though the other two
classes of evidence cannot be so ruled out of court as a whole, it
must be evident that they go but a very little way, and are asked to
go much further. If any one will consult Professor Rhys's careful
though most friendly abstract of the testimony of early Welsh
literature, he will see how very great the interval is. When we are
asked to accept a magic caldron which fed people at discretion as the
special original of the Holy Grail, the experienced critic knows the
state of the case pretty well.[66] While as to the place-names, though
they give undoubted and valuable support of a kind to the historical
existence of Arthur, and support still more valuable to the theory of
the early and wide distribution of legends respecting him, it is
noticeable that they have hardly anything to do with _our_ Arthurian
Legend at all. They concern--as indeed we should expect--the fights
with the Saxons, and some of them reflect (very vaguely and thinly) a
tradition of conjugal difficulties between Arthur and his queen. But
unfortunately these last are not confined to Arthurian experience;
and, as we have seen, Arthur's fights with the Saxons, except the last
when they joined Mordred, are of ever-dwindling importance for the
Romance.

[Footnote 66: For these magical provisions of food are commonplaces of
general popular belief, and, as readers of Major Wingate's book on the
Soudan will remember, it was within the last few years an article of
faith there that one of the original Mahdi's rivals had a magic tent
which would supply rations for an army.]

[Sidenote: _The French claims._]

Like the Celtic theory, the French has an engaging appearance of
justice and probability, and it has over the Celtic the overwhelming
advantage as regards texts. That all, without exception, of the
oldest texts in which the complete romantic story of Arthur appears
are in the French language is a fact entirely indisputable, and at
first blench conclusive. We may even put it more strongly still and
say that, taking positive evidence as apart from mere assertion (as in
the case of the Latin Graal-book), there is nothing to show that any
part of the full romantic story of Arthur, as distinguished from the
meagre quasi-historical outline of Geoffrey, ever appeared in any
language before it appeared in French. The most certain of the three
personal claimants for the origination of these early texts, Chrestien
de Troyes, was undoubtedly a