The Myvyrian Archaiology—Oldest texts—The Black Book of Caermarthen—The Book of Aneurin—The Book of Taliessin—The Red Book of Hergest—Gildas and Nennius—The ancient Laws and Institutes—A great dialectic battle—The princes of song—“I Yscolan”—A Welsh Ossianic poem—Characteristics of the early poetry—The medieval romances—Their history—Modern translations of the Mabinogion—Two classes of tales—The legend of Taliessin—His curious odes—Kilhwch and Olwen—The Lady of the Fountain—Three striking features of the Arthurian romances—Their influence on Western Europe.

The arrival of James Macpherson marks a great moment in the history of Celtic literature. It was the signal for a general resurrection. It would seem as if he sounded the trumpet, and the graves of ancient MSS. were opened, the books were read, and the dead were judged out of the things that were written in them.

This is true not only of the Highland and Irish barderie, but also of the poetry of Wales. The sudden popularity of the Ossianic publications led to a desire on the part of the Welsh to show that they also were in possession of a body of native poems not less interesting, and with far better claims, as they thought, to authenticity. It is significant to note that though Edward Lhuyd gave an account of the Welsh MSS. in the Archæologica Britannica as early as 1707, none of the poems were printed till the era of Macpherson. His famous Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland, 1760, was soon followed by a succession of rival publications from the sister country, such as Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards, 1764; Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards, 1784; “Poems of Taliessin,” in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1789–90; The Heroic Elegies and other Pieces of Llywarch Hên, 1792, and in the year 1801 the text of the whole of the poems. This latter figures as the now oft-quoted Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, containing all the chief productions of Welsh literature, and was published in 1801–1807 by Owen Jones, a wealthy furrier in Thames Street, London. Interested scholars, among them Aneurin Owen, Thomas Price, William Rees, and John Jones set themselves to finish the work of the Myvyrian peasant.

There was no lack of venerable MSS. from which to draw, for many transcripts had been made from time to time in the past. But the sources to which we must go for the oldest texts are mainly four, known as The Four Ancient Books of Wales, namely:—

The Black Book of Caermarthen is the oldest. It is a MS. of the twelfth century in the Hengwrt collection, and contains only poems. It consists of fifty-four folios of parchment in small quarto, with illuminated capitals. There are four different handwritings, apparently of the same period, with the exception of a few insertions made by a subsequent writer. The MS. belonged originally to the six black Canons of the priory of Caermarthen. Hence the name. After the dissolution of that religious house at the Reformation, it passed into the hands of Sir John Price, a native of Brecnockshire, and before the year 1658 was in the Hengwrt collection. Last century it changed hands again, when the whole of the latter most valuable collection was bequeathed to W. W. E. Wynne, Esq., of Peniarth.

The Book of Aneurin, second in point of antiquity, belongs to the thirteenth century. It also is a small quarto, consisting of nineteen folios of parchment. Here we have, perhaps, the most ancient copy now extant of that truly venerable and illustrious relic of Welsh poetry called the “Gododin,” as well as the four Gorchanau, not quite so old. The capitals which mark the beginning of the stanzas are coloured alternately red and green. This literary monument belonged formerly to the Hengwrt collection, but in more recent times was bought from Mrs. Powell of Abergavenny by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., of Middle Hill.

The Book of Taliessin, third in order, is still in the same collection. A small quarto MS. written on vellum, in one hand throughout, of the early fourteenth century, it consists now of thirty-eight leaves, and wants the outer page both at the beginning and at the end. Hence it begins in the middle of one poem and ends in that of another.

The last, but certainly not the least of this wonderful series, is the Red Book of Hergest in Jesus College, Oxford. It is a thick folio containing 360 leaves of vellum, and has been written at different times from the early part of the fourteenth century till the middle of the fifteenth. From this valuable codex Lady Charlotte Guest got eleven of her far-famed stories.

The book takes its name from Hergest Court, a seat of the Vaughans, near Knighton, Radnorshire, and before it was finally gifted to Jesus College in 1701, it passed through several hands.

It is written in double columns, in three different handwritings. There is reason to infer that it was begun in 1318 at the very latest, a date given in one of the columns, and that it was finished in 1454. The book is an enormous compilation of Welsh compositions in prose and verse, of all the periods from the sixth century till the middle of the fifteenth.

Embellished lately in a magnificent binding of red morocco with steel clasps, and preciously preserved in a case, it is now shown as one of the curiosities of Oxford.

If we except this codex and others in Jesus College, and those in the British Museum, most of the Welsh MSS. are in private hands. They used to belong to the religious institutions, but when these were done away with in the reign of Henry VIII., the ancient documents were dispersed. Various leading families of Wales afterwards made collections, thus helping to preserve the MSS. from destruction, but more than one of these collections have since been destroyed by fire.

It must be understood that though the four great books of poetry and romance here considered have been called The Four Ancient Books of Wales, they are not the only compositions of a remote origin. For there are three other notable works represented in very old MSS. These are, first, the history and epistle of Gildas, forming one Latin treatise on the early history of the country, and written by him in the year 560. Of this work there have been three MSS. The oldest perished, but not before a printed copy had been taken of it in 1568. The other two, one of the thirteenth and the other of the fourteenth century, are still extant in the public library of Cambridge.

Next to this very ancient history of Gildas is that of Nennius—an edition of the History of the Britons made by him in 858. There are three MSS. extant of this venerable book dating as early as the tenth century—one in the Vatican, one in Paris, and one in the British Museum.

Not less celebrated is the great native compilation entitled The Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales. The oldest of them, namely, The Laws of Howeldda, belong to the tenth century.

Wales thus possesses a literature which for antiquity carries us back as far as the age of St. Columba. In the sixth century, when the Abbot of Iona was opening the page of poetic history in Scotland, the little land in the west had many distinguished bards, such as Aneurin, Taliessin, Llywarch Hên, Myrddin, Kian, Talhaiarn. For the preservation of their pieces we are mainly indebted to The Four Ancient Books.

As in the case of the Ossianic compositions, a great dialectic battle was fought over the origin of these Cymric poems, some, such as Malcolm Laing and John Pinkerton, denying, and others affirming their antiquity, but the outcome of the controversy has been to establish their genuine authenticity. While it is freely admitted by the best critics that many of the pieces traditionally attributed to Taliessin are not older than the twelfth century, no one now disputes that Aneurin, Taliessin, Llywarch Hên, and Myrddin were famous bards who lived and composed in the sixth century, and that we have some of their poems preserved in the above-mentioned books with the exception, perhaps, of Myrddin’s. The honour of the title “King of the bards” lies between the first two, both of whom have been so designated. Stephens, in his Literature of the Cymry, gives the palm to Aneurin. His great poem, the “Gododin,” has attracted much attention on account of its peculiar character and recognised historic value. It is practically divided into two parts by stanza forty-five, where the author speaks in his own name. The first part is consistent throughout, and Dr. Skene regards it as the original, as distinguished from the second, which may be a later continuation made up of other incidents. The poem is found in the Book of Aneurin, and various theories have been advanced as to the locality and date of the battle it treats of. One of these assumed that the subject was a struggle between the tribe Ottadeni and the Saxons in the sixth century. Another, that it referred, on the contrary, to the traditional slaughter of the British chiefs at Stonehenge by Hengest in “The Plot of the Long Knives.” A third would find in it the battle mentioned by Bede as having been fought between Aidan, King of the Scots of Dalriada, and Ethelfrid, King of Northumbria, in 603. A fourth theory suggests that between Oswy and Penda. But the name of the Scottish Donald Brec emerges in the story, “A phen dyvynwal vrych brein ae cnoyn,” which in English means, “And the head of Donald Brec the ravens gnawed it.” The scene of the struggle appears to have been Catraeth and Gododin. And it is interesting to note that one of the editors of the Myvyrian Archaiology (Mr. Edward Williams) locates it in Roxburghshire, as the battle fought between the Cymry and Saxons in 570. Villemarqué, on the other hand, in his, Poems des Bardes Bretons, places the contest on the banks of the Calder in Lanarkshire in 578. While Dr. Skene is equally sure that the requirements of the case are met “in that part of Scotland where Lothian meets Stirlingshire in the two districts of Gododin and Catraeth, both washed by the sea of the Firth of Forth, and where the great Roman wall terminates at Caredin, or the Fort of Eidinn.”

The style of the poem may be gleaned from the following rendering:—

Like Ossian, Aneurin appears to have been a warrior-bard. Where he speaks of himself he says:—

Taliessin, on the other hand, was no warrior, simply a bard. Several of his pieces possess more real poetry than any part of the “Gododin.” As Stephens has remarked, they show more skill in composition, finer ideas, bolder images, and more intense passion than any poet of the same age. There are seventy-seven pieces attributed to him, twelve of which, this critic thinks, may be genuine, and as old as the sixth century; among these the “Battle of Gwenystrad,” the “Battle of Argoed Llwyvain,” the “Battle of Dyffryn Gwarant,” and some of the Gorchanau. In after life Taliessin became the bard of Urien Rheged, to whom and to his son Owain his chief poems are addressed. These contain some passages of exquisite beauty.

Llywarch Hên does not rival the other two as a prince of song, yet his poems are not lacking in poetic excellence. They are undoubtedly old, and valuable from his descriptions of manners, and the incidental allusions he makes that are strikingly illustrative of the age, and all the more interesting because we have so few other authorities to enlighten us as to its manners. His forte lay not so much in heroic poetry as in elegies and pathetic lamentations. Of the poems attributed to him in the Red Book of Hergest the following is a specimen:—

In such doleful strains the bard continues his parable. The sad note of the Gael is not lacking in him.

Myrddin is the fourth great poet of the sixth century. Various poems are reputed his in the Myvyrian Archaiology, but they are all probably of a much later date, as Stephens and others think. One of the most interesting to us of these traditional Myrddin pieces is the “I Yscolan.” It appears in the Black Book of Caermarthen. Yscolan is represented as having held a dialogue with Myrddin. To have done so he must have lived in the sixth century. Welsh writers, like Davies and Stephens, identify the name as St. Colan or Columba. “Instead of being unknown to the Cymry of the Middle Ages, no person was better known than Yscolan,” says Stephens. From their view Dr. Skene dissents, and Professor Rhys also holds it utterly impossible that Yscolan was St. Columba, as the two names cannot be connected, Columba being in Welsh Cwlum. It is not maintained by any of these critics that the poem, as it stands, is anything like so old as the period of Myrddin. But older it evidently is than the time of Edward I., and this shows, as the Welsh writers affirm, the existence among the bards, from an early date, of a tradition that St. Columba had, in his zeal for Christianity, destroyed some druidic books. This tradition got mixed up with a later one about the books of Cambria, which had been sent to the White Tower of London for security, having been destroyed there by some Vandal of an Yscolan, who must have lived after the twelfth century.

But whoever the Yscolan of the dialogue was, Myrddin assails him thus (Stephens’ version):—

And Yscolan answers:—

Had he known of certain proofs of druidic excellence he would have refrained. Though the tradition of St. Columba having destroyed some pagan books may have actually been current among the Welsh bards, it is very unlikely that he ever met Myrddin. As Dr. Skene suggests, the black Yscolan may well have been one of the black Canons of Caermarthen connected with some book-episode in the Tower. For we know from Adamnan that the dress of Columba was white, and the above sketch hardly fits in with his history. It is interesting to note that in the book called Taliessin, there is “The Death-song of Corroi, son of Dayry,” curiously enough the only specimen of a Welsh Ossianic poem which has come down to us. It tells the story of Curigh of Munster; and Cuchulinn, the famous hero of Ulster:—

This poem is fully noticed by Dr. Skene in his edition of the Book of the Dean of Lismore, p. 141.

Taking the Welsh poems as a whole, the difficulty has always been to differentiate between the historical and the mythological. They are usually so obscure in themselves, especially the so-called mythological ones, that some think there lurks in them a system of mystical and semi-pagan philosophy handed down from the Druids, and which our age cannot fathom.

Others think that they are nothing but the wild and extravagant vapourings of bards of the twelfth and subsequent centuries. Referring to this, Dr. Skene wrote in his edition of the poems, and translations of the poems, in The Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. pp. 15, 16:—

I consider that the true value of these poems is a problem which has still to be solved. Whether they are genuine works of the bards whose names they bear, or whether they are the production of a later age, I do not believe that they contain any such system of Druidism or Neo-Druidism as Davies, Herbert, and others attempt to find in them, nor do I think that their authors wrote, and the compilers of these ancient MSS. took the pains to transcribe, century after century, what was a mere farago of nonsense and of no historical or literary value. I think that these poems have a meaning, and that, both in connection with the history and literature of Wales, that meaning is worth finding out; and I think further, that if they were subjected to a just and candid criticism, we ought to be able to ascertain their true place and value in the literature of Wales.

Renan, on the other hand, held that bardism lasted into the heart of the Middle Ages under the form of a secret doctrine, with a conventional language and symbols almost wholly derived from the solar divinity of Arthur. “This,” he says, “may be termed Neo-Druidism, a kind of Druidism subtilised and reformed on the model of Christianity, which may be seen growing more and more obscure and mysterious until the moment of its total disappearance.”

One remarkable fact in connection with these early poems is how few of them contain any notice of Arthur. Out of the whole number there are only five which mention him at all, and then it is the historical Arthur, the Guledig, to whom the defence of the wall was entrusted, and who fought the twelve battles in the north, perishing at Camlan.

For accounts of the ideal Arthur we need to turn to the medieval romances, and this is the part of Welsh literature which has most fascinated the world and influenced the literatures of Europe. It is well known how there arose on the Continent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a body of Romance, popular in England, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and even Iceland, down to the Reformation, and it is equally well known that the origin of these tales may be traced to Wales through the north-west of France—the modern Brittany.

First appeared the Historia Britonum of Gruffydd ap Arthur, commonly known as Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was a Welsh priest, born in 1128. In this book he professed to have translated into Latin from an ancient Welsh MS. the history of Britain from the days when the fabulous Brut, the great-grandson of Aeneas, landed on its shores, down through the whole period of King Arthur and his Round Table to Cadwaladr, a Cymric king who died in 689. From the Latin the stories were put into French verse by Gaimar, and getting to France they fell into the hands of Robert Wace, a native of Jersey (and Norman trouvère), who, with the help of other independent sources of information, made them into a poem in 1155, which he called the “Brut.”

In this form the Romance found its way back to England, and about 1205 was told for the first time in English verse by Layamon, an English priest who dwelt on the banks of the upper Severn, and who was thus, besides being indebted to Wace, near enough the original source to have access to the great body of Welsh literature then current on the subject.

Through these, and French authors, the Cymric tales soon passed to other Continental lands, and since then have been retouched, paraphrased, and amplified in all the languages of Europe. They belong to the age, and breathe the spirit of chivalry.

In modern times these romances have again attracted attention, and become famous through the publication of Lady Charlotte Guest’s English translations of the Mabinogion, 1st edition, 1837–49, and reprint, 1877; Vicomte de la Villemarqué’s French translations of the Welsh poems and Round Table romances in 1841 and subsequently; and later still, Professor Loth of Rennes’ translation of the Mabinogion.

As in the case of the Gaelic sagas, traditions had been floating among the Welsh people for hundreds of years, and when the general awakening of the twelfth century took place, a natural desire sprung up to have these collected, arranged, and written down. The Mabinogion were thus originally tales penned to be repeated at the fireside, to while away the time of young chieftains and their following, but ultimately they reacted very powerfully upon the national literature and character. The name Mabinogion was not at first so generally applied to all the tales as it is to-day. Only four were so designated.

In point of antiquity these tales sort out into two distinct classes,—one older, the other less ancient. The latter celebrate heroes of the Arthurian cycle, and are full of ecclesiastical terms and of allusions to Norman customs, manners, arts, arms, and luxuries. The former refer to persons and events of an earlier period, are more mythological, and contain very few of these later allusions. As Professor Rhys^[29] thinks, they are essentially Goidelic stories, and their machinery is magic, not the laws of chivalry.

To the older class belong—

These only are the Mabinogion.

This last Professor Rhys regards as a hash or after-composition, in spite of the respectability of the MS.

To the later class—

And to these eleven, in her third volume published in 1849, Lady Charlotte Guest added the Hanes Taliessin, compiled in the fourteenth century, but, according to Ernest Renan, belonging to the more ancient of the two classes above mentioned. The great beauty, originality, and antique flavour of these stories may here be exhibited by means of a few characteristic extracts.

And the first to be given is from the legend of Taliessin.

“In times past (it begins) there lived in Penllyn a man of gentle lineage, named Tegid Voel, and his dwelling was in the midst of the lake Tegid, and his wife was called Caridwen. And there was born to him of his wife a son named Morvran at Tegid, and also a daughter named Creirwy, the fairest maiden in the world was she; and they had a brother, the most ill-favoured man in the world, Avagddu. Now Caridwen his mother thought that he was not likely to be admitted among men of noble birth by reason of his ugliness, unless he had some exalted merits or knowledge. For it was in the beginning of Arthur’s time and of the Round Table.

“So she resolved, according to the arts of the books of Fferyllt, to boil a cauldron of Inspiration and Science for her son, that his reception might be honourable, because of his knowledge of the mysteries of the future state of the world.

“Then she began to boil the cauldron, which, from the beginning of its boiling, might not cease to boil for a year and a day, until three blessed drops were obtained of the Grace of Inspiration.

“And she put Gwion Bach, the son of Gwreang of Llanfair in Caereinion in Powys, to stir the cauldron, and a blind man named Morda to kindle the fire beneath it, and she charged them that they should not suffer it to cease boiling for the space of a year and a day. And she herself, according to the books of the astronomers, and in planetary hours, gathered every day of all charm-bearing herbs. And one day towards the end of the year, as Caridwen was culling plants and making incantations, it chanced that three drops of the charmed liquor flew out of the cauldron and fell upon the finger of Gwion Bach. And by reason of their great heat he put his finger to his mouth, and the instant he put these marvel-working drops into his mouth he foresaw everything that was to come, and perceived that his chief care must be to guard against the wiles of Caridwen, for vast was her skill.

“And in very great fear he fled towards his own land, and the cauldron burst in two, because all the liquor within it, except the three charm-bearing drops, was poisonous, so that the horses of Gwyddno Garanhir were poisoned by the water of the stream into which the liquor of the cauldron ran, and the confluence of that stream was called the Poison of the Horses of Gwyddno from that time forth.

“Thereupon came in Caridwen, and saw all the toil of the whole year lost. And she seized a billet of wood and struck the blind Morda on the head until one of his eyes fell out upon his cheek. And he said, ‘Wrongfully hast thou disfigured me, for I am innocent. Thy loss was not because of me.’

“‘Thou speakest truth,’ said Caridwen; ‘it was Gwion Bach who robbed me.’

“And she went forth after him running. And he saw her and changed himself into a hare and fled.

“But she changed herself into a greyhound, and turned him. And he ran towards a river and became a fish. And she in the form of an otter-bitch chased him under the water until he was fain to turn himself into a bird of the air. She as a hawk followed him, and gave him no rest in the sky, and just as she was about to stoop upon him, and he was in fear of death, he espied a heap of winnowed wheat on the floor of a barn, and he dropped among the wheat and turned himself into one of the grains. Then she transferred herself into a high-crested black hen, and went to the wheat and scratched it with her feet, and found him out and swallowed him, and, as the story says, she bore him nine months, and when she was delivered of him she could not find it in her heart to kill him, by reason of his beauty. So she wrapped him in a leathern bag, and cast him into the sea, to the mercy of God, on the 29th day of April.”

And, Moses-like, was Taliessin afterwards found in the Weir of Gwyddno by that prince’s only son Elphin, who took him to the house of his father. Some of the extraordinary tales which this prodigy of a boy told in verse are given, and it is related how he bewitched the bards of King Mælgron by pouting out his lips after them, and playing “Blerwm, blerwm” with his finger upon his lips as they went to court. His own answers to the king are always in song. Among the curious odes that he sang are those known as—

This latter begins:—

Of the story of Kilhwch and Olwen, which has a particularly antique character, Renan felicitously says that by its entirely primitive aspect, by the part played in it by the wild boar in conformity to the spirit of Celtic mythology, by the wholly supernatural and magical character of the narration, by innumerable allusions, the sense of which escapes us, it forms a cycle by itself. Passing by the unique adventures of Kilhwch, he quotes as a typical sample the remarkable passage on the finding of Mabon, where his followers said unto Arthur, “Lord, go thou home; thou canst not proceed with thy host in quest of such small adventures as these,” and Arthur commissions Gwrhyr, because he knew all languages, and was familiar with those of the birds and the beasts, to accompany others, whom he named, in search of the lost cousin. They went forward first to the ousel of Cilgwi, and got its weird and quaint answer, then to the stag of Redynvre. From him to the owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, to the eagle of Gwern Abwy, and, lastly, to the salmon of Llyn Llyw. Each tells its tale, and passes them on to the next. The speeches of these ancient denizens of the land are very old-fashioned and curious, typical of all the primitive extravagance of the Celtic imagination.

But it is in tales like the “Lady of the Fountain” and “Peredur” that we tap the later, full-blown, and most characteristic Arthurian romance. The former begins: “King Arthur was at Caerlleon upon Usk; and one day he sat in his chamber, and with him were Owain, the son of Urien, and Kynon, the son of Clydno, and Kai, the son of Kyner, and Gwenhwyvar and her handmaidens at needlework by the window. And if it should be said that there was a porter at Arthur’s palace, there was none. Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr was there, acting as porter to welcome guests and strangers, and to receive them with honour, and to inform them of the manners and customs of the court; and to direct those who came to the hall or to the presence chamber, and those who came to take up their lodgings.

“In the centre of the chamber King Arthur sat upon a seat of green rushes, over which was spread a covering of flame-coloured satin, and a cushion of red satin was under his elbow. Then Arthur spoke, ‘If I thought you would not disparage me,’ said he, ‘I would sleep while I wait for my repast; and you can entertain one another with relating tales, and can obtain a flagon of mead and some meat from Kai.’ And the king went to sleep.”

Kynon tells a tale: “I was the only son of my mother and father, and I was exceedingly aspiring, and my daring was very great. I thought there was no enterprise in the world too mighty for me, and after I had achieved all the adventures in my own country, I equipped myself and set forth to journey through deserts and distant regions. And at length it chanced that I came to the fairest valley in the world, wherein were trees of equal growth, and a river ran through the valley, and a path by the side of the river. And I followed the path until midday, and continued my journey along the remainder of the valley until the evening, and at the extremity of the plain I came to a large and lustrous castle, at the foot of which was a torrent. And I approached the castle, and there I beheld two youths.”

He describes the wonderful dress of these, and of a man in the prime of life clad in a robe and a mantle of yellow satin with band of gold lace, shoes of variegated leather fastened by two bosses of gold. This man went with him towards the castle. “And there I saw four-and-twenty damsels,” he says, “embroidering satin at a window. And this I tell thee, Kai, that the least fair of them was fairer than the fairest maid thou hast ever beheld in the island of Britain, and the least lovely of them was more lovely than Gwenhwyvar, the wife of Arthur, when she has appeared loveliest at the offering on the day of the Nativity or at the feast of Easter. They rose up at my coming, and six of them took my horse and divested me of my armour; and six others took my arms and washed them in a vessel until they were perfectly bright. And the third six spread cloths upon the table and prepared meat. And the fourth six took off my soiled garments, and placed others upon me, namely, an under vest and a doublet of fine linen, and a robe and a surcoat, and a mantle of yellow satin with a broad gold band upon the mantle, and they placed cushions both beneath and around me, with coverings of red linen, and I sat down. Now, the six maidens who had taken my horse unharnessed him as well as if they had been the best squires in the Island of Britain. Then, behold, they brought bowls of silver wherein was water to wash, and towels of linen, some green and some white; and I washed, and in a little while the man sat down to the table, and I sat down next to him, and below me sat all the maidens except those who waited on me.”

After he divulged the object of his journey, the host directed him to a black man of great stature on the top of a mound, ill favoured, with but one foot, one eye in the middle of his forehead, a club of iron, and a thousand wild animals grazing around him.

Next day Kynon set out and found this giant. And when I told him, he says, “who I was and what I sought, he directed me. ‘Take,’ said he, ‘that path that leads towards the head of the glade, and ascend the wooden steep until thou comest to the summit; and there thou wilt find an open space like to a large valley, and in the midst of it a tall tree, whose branches are greener than the greenest pinetrees. Under this tree is a fountain, and by the side of the fountain a marble slab, and in the marble slab a silver bowl attached by a chain of silver, so that it may not be carried away. Take the bowl and throw a bowlful of water upon the slab, and thou wilt hear a mighty peal of thunder, so that thou wilt think that heaven and earth are trembling with fury. With the thunder there will come a shower so severe that it will be scarce possible for thee to endure it and live. And the shower will be of hailstones. And after the shower the weather will become fair, but every leaf that was upon the tree will have been carried away by the shower. Then a flight of birds will come and alight upon the tree, and in thine own country thou didst never hear a strain so sweet as that which they will sing. And at the moment thou art most delighted with the song of the birds thou wilt hear a murmuring and complaining coming towards thee along the valley. And thou wilt see a knight upon a coalblack horse, clothed in black velvet, and with a pennon of black linen upon his lance; and he will ride unto thee to encounter thee with the utmost speed. If thou fleest from him he will overtake thee, and if thou abidest there, as sure as thou art a mounted knight he will leave thee on foot, and if thou dost not find trouble in that adventure thou needest not seek it during the rest of thy life.’”

In these tales the principal part belongs to the women, and here it is the Lady of the Fountain. In reading the romances we instantly find ourselves on the top wave of chivalry. Three things strike the modern reader.

First, the ideal here presented of King Arthur and his Queen Gwenhwyvar, the pure and homely atmosphere of their Court in that wild and barbarian age, and the sterling qualities and integrity of the Knights of the Round Table. Each fights not for any national cause, but to show his personal excellence and satisfy his taste for adventure. It is an epic creation representing the dream of medieval times.

Second, not less surprising to us is the sangfroid with which the warriors carry out their adventures, the supreme indifference to danger, or to the pain and death they inflict when they set to, to try each other’s mettle. Knight attacks knight for no other reason than that he is superior in prowess to himself, and he will risk his life any day to get the mastery over a rival in arms. They reck nothing of sword cuts. Enough for them that it is in accordance with the laws of chivalry.

Third, and perhaps most wonderful of all, is the delicacy of the feminine feeling breathed in these romances. There is nothing sensual in the love here portrayed. It is angelic. Never an impropriety or gross word is to be met with in all these pages, never a prurient suggestion for all the roughness of that rude age. Women figure as divine, the most charming creatures in the world, to protect whose honour and win whose love and esteem, danger and even death are freely braved. This was a new element introduced into European literature—the creation of woman’s character and the place given her in chivalry. “Nearly all the types of womankind known to the Middle Ages,—Guinevere, Iseult, Enid,”—says Renan, “are derived from Arthur’s court.”

The influence of these tales upon the literature, the taste, the social life of the whole of Western Europe has been immense, and they are still as fresh and enchanting to the intelligent reader as any Arabian Nights’ Entertainment.

Lady Charlotte Guest’s literary monument is for English readers the standard classic. There we find a charming translation with luminous notes of these famous Mabinogion, a collection which Renan has called “the pearl of Gaelic literature, the completest expression of the Cymric genius,” and for the early Welsh poetry, both in the original and in translation, we have the sumptuous edition of Dr. Skene, culled from The Four Ancient Books of Wales, to delight us. The poetry and romance of the Cymry are really two literatures essentially distinct from each other. Springing from the same soil, each reflects in its own way the same national character which had so much in common with that of our own ancient Gaelic ancestry, so that we feel to-day with regard to that long past, that “distance only lends enchantment to the view.”