t meagre kind,
and touching no point of his received story except his mysterious
death or no-death, but fairly corroborative of his actual existence.
Nennius--the much-debated Nennius, whom general opinion attributes to
the ninth century, but who _may_ be as early as the eighth, and cannot
well be later than the tenth--gives us the catalogue of the twelve
battles, and the exploits of Arthur against the Saxons, in a single
paragraph containing no reference to any but military matters, and
speaking of Arthur not as king but as a _dux bellorum_ commanding
kings, many of whom were more noble than himself.

[Footnote 44: The late Mr Skene, with great learning and ingenuity,
endeavoured in his _Four Ancient Books of Wales_ to claim all or
almost all these place-names for Scotland in the wide sense. This can
hardly be admitted: but impartial students of the historical
references and the romances together will observe the constant
introduction of northern localities in the latter, and the express
testimony in the former to the effect that Arthur was general of _all_
the British forces. We need not rob Cornwall to pay Lothian. For the
really old references in Welsh poetry see, besides Skene, Professor
Rhys, _op. cit._ Gildas and Nennius (but not the _Vita Gildae_) will be
found conveniently translated, with Geoffrey himself, in a volume of
Bohn's Historical Library, _Six Old English Chronicles_. The E.E.T.S.
edition of _Merlin_ contains a very long _excursus_ by Mr
Stuart-Glennie on the place-name question.]

The first authority from whom we get any _personal_ account of Arthur
is Caradoc, if Caradoc it be. The biographer makes his hero St Gildas
(I put minor and irrelevant discrepancies aside) contemporary with
Arthur, whom he loved, and who was king of all Greater Britain. But
his brother kings did not admit this sovereignty quietly, and often
put him to flight. At last Arthur overthrew and slew Hoel, who was his
_major natu_, and became unquestioned _rex universalis Britanniae_, but
incurred the censure of the Church for killing Hoel. From this sin
Gildas himself at length absolved him. But King Melvas carried off
King Arthur's queen, and it was only after a year that Arthur found
her at Glastonbury and laid siege to that place. Gildas and the abbot,
however, arranged matters, and the queen was given up. It is most
proper to add in this place that probably at much the same time as the
writings of Caradoc and of Geoffrey (_v