparable faults, to live on gloriously for the good of all, but only as an idea, an instruction, a legend (J. A.)

Authorities: Turner’s History of Anglo-Saxons ; Leland’s Assertio Arthuri ; The British History, translated into English from the Latin of Jeffrey of Monmouth, by Aaron Thompson (London, 1718) ; Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales ; Paulin Paris’s edition of the Romans de la Table: Saint Graal, Merlin, Lancelot ; Hersart de la Villemarque’s Myrdhinn ou l’Enchanteur Merlin (Paris, 1862, 8vo); Les Romans de la Table Ronde, Paris, 1860, 12mo ; La Mort d’ Arthure, edited by Sir Th. Malory in 1634 ; Southey’s edition (1817, 4tó); Thomas Wright’s edition (1856, 8vo) ; Gildas, Historia ; Nennius, Historia Britonum ; Skene, Four Ancient of Wales (1868), Book of the Dean of Lismore, and Chronieles of the Picts and Scots ; and Stuart-Glennie, Journey through Arthurian Scotland (1867), and Arthurian Localities (1869).



The above article was written by:

John Stuart Stuart-Glennie, M.A.; Barrister; author of King Arthur, or the Drama of the Revolution, Arthurian Localities, Pilgrim Memories, etc.

and

Jules Andrieu; sometime member of the Commune de Paris; author of L'Amour en Chansons, and Chiromancie.