the Round Table is Wace. He
and Layamon agree in calling it a tale of the Britons, and in saying
that Arthur had it made to prevent rivalry as to place among his
vassals when they sat at meat. Layamon, however, expands the few lines
that Wace devotes to the subject into one of his longest additions to
his source, by introducing the story of a savage fight for precedence
at a court feast, which was the immediate cause for fashioning the
Round Table, a magical object. Ancient sources prove that the Celts
had a grievous habit of quarrelling about precedence at banquets,
probably because it was their custom to bestow the largest portion of
meat upon the bravest warrior. It was also their practice to banquet
seated in a circle with the most valiant chieftain of the company
placed in the middle, possibly owing to the circular form of their
huts, possibly for the sake of avoiding the disputes that so commonly
disturbed their feastings. The Round Table, accordingly, is to be
regarded as a Pan-Celtic institution of early date, and as one of the
belongings that would naturally be attributed by popular tradition
to any peculiarly distinguished leader. Layamon's version so closely
parallels early Celtic stories of banquet fights, and has so barbaric
a tone, as to make it evident that he is here recounting a folk-tale
of pure Celtic origin, which must have been connected with Arthur
before his time, and probably before that of Wace; for this story was
undoubtedly one of those "many fables" which Wace says the Britons
told about the Round Table, but which he does not incorporate into his
narrative.

[See A.C.L. Brown, _The Round Table before Wace in Studies and Notes
in Philology and Literature_, VII. (Boston, 1900), 183 ff.; L.F. Mott,
_Publications of the Modern Language Association of America_, XX, 231
ff.; J.L. Weston, as above (p. xv.), pp. 883 ft.]

EXCURSUS III.--THE HOPE OF BRITAIN

(Wace, _Brut_, 13681 ff.; Layamon, 23080 ff., 28610 ff.)

The belief that Arthur would return to earth, which was firmly
established among the Britons by the beginning of the twelfth
century, does not in early records appear clothed in any definite
narrative form. In later sources it assumes several phases,
the most common of which is that recorded by Layamon that Arthur had
been taken by fays from his final battle-field to Avalon, the Celtic
otherworld, whence after the healing of his mortal wound he would
return to earth. Layamon's