oets; which, in short,
ignores its possibilities and its significance. With respect to the
origin and the early history of the Arthurian legend, much remains to be
established. Whether its original home was in Wales, or among the
neighboring Celts across the sea in Brittany, whither many of the Celts
of Britain fled after the Anglo-Saxon invasion of their island home, no
one knows. But to some extent, at least, the legend was common to both
sides of the Channel when Geoffrey wrote his book, about 1145. As a
matter of course, this King Arthur, the ideal hero of later ages, was a
less commanding personage in the early forms of the legend than when it
had acquired its splendid distinction by borrowing and assimilating
other mythical tales.

It appears that five great cycles of legend,--(1) the Arthur, Guinevere,
and Merlin cycle, (2) the Round Table cycle, (3) the Holy Grail cycle,
(4) the Launcelot cycle, (5) the Tristan cycle,--which at first
developed independently, were, in the latter half of the twelfth
century, merged together into a body of legend whose bond of unity was
the idealized Celtic hero, King Arthur.

_LANCELOT BIDS ADIEU TO ELAINE_.
Photogravure from Drawing by Gustave Dore.

[Illustration]

This blameless knight, whose transfigured memory has been thus
transmitted to us, was probably a leader of the Celtic tribes of England
in their struggles with the Saxon invaders. His victory at Mount Badon,
described by Sir Launcelot to the household at Astolat,--

"Dull days were those, till our good Arthur broke
The pagan yet once more on Badon Hill,"--

this victory is mentioned by Gildas, who wrote in the sixth
century. Gildas, however, though he mentions the occasion, does not give
the name of the leader. But Nennius, who wrote in the latter part of the
eighth century, or early in the ninth, makes Arthur the chieftain, and
adds an account of his great personal prowess. Thus the Arthur legend
has already begun to grow. For the desperate struggle with the Saxons
was vain. As the highly gifted, imaginative Celt saw his people
overwhelmed by the kinsmen of the conquerors of Rome, he found solace in
song for the hard facts of life. In the fields of imagination he won the
victories denied him on the field of battle, and he clustered these
triumphs against the enemies of his race about the name and the person
of the magnanimous Arthur. When the descendants of the Saxons were in
their turn overcome b