Chapter X: Of Glastonbury and the Passing of Arthur (2)

ARTHUR (Artus, Arcturus), King--
his widespread fame, 2, 3;
Saxon opponents of, 4;
an allegorical figure, 6, 27, 61;
Caxton on his identity, 9;
bardic chroniclers, 9-18, 62;
Geoffrey’s history of, 18;
the elemental hero, 29, 33, 149;
his domain, 31, 38, 39, 46-59, 64;
Scotch references, 52, 68;
his birth, 90;
his coronation, 115;
his Round Table, 130-58;
as warrior, 149;
as national hero, 150, 151;
his battle at Badon, 155-6;
in Italy, 157;
his marriage, 160;
at Camelot, 159 _et seq._;
battle at Slaughter Bridge, 200;
his death-wound, 205;
his tomb, 207-9;
in Avalon, 238-47;
supposed remains, 241, 249

Arviragus, King, 223

Astolat, 55

Aurelius Ambrosius, 71, 74

Avalon (Avilion), 43, 51;
described 216 _et seq._ _See_ “Glastonbury”

Badbury Rings, 153

Badon (Mons Badonicus), 4, 13, 51, 152-6

Bagdemagus, Sir, 77

Balin, Sir, 84, 129, 167

Bamborough Castle, 44

Barham Down, 156, 204

Bath, 152

Battles, King Arthur’s, 4, 29, 62, 125, 151;
the last at Camelford, 198, 200-1, 204, 208;
with Melvas, 240

Bedivere, Sir, 205 _n._, 211, 213, 251

Belenus, 123

Blackmore, poet, 30

Blaise (Bleys), 83

Borron, Robert de, 188, 230

Borrow, George, quoted, 90 _n._, 188, 230

Bors, Sir, 188, 191

Boscastle, 101

Bossiney, 101, 183

Brecknock, 46, 49, 144

Brécéliande (Broceliand, Brocelinde), forest of, 79, 81

Brittany, 43, 68

Brue, river, 219

Brythons, the, 3, 4, 47

Bude, 101-2

Cadbury Camp, Somerset, 141, 160, 171-2

Cadwalla, 5

Caerleon, 39, 53;
described, 113-29

Caerwent, 125, 126, 168

Camden, quoted, 96, 244

Camel, river, 198-9

Camelford, 55-7, 101; described, 194 _et seq._

Cameliard, 39, 46-9

Camelot, described, 159 _et seq._

Caractacus, 129

Carbonek, 38

Carew, historian, 95

Carmarthen, Merlin’s Cave at, 67, 78

Carobaise, 46

Castle Denis, 49

Castle-an-Dinas, 111

Cattraeth, battle of, 9-10

Caxton, his testimony to Arthur, 8, 9, 26

Cefn Bryn, 48

Celts, the, and their influence on history and legend, 3, 23, 31, 35,
66, 176, 213, 230, 231

Cerdic, 4, 5, 48, 153, 155

Chalice Hill, 229

Clevedon, 172

Constantinople, 39

Cormac, 107

Craik, Mrs., 96

David, St., 63, 236

Dawstane, 10

Dinas Emrys, 71, 76 _n._

Douarnenez, 46

Dozmare Pool, 211-14

Drayton, quoted, 144, 155, 171

Dryden, 30

Dubric (Dubritius), 115, 125, 129, 155

Dunchine, 93

Dunstan, 236, 237

Ector, Sir, 90, 180

Edinburgh, 52

Edward I, King, at Glastonbury, 249

Eildon Hills, 51

Emerson, quoted, 33

Ettarde, 164

Evelake, King, 235

Excalibur, 211

Freeman, Professor, quoted, 153, 218, 236

Frere, J. K., quoted, 136

Gaisnar, 21

Galahad, 23, 41, 145, 148, 187, 191, 233

Gawaine, 79, 81, 161;
his character, 161-3, 166, 204

Geoffrey of Monmouth, 18-21, 95, 115, 118, 131, 251

Geraint, 129

Gibbon, 27

Gildas the historian, 10, 12, 13-16, 153, 246

Giraldus Cambriensis, 20

Glastonbury, Gildas at, 15;
history and description of, 216-56

“Gleam, The,” 69

Glennie, Stuart, quoted, 54, 66, 76 _n._

Goothe, 38

Gorlois, 90, 91

Grail, the. _See_ “Holy Grail”

Gray, 30

Guenevere (Guinevere, Gwenhwyvar), Queen, 62, 114, 132, 175-82, 240

Guest, Lady Charlotte, 78, 153, 162, 238

Guildford, 55-7

Henry II, King, at Glastonbury, 241-4

Henry of Bloys, 241

Holy Grail, the, 23, 133, 145;
the quest of, 186;
legend of, 187-93, 230

Holy Thorn, in Scotland, 52;
legend of, 223-28

Hueil (Howel), 15, 16, 50

Iceland, 64

Ider, 239

Igraine, 90

Inis vitrea (Ynyswytryn). _See_ “Glastonbury”

Iseult (Isoud). _See_ “Tristram and Iseult”

Jagent, 38

Joseph of Arimathæa, 186, 188, 193;
at Glastonbury, 221-33 _passim_

Joyous Gard, 43, 44, 45, 53, 179

Julian Way, the, 123, 168

Kay (Kaye), Sir, 91, 161

Knighton’s (Nectan’s) Kieve, St., 183-93

Knights, the, 37; their Round Table, 131 _et seq._;
adventures at Camelot, 161, 166;
the last, 200

Kynon, 11

Lancelot, Sir, 44, 45, 55, 160, 166, 174, 178, 191

Landerneau, 45

Land’s End, 42

Layamon, 21, 22

Leland, quoted, 14, 94, 95, 126, 142, 168, 171, 182, 245

Leodegraunce, King, 132-3

Llanilterne, Guinevere’s tomb at, 179

Llywarch Hên, 9, 11, 34

Logris, 36

Lonazep, 38

Lot, King, 174

Lowell, J. R., 30

Lyonnesse, 40, 42, 43

Lytton, Lord, quoted, 30, 111, 128, 158, 163 _n._

“Mabinogion,” the, 117, 129

Mackinnon, Dr., quoted, 13

Malory, Sir Thomas, 25, 26, 27, 106, 191, 212

Map (Mapes), Walter, 22-5, 188

Mark (Marc’h), King, 41, 46, 104, 106

Melvas, King, 239

Merlin, 25, 43, 66, 132; his history, 67-71;
drama of, 72-5;
his doom, 75-8;
his influence, 83;
his prophecies, 246

Milton, 24, 30, 62

Moel Arthur, 49

Mons Badonicus. _See_ “Badon”

Mordred, 129, 200-3

Morris, William, 30

Mount, St. Michael’s, 42

Myrdin Emrys, 67, 71

Nantanleod, King, 4

Nennius, 12, 16

Nimuë (Vivien), 72, 77

Norden, on Tintagel, 97

Nutt, David, 191

Odin, 64

Olaf, 64

Orkneys, 52

Patrick, St., 236

Pelleas, 163-5, 188-9

Pellinore, King, 146

Pendragon Castle, 51

Penrith, 141

Pen-y-Van, 144

Percivale (Parzifal, Perceval), 134, 186, 189

“Perilous, Siege,” 146, 165

Petersaint, 38

Quoits, Arthur’s, 48-9

Renan, 46, 80, 176

Ritson, Joseph, 46, 154, 156

Rocky Valley, Tintagel, 183

Rome, 65, 151, 157

Round Table, the, 119;
history of, 130-58;
supposed localities, 141 _et seq._;
its symbolism, 145

Row Tor, 213

Sancgreal, the. _See_ “Holy Grail”

Sandwich, 158

Sarras, 190, 192, 193

Scilly, 40

Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 12, 26, 30, 68, 141, 142

Shalott, 163, 181

Silchester, 116 _n._

Silures, the, 24, 47, 126

Slaughter Bridge, 199, 205

Snowdon, 71, 76

Sommer, Dr., 26, 29

Southey, 29

Souvestre, Emile, 81

Spenser, 30, 77, 233

Steep Holm, 14

Stephen’s, St. (Steven’s), Camelot, 160, 174

Stonehenge, 3, 75, 154

Stow’s _Chronicle_, 215

Strachey, Sir E., quoted, 27, 64

Surluse (Surluce), 40, 41

Swinburne, quoted, 30

Talhairan, 129

Taliesin, 9, 11, 129

Ten Brink, quoted, 135

Tennyson, 30;
at Caerleon, 126-28, 155, 162;
description of Camelot, 170;
on Guinevere, 175;
the Grail legend, 193;
on Mordred, 203

Terabyl, 91, 92

Thierry, 34

Thomas the Rhymer, 104

Tintagel, 53;
described, 88-111 _passim_

Tor, the Glastonbury, 220, 236, 255

Tristram and Iseult, 44, 46, 89, 103-6, 174

Tweed, the, 68, 69, 70

Urien, 11

Usk, river, 67, 115, 119

Uther (Uter), King, 64, 71, 74, 75, 89, 90, 132

Uwaine, Sir, 72

Veitch, professor, 71

Vellan, 42

Vivien, 77, 79, 81

Vortigern, 63 _n._, 71, 76

Wace, 21, 80, 131

Wagner, 107

Warton, 30, 139

Waste Lands, the, 38

Weary All (Wirral, Worall) Hill, 223

Wedmore, palace at, 247

Wells Abbey, 229

Wigan, battle at, 51

William of Newburgh, 20

Winchester, 55, 131, 143, 167, 139-41 _passim_

Wodensbury, battle at, 5

Wolfram von Ezchenbach, 189

Ynyswytryn. _See_ “Glastonbury”

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NOTES

[1] Aneurin was born about the year 500, and as “a monarch of bards” was of much repute in Manan Gododin, a part of Cymric Scotland. The Welsh Britons included all the Lowlands in their territory, and, as is well known, the names familiar in Arthurian romance can be traced to Scotland, the West of England, and France alike, as will afterwards be shown in these pages. Aneurin’s nationality, however, is particularly well worth recalling in view of the theory that Arthur was Scotch.

[2] A Badon in Linlithgowshire is the reputed site.

[3] Take, for instance, the song in which he expresses the wish to die while drinking in a tavern,--“Meum est propositum in taberna mori.”

[4] William Caxton, “simple person,” as he styled himself, urged that he undertook the work at the request of “divers gentlemen of this realm of England.”

[5] It is interesting and somewhat amusing to note the lament of Charles Waterton, author of _Wanderings in South America_, who thought England as a field for knightly adventure had degenerated. “England has long ceased to be the land of adventures,” said he. “Indeed, when good King Arthur reappears to claim his crown he will find things strangely altered here.... It is certain that when he reigned here all was harmony and joy. The browsing herds passed from vale to vale, the swains sang from the bluebell-teeming groves, and nymphs, with eglantine and roses in their neatly braided hair, went hand in hand to the flowery meads to weave garlands for their lambkins. If by chance some rude uncivil fellow dared to molest them, or attempted to throw thorns in their path, there was sure to be a knight-errant not far off ready to rush forward in their defence. But alas, in these degenerate days it is not so. Shall a harmless cottage-maid wander out of the highway to pluck a primrose or two in the neighbouring field, the haughty owner sternly bids her retire; and if a pitying swain hasten to escort her back, he is perhaps seized by the gaunt house-dog ere he reach her.”

[6] By some Lyonnesse is identified with Léonnois in Brittany, but as Mr. Aldis Wright has pointed out, the continuous references in the romance to “riding” from Lyonnesse to other parts of Cornwall shows that Lyonnesse and Cornwall were on the same land.

[7] A. J. C. Hare’s _North-Western France_.

[8] “Il est donc constant que la chevalerie prit naissance en Bretagne,” says Emile Souvestre, “et y brilla de tout son éclat; que les premiers poémes chevaleresques furent écrits en langue celtique. Les monuments, les traditions, _les noms_, les indications des plus anciens auteurs s’accordent pour faire de la Bretagne la patrie de tout ce monde chevaleresque et féerique dont, plus tard, le Tasse et l’Arioste tirèrent tant de parti.”

[9] Bamborough Castle, says Professor Burrows, was the centre of the Kingdom of Bryneck, or Bernicia. “In founding it the Angles encountered a determined opposition at the hands of a British chief named Arthur. Whether he is the same as the Arthur of South-Western Britain, or whether the exploits of one have been transferred by legend to the other, is still under dispute.”

[10] According to Villemarqué the name of Lancelot is a translation of that of the Welsh hero Maël, who exhibits the fullest analogy with the Lancelot of the French romances.

[11] “Arthur’s seat” may be but an adaptation of the Gaelic Ard-na-said, or “the height of the arrows.”

[12] Arthur’s career has been thus conveniently summarised: “At the age of fifteen he succeeded his father as King of Damnonium. He was born in 452, had three wives, of whom Guinevere was the second, and was betrayed by the third during his absence in Armorica. Mordred concluded a league with Arthur’s great foe, Cedric the Saxon; and at the age of ninety, after seven years’ continual war, the famous king was defeated at Camelford in 543.” Fuller compares him to Hercules in (1) his illegitimate birth, (2) his arduous life, and (3) his twelve battles. Joseph Ritson, whose antiquarian researches are noted for their fullness and originality, came to the conclusion that though there were “fable and fabrication” in the hero, a real Arthur lies behind the legendary hero. He appeared when the affairs of the Britons were at their worst after Vortigern’s death, checked the ravages of the Romans, and kept the pillaging Saxons at bay. Professor Montagu Burrows, in his commentaries on the history of England, argues that the Cymry of Arthur’s time were a band of Romano-Britons who produced leaders like Cunedda to take command of the native forces left by the departing Romans. They remained more British than Gaelic, but were gradually driven, with their faces to the foe, into Wales and the Welsh borderland. “The Arthurian legends,” he continues, “embody a whole world of facts which have been lost to history in the lapse of time, and form a poetry far from wholly fictitious.” Renan declares that few heroes owe less to reality than Arthur. “Neither Gildas nor Aneurin, his contemporaries, speaks of him; Bede did not know his name; Taliesin and Llwarc’h Hên gave him only a secondary place. In Nennius, on the other hand, who lived about 850, the legend has been fully unfolded. Arthur is already the exterminator of the Saxons; he has never experienced defeat; he is the suzerain of an army of kings. Finally, in Geoffrey of Monmouth, the epic creation culminates.”

[13] Ashmole, in his _History of the Order of the Garter_, declares that, in addition to the dragon, King Arthur placed the picture of St. George on his banner.

[14] Mr. Glennie thinks the scene is in Carnarvonshire, to the south of Snowdon, overlooking the lower end of Llyn y Dinas. Here is Dinas Emrys, a singular isolated rock, clothed on all sides with wood, containing on the summit some faint remains of a building defended by ramparts. It was of this place Drayton wrote--

“And from the top of Brith, so high and wondrous steep
Where Dinas Emris stood, showed where the serpents fought,
The White that tore the Red; from whence the prophet wrought
The Briton’s sad decay then shortly to ensue.”

On the south of Carnarvon Bay is Nant Gwrtheryn, the Hollow of Vortigern, a precipitous ravine by the sea, said to be the last resting-place of the usurper, when he fled to escape the rage of his subjects on finding themselves betrayed to the Saxons.

[15] The Cornish language was spoken until 1768. In that year Daines Barrington met the old fish-wife Dolly Pentreath, whose name has become memorable as that of the last person to speak Cornish. The last sermon in Cornish was preached in 1678 in Landewednack Church. The slackening of the Saxon advance at the Tamar enabled the Cornish to preserve their tongue, closely allied to that of Wales and Brittany, and described as “naughty Englysshe” in the reign of the eighth Henry.

[16] The following curious little item from R. Hunt’s volume ought not to be lost sight of:--“I shall offer a conjecture, touching the name of Tintagel, which I will not say is right but only probable. _Tin_ is the same as _Din_, _Dinas_, and _Dixeth_, deceit; so that Tindixel, turned for easier pronunciation to Tintagel, Dundagel, etc., signifies Castle of Deceit, which name might be aptly given to it from the famous deceit practised here by Uther Pendragon by the help of Merlin’s enchantment.” George Borrow says: “Tintagel does not mean the Castle of Guile, but the house in the gill of the hill, a term admirably descriptive” (_Wild Wales_, cap. cvii.).

[17] It is difficult to understand how a writer like the late Mrs. Craik could ever have fallen into this error. In her _Unsentimental Journey through Cornwall_ she makes every effort to prove that the building on the mainland was the castle of Terabyl, and she insists that there were (and are) two castles at Tintagel. “One sits in the sea, and the other is upon the opposite heights of the mainland, with communication by a narrow causeway. This seems to confirm the legend, how Igraine’s husband shut himself and his wife in two castles, he being slain in the one, and she married to the victorious king Uther in the other.” It is obvious that the writer of these lines was unacquainted with Malory.

[18] Silchester, originally a Celtic fortress, and a city of the size of London, is also reported to have been the scene of Arthur’s coronation at the age of fifteen by Dubritius. Modern excavations have proved the importance of the city as a great centre of life and industry, in Roman and British times, with its Forum, Basilica, and rows of shops and houses; and if the _Calleva Attrebatum_ were really Arthur’s crowning place, its fitness and worth for so imposing an event cannot be disputed. Although Silchester is not directly referred to in the Romances, Arthur’s Hampshire connections are numerous. They centre in Winchester, where his predecessor and foster-father, Ambrosius Aurelianus, died in the year 508. It was at Silchester also that the chief men of the provinces met after Uther Pendragon’s death and petitioned Dubritius, Archbishop of Caerleon, to consecrate Arthur the successor to the dead king.

[19] Of this wooden bridge G. W. Manby in his _Guide_ (published 1802) gives an illustration, and says: “As numerous coins have been found where the piles of the bridge are now placed, there is no doubt of its being the original pass. To a person unaccustomed to such a bridge, the rattling noise whenever any weight is going over naturally occasions some apprehensions.... The accounts of the tide rising so high as to cover the bridge are erroneous; it never has been known yet; but that assertion has given rise to the idea of the bridge being purposely loose to prevent its being carried away in such cases. The amazing floods to which the river is subject would render it not surprising if accidents did happen.” Tennyson, who obtained from the _genius loci_ both inspiration and enlightment, refers in _Geraint and Enid_ to the rapidity of the turn of the tidal waters of the Usk:--

“Scarce longer time
Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk,
Before the time to fall seaward again,
Pauses.”

Modern Caerleon, however, with its commonplace railway station, its porters shouting “Car--lion,” its new bridge, its spoilt Norman church, and its street of small dwelling-houses, is likely at first to disappoint the pilgrim, who only by searching and waiting can hope to find the links with the city’s historic past.

[20] Frere’s poem was caustic, but it had a certain value in showing the unromantic side of Arthurian times. The following verses, than which far less delicate ones could be found in the poem, may be taken as a specimen:--

“And certainly they say, for fine behaving
King Arthur’s Court has never had its match;
True point of honour, without pride or braving,
Strict etiquette for ever on the watch;
There manners were refined and perfect--saving
Some modern graces which they could not catch,
As spitting through the teeth, and driving stages,
Accomplishments reserved for distant ages.

They looked a manly, generous generation;
Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick;
Their accents firm and loud in conversation,
Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick,
Showed them prepared on proper provocation,
To give the lie, pull noses, stab, and kick;
And for that very reason it is said,
They were so very courteous and well bred.”

When we come to consider probabilities, aided by such unsparing lines as these, we may even accept as truth the old folk-song which tells that when King Arthur ruled the land he “ruled it like a swine.” The American poet, the late Mr. Eugene Field, in his “Lay of Camelot,” has also shown the humorous aspect of the Arthurian Court. While all this may be legitimate enough, and provide opportunities for the wit of the authors, it is not the aspect which we prefer to contemplate for any length of time, or one which has any continuous pleasure for the mind.

[21] The names of, and the leading incidents in, the twelve “glorious wars,” are enumerated with accuracy by Tennyson in _Lancelot and Elaine_, the recital coming from Lancelot’s lips, and having for its purpose the proof that at the time “there lived no greater leader.” Joseph Ritson’s curious little volume on King Arthur likewise treats this subject fully.

[22] Gildas Badonicus, as we have seen in the first chapter, is also a reputed native of Bath.

[23] Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson, in the _Academy_ (1896), advanced a number of very strong and learned arguments in favour of the original idea that Mons Badonicus was Bath.

[24] Sandwich is mentioned several times in the romance, but the references are unimportant. Ancient as the place is, there is no reason to connect it with British occupation. At the time the chronicles were written, however, it was too important a seaport to escape mention.

[25] Lytton, agreeing with Southey that Gawaine’s character suffered at the caprice of the poets and that he was “shamefully calumniated,” speaks of

“Frank Gawaine,
Whom mirth for ever, like a fairy child,
Lock’d from the cares of life.”

William Morris, in _The Defence of Guenevere_, makes Gawaine the accuser of the queen, and he is denounced for treachery.

[26] As a matter of history it is worth noting that Winchester, in Hampshire, passed to the Saxons in the year 515, after which time Cardic held it. King Arthur was then only twenty-three years old, and could not have extended his territory as far as Hampshire.

[27] “Compare Guinevere or Iseult with those Scandinavian furies Gudrun and Chrimhilde, and you will avow that woman such as chivalry conceived her, an ideal of sweetness and loveliness set up as the supreme end of life, is a creation in reality Celtic.”--_Renan._

[28] The ancient ballad, discovered, annotated, and to a slight extent supplemented, by Dr. Percy, follows very exactly the story of Arthur’s last days as given in the romances except that it ascribes to Sir Lucan the acts usually credited to Sir Bedivere. Not a detail is omitted, not a point is missed. On the morning of Trinity Monday the ghost of Sir Gawaine is said to have appeared to the king and warned him not to fight if he prized his life, but to wait until Sir Lancelot returned from France. The parley which followed between Arthur and Mordred is next described, but just as a month’s league had been decided upon the adder’s sting brought about the “woeful chance As ever was in Christentie.” When the wounded knight drew his sword the two hosts immediately “joined battayle,” and fought until only three men were left alive.

[29] It is interesting to compare Tennyson’s lines with Longfellow’s in _The Spanish Student_, the similarity of phrasing being so marked. Victorian, the student, observes that it is in vain he throws unto oblivion’s sea the sword [of love] that pierces him--

“For like Excalibur,
With gemmed and flashing hilt it will not sink.
There rises from below a hand that grasps it,
And waves it in the air: and wailing voices
Are heard along the shore.”

[30] Glastonbury occupies a former site of Druidical worship, and Professor Rhys believes the name to be a corruption of the British word _glasten_, an oak, the Druids cultivating both the oak and the apple as foster parents of their sacred mistletoe. Glestenaburh, says Canon Taylor, was assimilated by the Saxons to their gentile form Glestinga-burh or Glæsting-burh, which being supposed by a false etymology to mean the “shining” or “glassy” town was mistranslated by the Welsh as Ynys-Widrin, the Island of Glass.

[31] William Morris slightly varied the story in his _King Arthur’s Tomb_, when he represents Lancelot journeying to “where the Glastonbury glided towers shine” and relates that

“Presently
He rode on giddy still, until he reach’d
A place of apple-trees, by the Thorn-Tree
Wherefrom St. Joseph in the past days preach’d.”

[32] The Holy Grail is pointed out in particular at Genoa Cathedral. “It was brought from Cæsarea in 1101, is a hexagonal dish of two palms’ width, and was long supposed to be of real emerald, which it resembles in colour and brilliancy.”

[33] Some historians, perhaps with better reason, declare that he was born in 405 at Kilpatrick, Dumbarton, a little town at the junction of the Levin and Clyde. He is variously reported to have died in 493 and 507, some placing his age at 88, and others at 120.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation remain as in the original unless noted below.

Page 134, single quotation mark changed to double after “the flower of
all the world.”
Page 159, double quotation mark changed to single before “Largesse!
Largesse!”
Page 159, single quotation mark added after “Chevaliers très-hardies!”
Page 249, period added after “Henry VIII.”
Ads section, period added after “account of the Cathedral’s history.”
Footnote 28, “and to, a slight extent” changed to “and to a slight
extent.”

Original images of this book can be found here: https://archive.org/details/lostlandofkingar00waltuoft.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Lost Land of King Arthur, by J. Cuming Walters