r Guinevere is unknown
to Welsh literature." Now, as I have tried to point out, the passion
of Lancelot for Guinevere, blended as it is with the quasi-historic
interest of Arthur's conquests and the religious-mystical interest of
the Graal story, is the heart, the life, the source of all charm and
beauty in the perfect Arthur-story.

I should think, therefore, that the most reasonable account of the
whole matter may be somewhat as follows, using imagination as little
as possible, and limiting hypothesis rigidly to what is necessary to
connect, explain, and render generally intelligible the historical
facts which have been already summarised. And I may add that while
this account is not very different from the views of the earliest of
really learned modern authorities, Sir Frederic Madden and M. Paulin
Paris, I was surprised to find how much it agrees with that of one of
the very latest, M. Loth.

[Sidenote: _Attempted hypothesis._]

In so far as the probable personality and exploits, and the almost
certain tradition of such exploits and such a personality, goes, there
is no reason for, and much reason against, denying a Celtic origin to
this Legend of Arthur. The best authorities have differed as to the
amount of really ancient testimony in Welsh as to him, and it seems to
be agreed by the best authorities that there is no ancient tradition
in any other branch of Celtic literature. But if we take the mentions
allowed as ancient by such a careful critic as Professor Rhys, if we
combine them with the place-name evidence, and if we add the really
important fact, that of the earliest literary dealers, certain or
probable, with the legend, Geoffrey, Layamon, and Walter Map were
neighbours of Wales, and Wace a neighbour of Brittany, to suppose that
Arthur as a subject for romantic treatment was a figment of some
non-Celtic brain, Saxon or Norman, French or English, is not only
gratuitous but excessively unreasonable. Again, there can be no
reasonable doubt that the Merlin legends, in at least their inception,
were Celtic likewise. The attempt once made to identify Merlin with
the well-known "Marcolf," who serves as Solomon's interlocutor in a
mass of early literature more or less Eastern in origin, is one of
those critical freaks which betray an utterly uncritical temperament.
Yet further, I should be inclined to allow no small portion of Celtic
ingredient in the spirit, the tendency, the essence of the Arthurian
Legend.