t of eleventh century), from
which Geoffrey of Monmouth professes to translate, and in which the
marvellous and supernatural elements largely prevail. Here for the first
time the magician Merlin comes into association with Arthur. According
to Geoffrey, Arthur's father, Uther, conceiving a passion for Igerna,
wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, is changed by Merlin into the
likeness of Gorlois, and Arthur is the result. After his father's death
Arthur becomes paramount leader of the British, and makes victorious
expeditions to Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, and also to France,
where he defeats a great Roman army. During his absence his nephew,
Modred, revolts, and seduces Prince Arthur's wife, Gweniver
(Gwenhwywar). Arthur returning, falls in a battle with his nephew, and
is carried to the Isle of Avalon to be cured of his wounds. Geoffrey's
work apparently gave birth to a multitude of fictions, which came to be
considered as quasi-historical traditions. From these, exaggerated by
each succeeding age, and recast by each narrator, sprung the famous
metrical romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, first in
French and afterward in English, from which modern notions of Arthur are
derived. In these his habitual residence is at Caerlon, on the Usk, in
Wales, where, with his beautiful wife, Guinevere, he lives in splendid
state, surrounded by hundreds of knights and beautiful ladies, who serve
as patterns of valor, breeding, and grace to all the world. Twelve
knights, the bravest of the throng, form the centre of this retinue, and
sit with the king at a round table, the "Knights of the Round Table."
From the court of King Arthur knights go forth to all countries in
search of adventure--to protect women, chastise oppressors, liberate the
enchanted, enchain giants and malicious dwarfs, is their knightly
mission.

The earliest legends of Arthur's exploits are to be found in the bardic
lays attributed to the sixth and seventh centuries ("Myoyrian Archaeology
of Wales," 1801). A Welsh collection of stories called the "Mabinogion,"
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and translated into English
by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1849, gives further Arthurian legends. Some
of the stories "have the character of chivalric romances," and are
therefore probably of French origin; while others "bear the impress of a
far higher antiquity, both as regards the manners they depict and the
style of language in which they are compos