OF GLASTONBURY AND THE PASSING OF ARTHUR
“And so they rowed from the land; and Sir Bedivere beheld all the
ladies go with him. Then Sir Bedivere cried, Ah my Lord Arthur, what
shall become of me now ye go from me, and leave me here alone among
mine enemies? Comfort thyself, said the King. For I will go into the
vale of Avilon, to heal me of my grievous wound. And if thou never
more hear of me, pray for my soul.”--_Malory._
“Whether the Kinge were there or not,
Hee never knewe, nor ever colde,
For from that sad and direful daye
Hee never more was seene on molde.”
_Percy Reliques._
“O, three times favoured isle, where’s the place that might
Be with thyself compared for glory or delight
Whilst Glastonbury stood?...
Not great Arthur’s tomb, nor holy Joseph’s grave,
From sacrilege had power their sacred bones to save,
He, who that God in man to his sepulchre brought,
Or he, which for the faith twelve famous battles fought.”--_Drayton._
A quaint old-world look is upon the face of the city of many legends,
King Arthur’s “isle of rest.” It lies deep in a green well-watered
valley, and its steep sudden hill, the Tor, rising abruptly to
a height of over five hundred feet and crowned with a lonely
square tower, seems to shelter and keep watch upon the traditional
apple-island. The orchard lawns are seen everywhere with their
deep-green carpet and the crooked branches of innumerable fruit-laden
trees casting grotesque shadows upon it. The whole year round the
western airs are balmy, though in spite of hoary legend and poetic
eulogy Glastonbury has felt the effects of terrific storms, whirlwinds,
and earthquakes. Its history--a history of marvel and wonder,
inextricably mingled for many centuries with superstition--takes us far
back into the misty past when the ancient Britons named the marshland,
often flooded by the water of the Bristol Channel, Ynyswytryn, or Inis
vitrea, the Glassy Island; either, it has been surmised, on account
of the “glasten” or blue-green colour of its surface, or from the
abundance of “glass” (or woad) to be found in the vicinity.[30] On
the other hand Professor Freeman believed that Glastonbury was the
abode and perhaps the possession of one Glæsting, who, on discovering
that his cattle strayed to the rich pastures, settled in that part,
which in the natural order of things became Glæstingaburgh. That it
was veritably an island admits of no doubt; the circuit of the water
can still be traced; and when the Romans in turn made discovery of
the fruitfulness of the region enclosed by the waters of the western
sea, they denominated it Insula Avalonia, or Isle of Apples. This was
the “fortunate isle,” celebrated in the ancient ode of which Camden
has given us a version, “where unforced fruits and willing comforts
meet,” where the fields require “no rustic hand” but only Nature’s
cultivation, where
“The fertile plains with corn and herds are proud,
And golden apples shine in every wood.”
[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL’S TOWER, GLASTONBURY
[_To face p. 218_]
The inflowing of the sea made islands not only of Glastonbury, but
of Athelney, Beckery, and Meare; and not many centuries ago, when a
tempest raged, the sea-wall was broken down and the Channel waters
swept up the low-lying land almost as far as Glastonbury Church. The
simple record of this event reads: “The breach of the sea-flood was
January 20th, 1606.” Again in 1703 was Glastonbury threatened with
a deluge, and the water was five feet deep in its streets; but as
geologists are able to affirm that the sea is receding from the western
coast it is unlikely that such catastrophes will recur. A little lazy
stream, the Brue, almost engirdles the city, and thus permits the
inhabitants with seeming reasonableness to retain for Glastonbury the
name loved best--the Isle of Avalon. That Roman name has been full
of dreamy suggestiveness to the poet’s mind; and though the poet’s
Avalon may often have been an enchanted city, the “baseless fabric of a
vision,” the Avalon of Somerset, with its two streets forming a perfect
cross, its Abbey ruins, its antiquities, and its slumbrous aspect, is
assuredly not unworthy of the legends clustering about it.
Only by devious paths can Glastonbury, once the remote shrine for
devout pilgrims from all parts of the land, be reached, for it is
still somewhat out of the common track. But to wander awhile in
the apple-country is delightful alike to the mind and the physical
sense--to drink in its associations, to inhale its warm, sweet air,
to see the gleam of white blossoms and the crimson softening upon
the round ripened cheeks of the pendent fruit, these are the sources
of enjoyment and the elements of the charm. Countless gardens send
forth a rare perfume, and the quiet of the whole city in the midst
of orchards and streams and showing the relics of by-gone splendour
has a lulling effect upon the traveller who comes from the roaring
town and the busy mart. When the twin dark towers of Wells Cathedral
are fading shadow-like in the distance the new strange picture of the
island-valley is revealed. There stretch the long level meadows of deep
emerald, there glooms a forest of trees whose twisted branches are
bright with apple-blossoms. The high Tor hill looks stern and bare, but
cosy and inviting is the town below with its rows of irregular houses,
many of which date back to long past days, while others, constituted
of stone with which the architects of Dunstan’s and of Becket’s time
wrought, seem to bear mute tribute to the famous era when the Abbey was
in its glory and reverend pilgrims from afar came to bring oblations
to that hallowed shrine. To-day the visitor finds a welcome at the
“Inne” built in 1475 for the devout travellers whom the Abbot could not
accommodate within the walls of the Abbey; and so few are the changes
of time that the lofty façade, the parapet and turrets, the wide
archway, the ecclesiastical windows, and the long corridors, remain
almost as they were first designed and made. Side by side stand “Ye
Olde Pilgrim’s Inne” and the Tribunal, or Court House, built by Abbot
Beere, for the trial of petty offenders against the law. Unexplored
dungeons are reported to exist underground, together with subterranean
passages communicating with the Abbey from the “Inne” and the Tribunal.
In the neighbourhood is a conspicuous building once used for collecting
the tithes, called the Abbey Barn, dating from 1420, in some respects
the best preserved of all the ancient memorials. But the pride and
glory of Glastonbury centre in the wondrously beautiful remains of
the oldest, richest, and stateliest of English Abbeys--an Abbey whose
reputed founder was Joseph of Arimathæa, that Joseph who had seen the
face and heard the voice of the Saviour of mankind. It was the only
church of first rank in England standing as a monument of British days
which escaped the scath and wreck which followed the storm of Norman
conquest.
[Illustration: THE OLDE PILGRIM’S INN, GLASTONBURY
[_To face p. 222_]
To what dim epoch the earliest history of Glastonbury belongs is more
or less conjectural, though the discovery of some sixty low mounds
by archæologists led to the discovery that a prehistoric lake-village
in remote times occupied the site. Excavations revealed the remains
of human habitations and of successive occupation by the same race--a
race which hunted the boar, the roebuck, and the deer, and whose sole
accomplishment was the making of coarse, rude pottery. But this people
has passed away and not even a tradition of its existence is extant.
It was at a much later period, though, looking backward, the time
seems far distant, that the first legend of Glastonbury took root and
flowered. So pure, fragrant, and beautiful is that treasured blossom
that it would seem ruthless to attempt to pluck it by the roots from
the ground, and to cast it aside as a worthless weed of ignorance and
superstition. It brings to us the memory of that time when the Son of
Man was on earth; it is a seed blown from that land which His presence
sanctified. Nearly two thousand years ago the crucified Nazarene was
watched by agonised crowds upon Calvary. Joseph of Arimathæa, “a
good man and a just,” begged the dead body from Pilate and buried it
in his own garden, thereby incurring the fierce resentment of the
Jews. He fled from Palestine, fearing for his life, and so enraged
were his enemies at his escape that they expelled his friends
also--Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and Philip among others--putting them
out to sea without oars or sail. “After tossing about many days,” says
one writer, “they were driven in God’s providence to Marseilles, and
from Marseilles St. Joseph came to Britain, where he died at a good
old age, after having preached the Gospel of Christ with power and
earnestness for many years.” This was about A.D. 63. “The happy news of
the Saviour’s resurrection, and the offer of the only assured means of
salvation to all who would embrace it” were welcomed by King Arviragus,
who assigned to St. Joseph the Isle of Avalon as a retreat. When Joseph
and his little Christian band, passing over Stone Down where stand the
two notable Avalon Oaks, came to the place, weary with long travelling,
they rested on the ridge of a hill, which in its name of Weary-all Hill
(really Worall) is supposed to commemorate this incident; and where the
saint’s staff touched the sod, a thorn tree miraculously sprang up, and
every Christmas Day it buds and blossoms as a memorial of our Lord,
and of the first Christian festival.[31] Another story says that the
saint was met by a boisterous mob of the heathen, and that, planting
his pilgrim’s staff in the earth, he knelt down to pray; and as he
prayed, the hard, dry staff began to bud and give forth fragrance, and
became a living tree. Then said Joseph, “Our God is with us,” and the
heathen, transfixed by the miracle, were convinced and pacified. So
runs the earliest Christian legend in England, and as a fitting sequel
we learn that not long after Joseph’s mission had begun the first
Christian chapel was built, and occupied part of the site on which the
most beautiful of holy houses was afterwards reared--Glastonbury Abbey.
St. Joseph’s Chapel, magnificent in ruin, is one of those hallowed
places in which one might spend hours in silent contemplation. Through
many centuries the legend of the Holy Thorn has been preserved, and
Glastonbury has remained distinguished by the fact that there the
“winter thorn” has blossomed every Christmas “mindful of our Lord,” or,
as a pupil of Caxton’s wrote in 1520--
“The hawthornes also that groweth in Werall
Do burge and bere green leaves at Christmas
As fresh as other in May.”
The tree was regarded with great awe and superstition by the
inhabitants, and when the change in the calendar was made they looked
to the “sacra spina” for confirmation of the righteousness of what had
been done. Many people refused to celebrate the new-style Christmas
Day because the Thorn showed no blossoms, and when the white flowers
appeared on January 5th, the old-style Christmas was held to have been
divinely sanctioned. A trunk of the tree was cut down by a Puritan
soldier, though his sacrilege caused him to be severely wounded by a
piece of the dismembered tree striking him; but when the Thorn was cast
into the river as dead and worthless it miraculously took root again.
The spot where it grew is marked by a monumental stone bearing the
inscription:--I. A. A.D. XXXI.
[Illustration: ST. JOSEPH’S CHAPEL, GLASTONBURY ABBEY
[_To face p. 224_]
A Somerset historian likewise records that in addition to the Holy
Thorn there grew in the Abbey churchyard a miraculous walnut tree,
which never budded forth before the feast of St. Barnabas, namely, the
11th of June, and “on that day shot forth leaves and flourished like
its usual species.” This tree is gone, but another “of the commonplace
sort” stands in its place. “It is strange,” we read, “to say how much
this tree was sought after by the credulous; and though not an uncommon
walnut, Queen Anne, King James, and many of the nobility of the realm,
even when the times of monkish superstition had ceased, gave large
sums of money for small cuttings from the original.” The walnut tree,
however, never vied with the Holy Thorn in popularity. The “Athenian
Oracle” (1690) wriggled out of the difficulties attending a belief
in the budding of the hawthorn tree with characteristic ingenuity,
and supplied an example that most of us would gladly imitate. To
an inquirer who asked for information and an opinion, the “Oracle”
replied (none too grammatically), “All that Mr. Camden says of it is,
that if any one may be believed in matters of this nature, this has
been affirmed to him to be true by several credible persons; it was
not in Glastonbury itself, but in Wirral Park, hard by it; however,
this superstitious tree, true or false, was cut down in the last
reforming age, though it seems they did not make such root and branch
work with it but that some stumps remained, at least some branches or
grafts out of it were saved, and still growing in the same country;
though whether they have the same virtue with the former, or that
had any more than any other hawthorn, we don’t pretend to determine
any more than the forementioned historian.” The belief in the tree
and the knowledge of its peculiar properties were so wide-spread
that Sedley’s verse on Cornelia, who “bloomed in the winter of her
days like Glastonbury Thorn” was easily understood. Bishop Goodman,
writing to the Lord General Oliver Cromwell in 1652, said he could
“find no naturall cause” either in the soil or other circumstances
for the extraordinary character of the tree. “This I know,” said the
prelate, “that God first appeared to Moses in a bramble bush; and that
Aaron’s rod, being dried and withered, did budde; and these were God’s
actions, and His first actions; and, truly, Glastonbury was a place
noted for holiness, and the first religious foundation in England, and,
in effect, was the first dissolved; and therein, was such a barbarous
inhumanity as Egypt never heard the like. It may well be that this
White Thorne did then spring up, and began to blossome on Christmas
day, to give a testimony to religion, and that it doth flourish in
persecution,” and so forth. Infinite meanings and significances could
be extracted from the legend, that fantastic casket of man’s art and
devising which is made to enshrine the small pure pearl of truth.
If this were the place for sermons it might be pointed out that the
vitality of the Thorn is an emblem of the vitality of the religion it
commemorates; but our duty is to trace its connection with history.
The legend has been somewhat altered in form in order to bring it into
direct association with the building of the Abbey. This new version
of the miracle is that Joseph of Arimathæa was commanded to build a
church in honour of the Virgin Mary, but finding that the natives
were distrustful of him and his mission he prayed, like Gideon,
for a miracle. Forthwith his staff began to shoot forth leaves and
blossoms, and the unwithered Thorn took root. Be that as it may, the
first Christians built a chapel of twisted alder, in the form of a
parallelogram, 60 feet long and 26 feet broad (to come to details),
and having “a window at the west end and one at the east; on each side
were three windows, and near the western angle was a door each side.”
A representation of the first building for Christian worship erected
in this country is found on an old document now in the British Museum,
and it is said to have been copied from a plate of brass which had been
affixed to an adjoining pillar. The chapel is variously referred to
in ancient records as “Lignea Basilica,” “Vetusta Ecclesia,” and the
“Ealdechirche,” and with its walls of wattles and its roof of rushes it
must long have been an object of revered contemplation. Joseph built
and preached in “the little lonely church,” “built with wattles from
the marsh,” journeying from thence across the plain to the Mendips,
where he found other half barbarous Britons to listen to the story of
the Redemption. He laid the foundations of a bishopric at Wells, which
was afterwards to be the rival of Glastonbury Abbey itself, and to the
end of a long and fruitful life continued his ministry to the people.
Chalice Hill revives by its name and associations another reminiscence
of our Lord even more amazing. St. Joseph was the bringer to this
country of two precious relics--one--
“The Cup itself from which our Lord
Drank at the last sad supper with His own,”
the other, some of the blood which oozed from the crucified Saviour’s
body. The chalice, or sacred cup, was buried by Joseph at the spot
where a perpetual spring of water bubbles--the “Blood Spring,” which
supplies the Holy Well, scene of many miraculous cures in times past.
That the waters are medicinal admits of no doubt; that it issues from
the Cup is a matter of faith, especially as the Holy Grail is claimed
to be now in safe keeping by more than one far-distant Abbey.[32] As
for the second relic, it is said that St. Joseph confided the memorial
to his nephew Isaac, who sealed up the blood in two vials and secreted
them from the invading Roman pagans. When danger menaced him, he hid
the phials in an ancient fig-tree, which he then cast into the sea.
Carried by the waves to Gaul, the fig-tree was cast up at the spot
which now forms Fécamp harbour; and there a few centuries later it was
found with the two phials secure. Fearless Duke Richard of Normandy
was so impressed by the discovery that he built an Abbey in which
fitly to enshrine the Precious Blood, and Fécamp Abbey bears witness
alike to his faith and his devotion. It was upon the story of the
Grail that chroniclers seized with avidity after Borron had once shown
its capabilities--a story now believed by many to be almost wholly of
Celtic origin, the Sancgreal being none other than Fionn’s healing
cup. Mr. Nutt, to whose exhaustive work on the subject reference
has previously been made, has told us of every form, rudimentary
and developed, in which the Grail legend has appeared, and of every
explanation advanced as to its meaning. Whether the legend is based
upon Christian canonical or uncanonical writings, or whether it is an
ancient saga into which a Christian element was imported, whether it
was extant in any definite form before the time of Robert de Borron,
or whether it was a fabrication of the era to which many monkish
fables have been traced, are points which to discuss in detail would
require, and have had, volumes devoted to them. Within fifty years
(1180-1225) there were eight versions of the story in which the idea of
the Grail was elaborated, and we know how the idea has been developed
and enriched and idealised until our own time. “The vanished Vase of
Heaven that held like Christ’s own Heart an Hin of Blood,” has been a
marvellously fecund seed of inspiration to romancist and poet. Percival
and Galahad are the highest human conceptions of purity, and their
quest is the most exalting and ennobling upon which heroes can set
forth. Yet, as we have already seen, the conclusion cannot be resisted
that the story had its root in paganism, and that the history of the
Grail is nothing but the history of the gradual transformation of old
Celtic folk-tales into a poem charged with Christian symbolism and
mysticism. “This transformation, at first the inevitable outcome of its
pre-Christian development, was hastened later by the perception that it
was a fitting vehicle for certain moral and spiritual ideas.” Avalon,
lying not far from the western sea beyond which tradition said were
the happy isles of the blessed dead, was the Cymric equivalent for the
Celtic paradise, and thus did Glastonbury become associated with the
glorious legends which have made it in the eyes of the romancists the
most sacred and wondrous city of earth. So may Glastonbury truly be
said to gather round it “all the noblest memories alike of the older
and the newer dwellers in the land.” Nor is it surprising that in a
place of so much reputation modern marvels should be reported to occur
or wonderful discoveries be made. An elixir was found in the ruins of
the Abbey in 1586, one grain of which, being dropped upon an ounce and
a quarter of mercury, was found to transmute the mercury into an ounce
of pure gold. Another grain of it, dropped upon a piece of metal cut
out of a warming-pan, turned the metal into silver, and this with the
warming-pan was sent to Queen Elizabeth that she might “fit the piece
with the place where it was cut out.”
Such facts are worthy of being related at some length not only on
account of any curious interest they possess in themselves, but because
they enable us to understand a number of allusions in the Arthurian
story, and help to account for the selection of Glastonbury as the
scene of the most solemn episodes in the career of the British king and
his knights. The poet Spenser, in recording that Sir Lucius was the
first to receive “the sacred pledge of Christ’s evangely,” hastens to
recall the Glastonbury legend, and to explain that--
“Long before that day
Hither came Joseph of Arithmathy,
Who brought with him the Holy Grayle, they say,
And preacht the truth.”
All the chief points in the old beliefs and the myths and traditions
are caught up in Malory’s history. The account of Joseph and his coming
to England may be read in the Book of Sir Galahad, for the story was
told by the stainless knight who bore the marvellous shield--
“Sir,” said Sir Galahad, “by this shield beene full many mervailes.”
“Sir,” said the knight, “it befell after the passion of our Lord Jesu
Christ thirtie yeare, that Joseph of Aramathy, the gentle knight,
that tooke downe our Lord from the crosse, and at that time hee
departed from Jerusalem with a great part of the kindred with him,
and so they laboured till they came to a citie that hight Sarras. And
at that same houre that Joseph came unto Sarras there was a king
that hight Evelake, that had great warre against the Sarasins, and
in especial against one Sarasin, the which was King Evelake’s cosin,
a rich king and a mighty, the which marched nigh this land, and his
name was called Tollome le Feintes. So, upon a day these two met to
doe battaile. Then Joseph, the son of Joseph of Aramathy, went unto
King Evelake, and told him that he would be discomfited and slaine
but if he left his beleeve of the ould law and beleeve upon the new
law. And then he shewed him the right beleeve of the Holy Trinity,
the which he agreed with al his hart, and ther this shield was made
for King Evelake, in the name of him that died upon the crosse; and
then through his good beleeve hee had the better of King Tollome. For
when King Evelake was in the battaile, there was a cloath set afore
the shield, and when hee was in the greatest perill hee let put away
the cloath, and then anon his enemies saw a figure of a man upon the
crosse, where through they were discomforted. And so it befell that
a man of King Evelake’s had his hand smitten off, and beare his hand
in his other hand, and Joseph called that man unto him, and bad him
goe with good devotion and touch the crosse; and as soon as that man
had touched the crosse with his hand, it was as whole as ever it was
before. Then soone after there fell a great mervaile, that the crosse
of the shield at one time vanished away that no man wist where it
became. And there was King Evelake baptised, and for the most part
all the people of that cittie. So soone after Joseph would depart,
and King Evelake would go with him whether he would go or not; and so
by fortune they came into this land, which at that time was called
Great Brittaine, and there they found a great felon panim that put
Joseph in prison. And so by fortune tidings came unto a worthy man
that hight Mondrames, and hee assembled all his people, for the great
renown that he had hard of Joseph; and so he came into the land of
Great Brittaine, and disherited the felon panim and consumed him,
and therewith delivered Joseph out of prison. And after that, all the
people were turned to the Christian faith.”
According to Malory it was “Not long after that,” that Joseph was
“laid in his death bed,” his last act being to make “a crosse of his
owne blood” upon the shield before giving it to King Evelake. “Now
may yee see a remembrance that I love you,” he said, “for yee shall
never see this shield but that yee shall thinke on mee, and it shall
be alwayes as fresh as it is now. And never shall no man beare this
shielde about his necke but hee shall repent it, unto the time that
Sir Galahad the good knight beare it.” It is the general opinion that
Joseph of Arimathæa was buried in the ground surrounding the church of
his foundation, for a burial ground to contain a thousand graves had
been prepared in his time. William of Malmesbury wrote that there were
preserved in that consecrated place “the remains of many saints, nor is
there any space in the building that is free of their ashes. So much
so that the stone pavement, and indeed the sides of the altar itself,
above and below, is crammed with the multitude of the relics. Rightly,
therefore, it is called the heavenly sanctuary on earth, of so large a
number of saints it is the repository.” There is no clear record of who
immediately succeeded Joseph, but his ministry was carried on by St.
Patrick, who was a native of Glastonbury,[33] by St. David, by Gildas,
and by Dunstan. It was St. Patrick who, returning from his labours
in Ireland in 461, found that the church built with wattles from the
marsh was in a state of decay, and erected a substantial edifice on
Tor Hill, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Michael. He was Glastonbury’s
first abbot, though this fact is traditionary rather than historical,
and his grave was near the altar of the original church. An oratory had
previously existed on the site, having been founded a century after
Joseph’s arrival by two saints, Phaganus and Duruvianus. The Abbey
itself now began to take definite shape, the eyes of all Christians
being drawn to Glastonbury by reason of its sacred record. In the sixth
century, in King Arthur’s time, it was approaching its fulness of power
and nearing that zenith of fame and splendour which did not decline for
nearly a thousand years.
[Illustration: WELLS CATHEDRAL
[_To face p. 236_]
According to Professor Freeman, Glastonbury became, in the year 601,
the great sanctuary of the British in the place of Ambresbury, which
had but lately fallen. How it grew, how it was ruled by great leaders
in the church, how it became the largest, the most beautiful, the most
wealthy of all abbeys, how its fall was compassed, and how the last of
its abbots, an aged man, was dragged to the hill-top and hanged, are
historic facts which belong to a date far later than that with which
we are concerned. We cannot even dwell upon St. Patrick’s sojourn at
Glastonbury, or upon Dunstan’s retirement to its cloisters in order to
devote himself to study and music. Here it was that he wrestled with
the Evil One in person while labouring at his forge; here it was that
heavenly visions were vouchsafed to him; here it was that he began
his work of reformation in the Church and made the Abbey the centre
of religious influence in the kingdom. After the lapse of centuries
we gaze only upon the ruins of the fabric, and from them learn how
majestic the temple in its prime must have been, comprehending a little
of the truth half revealed and half concealed in the silent storied
places with their shattered walls, their crumbling archways, their
unroofed chambers, their windows darkened with trailing weeds, and
their floors overgrown with lank grasses and moss.
King Arthur’s connection with Glastonbury cannot be deemed wholly
mythical, though the mysteriously beautiful narrative which tells of
his last days in Avalon seems too poetical for reality. There are,
however, other links, not so generally recognised, connecting him with
this consecrated place. Glastonbury was not only his “isle of rest;”
nor was the Abbey known only to him as a shrine. He claimed, or it
was claimed for him, that he was descended on his mother’s side from
Joseph of Arimathæa, the genealogy being thus given:--“Helianis, the
nephew of Joseph, begat Joshua; Joshua begat Aminadab; Aminadab begat
Castellos; Castellos begat Mavael; Mavael begat Lambord, who begat
Igerna of whom Uther Pendragon begat the famous and noble Arthur.”
Glastonbury, in addition to its celebrity as a Christian sanctuary,
would therefore have a claim upon King Arthur’s attention for the sake
of his venerated ancestor, though there seems little reason to doubt
that in his day it was the cynosure of the eyes of all who claimed
to be within the religious fold. Lady Charlotte Guest, in one of the
valuable notes to her translation of the _Mabinogion_, calls attention
to a record of William of Malmesbury, which proves how much Glastonbury
was in King Arthur’s mind on all occasions. “It is written in the Acts
of the illustrious King Arthur,” we read, “that at a certain festival
of the Nativity, at Caerleon, that monarch having conferred military
distinction upon a valiant youth of the name of Ider, the son of King
Nuth, in order to prove him, conducted him to the hill of Brentenol,
for the purpose of fighting three most atrocious giants. And Ider,
going before the rest of the company, attacked the giants valorously,
and slew them. And when Arthur came up he found him apparently dead,
having fainted with the immense toil he had undergone, whereupon he
reproached himself with having been the cause of his death, through
his tardiness in coming to his aid; and _arriving at Glastonbury_, he
appointed there four-and-twenty monks to say mass for his soul, and
endowed them most amply with lands, and with gold and silver, chalices,
and other ecclesiastical ornaments.” From this we might well infer
that King Arthur was in the habit of paying periodical visits to the
island-valley. “The great Lady Lyle of Avelyon,” girt with a sword
which only Balin could draw from its scabbard, with results afterwards
disastrous to himself, is a link in the associations of Arthur and his
court with the island-valley.
His war with King Melvas, of Somersetshire (strongly reminiscent of
the last war with Mordred, as related by Malory), reads like veritable
history. While engaged in subduing the savage hordes in Wales and
Cornwall, and in beating back the advancing Saxons, he found that
the “Rex Rebellus” Melvas had stolen away his wife Guinevere, and
carried her to Ynyswytryn. King Arthur gathered a large force, and
set out with his knights to take summary vengeance on the ravisher,
whom he forthwith besieged. A well-known antiquary has found reason to
believe that Arthur’s force was “a numberless multitude;” but at all
events there is little doubt that Melvas, who was only an “underlord,”
would have been heavily defeated had a battle ensued. But conflict
was avoided by the intervention of Gildas, the Abbot, who commanded
Melvas to restore Guinevere to her rightful lord, and then succeeded in
reconciling the two foes. They both ended by swearing friendship and
fidelity to the Abbot, and the facts go far to show the potentiality
of that dignitary at this period. Thus, by establishing King Arthur’s
connection with Glastonbury, we increase the likelihood of his choosing
the holy place at Avalon for his last resting-place. He knew the shrine
well and had visited the fruitful, balmy island-valley in which his
ancestor’s name was deeply revered; and when his time drew nigh he
could think of no sweeter, better spot in which to seek for peace.
“Comfort thy selfe,” said the king to weeping Sir Bedivere after the
last battle, “and do as well as thou maiest, for in mee is no trust for
to trust in; for I wil into the vale of Avilion for to heale me of my
grievous wound; and if thou never heere more of me, pray for my soule.”
And with the three mourning queens he passed from the bloody field of
Camlan up the waters of the Bristol Channel to the isle
“Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly.”
“King Arthur, being wounded in battle, was brought to Glastonbury
to be healed of his wounds by the healing waters of that place,” an
old record runs. But his wound was too grievous; and though Merlin
prophesied that he “cannot die,” the current tradition is that when
he reached the sacred isle he “came unto his end.” In the time of the
first Plantagenet, when the fame of King Arthur was revived, search
was made at Glastonbury for the bones of the great British chief.
Henry II. was then on his way to Ireland, and Henry of Bloys, then
Abbot of Glastonbury, undertook the task, fully intending, no doubt,
that it should be successful. Between two pillars at a depth of nine
feet a stone was found with a leaden cross inscribed on its under side
in Latin, “Here lies buried the renowned King Arthur, in the isle of
Avalon”; and seven feet lower down his body was found in an oaken
coffin. The historian Selden gives us an instructive report of how King
Henry was induced to set about the strange enterprise of discovering
the remains of King Arthur. He tells us that the king in his expedition
towards Ireland was “entertained by the way in Wales with bardish
songs, wherein he heard it affirmed that in Glastonbury (made almost
an isle by the river’s embracements) Arthur was buried betwixt two
pillars. He therefore gave commandment to Henri of Blois, then Abbot,
to make search for the corps, which was found in a wooden coffin
(Girald saith oaken, Leland thinks alder), some sixteen foot deep; but
after they had digged nine foot they found a stone on whose lower side
was fixt a leaden cross (crosses fixt upon the tombs of old Christians
were in all places ordinary) with his name inscribed, and the letter
side of it turned to the stone. He (King Arthur) was then honoured with
a sumptuous monument, and afterwards the sculls of him and his wife
Guinevere were taken out (to remain as separate relics and spectacles)
by Edward Longshanks and Eleanor.” But notwithstanding the useful
and apposite inscription on the leaden cross, “Hic jacet sepultus
inclytus rex Arthurus in insula Avalonia”; or as it is otherwise more
epigrammatically given, “Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque
futurus”--
“His Epitaph recordeth so certaine
Here lieth King Arthur that shall raigne againe;”--
it is hardly necessary to add that there is almost every reason to
believe that this extraordinary “find” could have been nothing but
a pious fraud, _in majorem monasterii gloriam_. If the truth be not
established, however, it has been incorporated into many chronicles
as genuine history. Bale, in his _Actes of English Votaries_, bears
testimony in these words: “In Avallon, annus 1191, there found they
the fleshe bothe of Arthur and of hys wyfe Guenever turned all into
duste, wythin theyr coffins of strong oke, the bones only remaynge. A
monke of the same Abbeye, standing and beholding the fine broydinges
of the womman’s heare as yellow as golde there still to remayne: as a
man ravyshed, or more than halfe from hys wyttes, he leaped into the
graffe, XV fete depe, to have caughte them sodenlye. But he fayled
of hys purpose. For so soon as they were touched they fell all to
powder.” The reference to the depth of the grave reminds us that Stow,
in his _Chronicle_, declares that King Arthur was buried sixteen
feet underground to prevent the Saxons offering any indignity to his
corpse, “which Almighty God, for the sins of the Britons, afterwards
permitted,” he disappointingly concludes.
Camden’s account of the discovery is in these words: “When Henry II,
King of England, had learned from the songs of the British bards, that
Arthur, the most noble hero of the Britons, whose courage had so often
shattered the Saxons, was buried at Glessenbury between two pyramids,
he order’d search to be made for the body; and they had scarce digg’d
seven feet deep, but they light upon a cross’d stone (cippus) or a
stone in the back part whereof was fastened a rude leaden cross,
something broad. This being pulled out, appeared to have an inscription
upon it, and under it, almost nine foot deep, deposited the bones of
the famous Arthur. The letters have a sort of barbarous and Gothic
appearance, and are a plain evidence of the barbarity of the age,
which was involved in a fatal sort of mist, that no one was found to
celebrate the name of King Arthur.” The most detailed account of all is
given in Joseph Ritson’s scholarly work on King Arthur, and the famous
antiquary’s outspoken comments on the records “and other legendary
rhodomontades” of the monks of Glastonbury can be read with amusement
as well as with profit. It is a sufficiently remarkable fact that none
of the chroniclers agree in their details, and Matthew Paris distinctly
declares that the letters inscribed upon the tomb could “in no wise
be read on account of too much barbarism and deformity.” Antiquary
Leland was sceptical as to the coffin, and William of Malmesbury
(1143) said “The sepulchre of Arthur was never seen”; but, despite all
contradictions and doubts, the discovery seems to have been generally
accepted as genuine, while for many reasons it was gratifying to the
people of that and subsequent ages. Caxton would have regarded it as
“most execrable infidelity” to have had a doubt upon the subject. At
Glastonbury we indubitably seem to get nearer the real Arthur than we
are able to do in any of the other localities mentioned by Geoffrey
and the later chroniclers. Whether he was the monarch described in the
romances or a semi-barbarous chieftain leading the Britons to a final,
though only temporary, victory against the Saxons, there remains the
same likelihood of his connection with the first Abbey raised in the
land.
On the authority of Gildas, we learn that when the Abbot brought about
peace between Arthur and Melvas, both kings made oath never to violate
the holy place, and both kings gave the Abbot much territory in token
of their gratitude. If, however, it is hard to reconcile the death of
King Arthur with Merlin’s prophecy, it is harder still to account for
the discovery of his bones and his grave in face of the ancient triad
which declared his grave to be unknown, and remembering which Tennyson
related--
“His grave should be a mystery
From all men, like his birth;”
while the older poet tells how he “raygnes in faerie.” There was,
however, a substantial reason for the finding of King Arthur’s tomb by
Henry of Blois, for at that time the revenues brought by pilgrims to
the shrine were not sufficient to provide funds for the building. The
contest between Wells and Glastonbury had also begun, and the discovery
of the bones of a saint was one of the surest methods of obtaining an
advantage. According to Stow’s _Chronicle_, the body was found “not
enclosed within a tomb of stone, but within a great tree made hollow
like a trough, the which being digged upon and opened, therein were
found the bones of Arthur, which were of a marvellous bigness.” This
circumstantial evidence seems almost irresistible, and no doubt there
was a conscientious belief in the discovery at the time it was reported
to have been made. Stow has further details to give on the authority
of Giraldus Cambriensis, “a learned man that then lived, who reporteth
to have heard of the Abbot of Glastonbury that the shin-bone of Arthur
being set up by the leg of a very tall man, came above his knee by
three fingers. The skull of his head was of a wonderful bigness; in
which head there appeared the points of ten wounds, or more, all which
were grown in one seam, except only that whereof he died, which being
greater than the other, appeared very plain.” Such, then, are the
records of this wondrous discovery.
Modern Glastonbury has its museum in which may be seen some pottery
from “King Arthur’s Palace at Wedmore,” and a thirteenth or fourteenth
century representation on the side of a mirror case of Queen Guinevere
deserting with Sir Lancelot, the only two relics, I believe, which in
any way recall the connection of King Arthur with the place. There are
evidences of the antiquity of the Abbey in abundance; though pilgrims’
staffs, leather bottles, palls, grace cups, roods, “counters” made by
the monks to serve as coin, and even the reliquary containing a small
piece of bone supposed to be of St. Paulinus, sent or left by St.
Augustine himself for the purpose of establishing the modified form of
the Benedictine rule, do not quite take us back to the sixth century.
Though the actual date of King Arthur’s death is not known, and though
his age is variously given from just over fifty to passing ninety, and
though there is no consensus of opinion as to the length of his reign,
we never hear of him at a later date than 604; and unfortunately all
the Glastonbury relics take us back at most to the tenth century. Yet
enthusiastic Drayton might well be carried away with the theme with
which Glastonbury supplied him; and remembering the marvels of its past
and the splendour of its aspect in his own day, he asked what place was
comparable with the “three times famous isle?”
“To whom didst thou commit that monument to keep,
When not great Arthur’s tomb, nor holy Joseph’s grave
From sacrilege had power their holy bones to save?”
[Illustration: THE ABBEY BARN, GLASTONBURY
[_To face p. 248_]
This is one of the insoluble mysteries. The remains of Arthur and
Guinevere are stated to have had noble burial by King Henry’s command
in “a fair tomb of marble,” and the cross of lead bearing the
original inscription was placed in the church treasury. At the
suppression of the monasteries it is assumed that all the tombs and
monuments shared one fate. Edward I and his queen visited Glastonbury
in 1278, and after seeing the shrine, fixed their signets upon the
separate “chests” in which the dust was deposited. Within the sepulchre
they placed a solemn written record of what they had seen, together
with the names of the principal witnesses. King Edward is also said to
have had Arthur’s crowns and jewels rendered to him. He and his queen
were satisfied that they had gazed upon “the bones of the most noble
Arthur”; and theirs were the last eyes to see the remains, false or
true. The historian Speed, in indignant strain, tells of the doom that
befell the Abbey in Henry VIII.’s days, when “this noble monument,
among the fatal overthrows of infinite more, was altogether razed by
those whose over-hasty actions and too forward zeal in these behalfs
hath left us the want of many truths, and cause to wish that some
of their employments had been better spent.” Whatever sign of King
Arthur’s tomb, real or pretended, had existed, thus vanished for ever,
and the prophesied mystery of his grave became fulfilled.
All that now remains in association with his name, and his final acts,
and his uncomprehended fate, is the Abbey, surpassingly beautiful in
ruin, founded in times faded almost from the recollections of a race;
it is itself half mystery and half monument. The stateliest of its
chambers still bears the name of St. Joseph’s Chapel, and itself with
its delicate tracery, its exquisitely designed windows, its carved
pillars, is like a fairy tale in stone. The little church built with
wattles from the marsh became the church triumphant and the church
supremely beautiful in after-time. When the second Henry visited it
the already venerable Abbey was a pile of architectural wonders and
magnificence, thanks to the labours of Abbot Harlewinus. It was he who
designed and erected that veritable gem of architecture, gorgeously
ornamented and finished in classic grace, which serves as memorial to
the first Christian saint in England. “Imagination cannot realise,”
says one chronicler, “how grand and beautiful must have been the
view from St. Joseph’s Chapel through its long-drawn fretted aisles
up to the high altar with its four corners, symbolising the Gospel
to be spread through the four quarters of the world.” The matchless
temple was over a hundred feet longer than Westminster Abbey; and its
spaciousness was only equalled by its riches. Lofty mullioned windows
rose nearly to the vaulting, richly dight and casting a dim religious
light; and the profuse decorations of the walls took the form of
running patterns of foliage, while vivid paintings of the sun and stars
gave colour and animation to the cold stone. Little wonder that the
gorgeous Abbey in all its loveliness and noble proportions was deemed a
fitting resting-place for kings and saints. Claiming St. Joseph as its
founder, it was almost in natural sequence that it should make claim
to be the shrine of the last and greatest of the Christian kings, the
Arthur whom Geoffrey of Monmouth had made renowned--“the most king and
knight of the world, and most loved of the fellowship of noble knights,
and by turn they were all upholden.” It was to Glastonbury that the
“Bishop of Canterbury” fled, and took his goods, and “lived in poverty
and in holy prayers” when the war with Mordred broke out. To this
hermit came Sir Bedivere, and found him by a tomb new-graven. “Sir,”
said Sir Bedivere, “what man is there interred that ye pray so fast
for?” “Fair son,” said the hermit, “I wot not verily, but by deeming.
But this night, at midnight, here came a number of ladies, and brought
hither a dead corpse, and prayed me to bury him; and here they offered
an hundred tapers, and gave me an hundred besants.” “Alas,” said Sir
Bedivere, “that was my lord King Arthur, that here lieth buried in this
chapel!” Then Sir Bedivere swooned, and when he awoke prayed that he
might abide there henceforth and live with fasting and prayers. “Far
from hence will I never go,” said he, “by my will, but all the days of
my life to pray for my lord Arthur.”
Glastonbury to-day, amid all its ruin, spoliation and change, hints
everywhere of the glory of its past. The charm of it lingers though
the excellence of it has vanished. In its stillness and seclusion it
retains an old-world air of beauty and of simplicity; time which has
overthrown so much has tainted nought. Tower, wall, and roof mingle
their grey and brown and red in the peaceful valley which the sparkling
rivulets water and entwine as with silver threads. The sheltered
gardens upon which the sunlight falls luxurious are bounteous as
ever they were, and one might almost expect to see in the shadowy
consecrated places cowled and hooded monks pacing noiselessly, their
eyes intent upon black-letter missals, or uplifted to behold the magic
and splendour of hill and dale. The winding road has felt the pressure
of many pilgrims’ feet; at the vesper hour the weary fervent throng
gathered about the Abbey doors; and through the spacious aisles, cool
and shadowy, or stained with the rich colours carried by slanting beams
through the painted windows, the holy brothers moved in slow and solemn
procession, their voices subdued in chant, the air they breathed sweet
with incense. Easily imagined is the hallowed aspect of the lofty fane
when the last rays of the sun shot redly within, suffused the altar
in a crimson haze, and glowed upon the burnished ornaments and the
carvings of veined marble and whitest stone; when the darkness gathered
hauntingly, and one by one the tapers were lit, while the people were
hushed and expectant, and the monks bowed themselves in adoration.
Holy relics would show dimly in their places, rod and crucifix stand
out dark against the walls, the royal tombs be covered as with a pall,
and a mysterious awe descend upon the worshippers in the temple.
Outside the world would be hushed, even as it is hushed to-day when
the pilgrim stands amid the broken walls of St. Joseph’s Chapel, or
treads the thick green turf between crumbling vestibule and arch. Truly
Glastonbury was an isle of rest.
King Arthur had fought against the pagan horde and “upheld the
Christ.” Glastonbury withstood the heathen, and boasted to the last
of never having fallen into sacrilegious hands. It was Christian
always--the Church of martyrs like Indractus, of saints like Cuthbert,
Patrick, David, and Dunstan, and of kings like Ina, Edmund, and Arthur.
The massive walls nobly withstood the assault of time, and the ruins
of to-day are the work of the iconoclast, due to desecration and not
decay. The remnants are pathetic in their significance; the scene
of mutilated beauty is mournful beyond expression. Yet the beauty
remains, though it is not the beauty of spirituality and life, but
of the ethereality of death. As we gaze we are with a bygone age and
generation, and that age seems to imbue our thought and tinge our
reflections. Everywhere may be seen mementoes; all sounds are like
echoes, faint and far; all sights are dim with haze. Glastonbury is for
retrospection. The air is full of traditions; its history deals with
phantoms and its opening page is of myths.
[Illustration: RUINS OF ST. JOSEPH’S CHAPEL, GLASTONBURY
[_To face p. 254_]
Take your stand on Wearyall Hill, and brood awhile upon the
surroundings. You thrill to think that here St. Joseph might have
paused; that here, where lies a stone engraved with J. A., his withered
pilgrim’s staff might have burst into bloom. A few young trees are
bending to the wind; down below the old city stretches away in grey
lines, and there are some tumble-down houses of antique appearance
produced by the old rafters and rough stone of which they are
constructed. Bright and cheerful are many lattice windows which twinkle
out between the heavy time-scarred mullions wrought long and long ago.
Yonder is Tor Hill, and the great green valley spreads southward,
strewn with trees thickly, and ending only where the dipping horizon
meets it. The two Glastonbury towers are standing out boldly, almost as
if defiant; the red roofs of the city cluster below; and, set deeply
and immutably among aged and dark green trees, are the rent but erect
walls of the first Christian Abbey.
Or retrace your steps, and after passing the Abbey bounds, mount the
steep Tor and stand by the Tower which alone escaped the shattering
force of earthquake. From this summit the view of the landscape is far
and good. Scarcely can you realise that once the salt waves lapped
this steep eminence, but the sand and shells mixed and embedded in the
soil have graven that event more legibly than the pen of man could
have inscribed it. It is sunset--sunset over the Avalonian isle. The
day has been calm and grey, and the end is to be calm, autumnal,
subdued. There is one long quivering stretch of cardinal in the west,
but elsewhere the sky is wonderfully sombre, yet exquisitely soft and
pearly clear. The furthermost limit of the vale fast becomes invisible,
fading imperceptibly, apparently merging into the sky as it becomes
a pure deep blue. Here and there a purple peak of the range of hills
running seaward rises sharply and pierces the thin gauzy clouds which
the wind brings up. The white road gleams below, wholly deserted, yet
fancy may conjure up spectres gliding at nightfall along the once
hallowed way to the shrine. On this steep hill, alone, cloud-high, you
feel that the silence is mystical, and wonder if the sleeping city with
its ghosts and traditions is like the fabled cities of enchanters which
rise at night without foundation and dissolve like mist in the earliest
light of morning.
INDEX
(_Mainly of persons and places_)
Aberystwyth, relics near, 11
Akeman Street, 123
Almesbury (Amesbury), 175-80
Alnwick, 44
Ambrosius, 15
Aneurin, his testimony to Arthur, 9
Arderydd, 66, 71, 82
Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 30, 35, 80
ARTHUR (Artus, Arcturus), King--
his widespread fame, 2, 3;
Saxon opponents of, 4;
an allegorical figure, 6, 27, 61;
Caxton on his identity, 9;
bardic chroniclers, 9-18, 62;
Geoffrey’s history of, 18;
the elemental hero, 29, 33, 149;
his domain, 31, 38, 39, 46-59, 64;
Scotch references, 52, 68;
his birth, 90;
his coronation, 115;
his Round Table, 130-58;
as warrior, 149;
as national hero, 150, 151;
his battle at Badon, 155-6;
in Italy, 157;
his marriage, 160;
at Camelot, 159 _et seq._;
battle at Slaughter Bridge, 200;
his death-wound, 205;
his tomb, 207-9;
in Avalon, 238-47;
supposed remains, 241, 249
Arviragus, King, 223
Astolat, 55
Aurelius Ambrosius, 71, 74
Avalon (Avilion), 43, 51;
described 216 _et seq._ _See_ “Glastonbury”
Badbury Rings, 153
Badon (Mons Badonicus), 4, 13, 51, 152-6
Bagdemagus, Sir, 77
Balin, Sir, 84, 129, 167
Bamborough Castle, 44
Barham Down, 156, 204
Bath, 152
Battles, King Arthur’s, 4, 29, 62, 125, 151;
the last at Camelford, 198, 200-1, 204, 208;
with Melvas, 240
Bedivere, Sir, 205 _n._, 211, 213, 251
Belenus, 123
Blackmore, poet, 30
Blaise (Bleys), 83
Borron, Robert de, 188, 230
Borrow, George, quoted, 90 _n._, 188, 230
Bors, Sir, 188, 191
Boscastle, 101
Bossiney, 101, 183
Brecknock, 46, 49, 144
Brécéliande (Broceliand, Brocelinde), forest of, 79, 81
Brittany, 43, 68
Brue, river, 219
Brythons, the, 3, 4, 47
Bude, 101-2
Cadbury Camp, Somerset, 141, 160, 171-2
Cadwalla, 5
Caerleon, 39, 53;
described, 113-29
Caerwent, 125, 126, 168
Camden, quoted, 96, 244
Camel, river, 198-9
Camelford, 55-7, 101; described, 194 _et seq._
Cameliard, 39, 46-9
Camelot, described, 159 _et seq._
Caractacus, 129
Carbonek, 38
Carew, historian, 95
Carmarthen, Merlin’s Cave at, 67, 78
Carobaise, 46
Castle Denis, 49
Castle-an-Dinas, 111
Cattraeth, battle of, 9-10
Caxton, his testimony to Arthur, 8, 9, 26
Cefn Bryn, 48
Celts, the, and their influence on history and legend, 3, 23, 31, 35,
66, 176, 213, 230, 231
Cerdic, 4, 5, 48, 153, 155
Chalice Hill, 229
Clevedon, 172
Constantinople, 39
Cormac, 107
Craik, Mrs., 96
David, St., 63, 236
Dawstane, 10
Dinas Emrys, 71, 76 _n._
Douarnenez, 46
Dozmare Pool, 211-14
Drayton, quoted, 144, 155, 171
Dryden, 30
Dubric (Dubritius), 115, 125, 129, 155
Dunchine, 93
Dunstan, 236, 237
Ector, Sir, 90, 180
Edinburgh, 52
Edward I, King, at Glastonbury, 249
Eildon Hills, 51
Emerson, quoted, 33
Ettarde, 164
Evelake, King, 235
Excalibur, 211
Freeman, Professor, quoted, 153, 218, 236
Frere, J. K., quoted, 136
Gaisnar, 21
Galahad, 23, 41, 145, 148, 187, 191, 233
Gawaine, 79, 81, 161;
his character, 161-3, 166, 204
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 18-21, 95, 115, 118, 131, 251
Geraint, 129
Gibbon, 27
Gildas the historian, 10, 12, 13-16, 153, 246
Giraldus Cambriensis, 20
Glastonbury, Gildas at, 15;
history and description of, 216-56
“Gleam, The,” 69
Glennie, Stuart, quoted, 54, 66, 76 _n._
Goothe, 38
Gorlois, 90, 91
Grail, the. _See_ “Holy Grail”
Gray, 30
Guenevere (Guinevere, Gwenhwyvar), Queen, 62, 114, 132, 175-82, 240
Guest, Lady Charlotte, 78, 153, 162, 238
Guildford, 55-7
Henry II, King, at Glastonbury, 241-4
Henry of Bloys, 241
Holy Grail, the, 23, 133, 145;
the quest of, 186;
legend of, 187-93, 230
Holy Thorn, in Scotland, 52;
legend of, 223-28
Hueil (Howel), 15, 16, 50
Iceland, 64
Ider, 239
Igraine, 90
Inis vitrea (Ynyswytryn). _See_ “Glastonbury”
Iseult (Isoud). _See_ “Tristram and Iseult”
Jagent, 38
Joseph of Arimathæa, 186, 188, 193;
at Glastonbury, 221-33 _passim_
Joyous Gard, 43, 44, 45, 53, 179
Julian Way, the, 123, 168
Kay (Kaye), Sir, 91, 161
Knighton’s (Nectan’s) Kieve, St., 183-93
Knights, the, 37; their Round Table, 131 _et seq._;
adventures at Camelot, 161, 166;
the last, 200
Kynon, 11
Lancelot, Sir, 44, 45, 55, 160, 166, 174, 178, 191
Landerneau, 45
Land’s End, 42
Layamon, 21, 22
Leland, quoted, 14, 94, 95, 126, 142, 168, 171, 182, 245
Leodegraunce, King, 132-3
Llanilterne, Guinevere’s tomb at, 179
Llywarch Hên, 9, 11, 34
Logris, 36
Lonazep, 38
Lot, King, 174
Lowell, J. R., 30
Lyonnesse, 40, 42, 43
Lytton, Lord, quoted, 30, 111, 128, 158, 163 _n._
“Mabinogion,” the, 117, 129
Mackinnon, Dr., quoted, 13
Malory, Sir Thomas, 25, 26, 27, 106, 191, 212
Map (Mapes), Walter, 22-5, 188
Mark (Marc’h), King, 41, 46, 104, 106
Melvas, King, 239
Merlin, 25, 43, 66, 132; his history, 67-71;
drama of, 72-5;
his doom, 75-8;
his influence, 83;
his prophecies, 246
Milton, 24, 30, 62
Moel Arthur, 49
Mons Badonicus. _See_ “Badon”
Mordred, 129, 200-3
Morris, William, 30
Mount, St. Michael’s, 42
Myrdin Emrys, 67, 71
Nantanleod, King, 4
Nennius, 12, 16
Nimuë (Vivien), 72, 77
Norden, on Tintagel, 97
Nutt, David, 191
Odin, 64
Olaf, 64
Orkneys, 52
Patrick, St., 236
Pelleas, 163-5, 188-9
Pellinore, King, 146
Pendragon Castle, 51
Penrith, 141
Pen-y-Van, 144
Percivale (Parzifal, Perceval), 134, 186, 189
“Perilous, Siege,” 146, 165
Petersaint, 38
Quoits, Arthur’s, 48-9
Renan, 46, 80, 176
Ritson, Joseph, 46, 154, 156
Rocky Valley, Tintagel, 183
Rome, 65, 151, 157
Round Table, the, 119;
history of, 130-58;
supposed localities, 141 _et seq._;
its symbolism, 145
Row Tor, 213
Sancgreal, the. _See_ “Holy Grail”
Sandwich, 158
Sarras, 190, 192, 193
Scilly, 40
Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 12, 26, 30, 68, 141, 142
Shalott, 163, 181
Silchester, 116 _n._
Silures, the, 24, 47, 126
Slaughter Bridge, 199, 205
Snowdon, 71, 76
Sommer, Dr., 26, 29
Southey, 29
Souvestre, Emile, 81
Spenser, 30, 77, 233
Steep Holm, 14
Stephen’s, St. (Steven’s), Camelot, 160, 174
Stonehenge, 3, 75, 154
Stow’s _Chronicle_, 215
Strachey, Sir E., quoted, 27, 64
Surluse (Surluce), 40, 41
Swinburne, quoted, 30
Talhairan, 129
Taliesin, 9, 11, 129
Ten Brink, quoted, 135
Tennyson, 30;
at Caerleon, 126-28, 155, 162;
description of Camelot, 170;
on Guinevere, 175;
the Grail legend, 193;
on Mordred, 203
Terabyl, 91, 92
Thierry, 34
Thomas the Rhymer, 104
Tintagel, 53;
described, 88-111 _passim_
Tor, the Glastonbury, 220, 236, 255
Tristram and Iseult, 44, 46, 89, 103-6, 174
Tweed, the, 68, 69, 70
Urien, 11
Usk, river, 67, 115, 119
Uther (Uter), King, 64, 71, 74, 75, 89, 90, 132
Uwaine, Sir, 72
Veitch, professor, 71
Vellan, 42
Vivien, 77, 79, 81
Vortigern, 63 _n._, 71, 76
Wace, 21, 80, 131
Wagner, 107
Warton, 30, 139
Waste Lands, the, 38
Weary All (Wirral, Worall) Hill, 223
Wedmore, palace at, 247
Wells Abbey, 229
Wigan, battle at, 51
William of Newburgh, 20
Winchester, 55, 131, 143, 167, 139-41 _passim_
Wodensbury, battle at, 5
Wolfram von Ezchenbach, 189
Ynyswytryn. _See_ “Glastonbury”
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NOTES
[1] Aneurin was born about the year 500, and as “a monarch of bards”
was of much repute in Manan Gododin, a part of Cymric Scotland. The
Welsh Britons included all the Lowlands in their territory, and, as is
well known, the names familiar in Arthurian romance can be traced to
Scotland, the West of England, and France alike, as will afterwards be
shown in these pages. Aneurin’s nationality, however, is particularly
well worth recalling in view of the theory that Arthur was Scotch.
[2] A Badon in Linlithgowshire is the reputed site.
[3] Take, for instance, the song in which he expresses the wish to die
while drinking in a tavern,--“Meum est propositum in taberna mori.”
[4] William Caxton, “simple person,” as he styled himself, urged that
he undertook the work at the request of “divers gentlemen of this realm
of England.”
[5] It is interesting and somewhat amusing to note the lament of
Charles Waterton, author of _Wanderings in South America_, who thought
England as a field for knightly adventure had degenerated. “England
has long ceased to be the land of adventures,” said he. “Indeed, when
good King Arthur reappears to claim his crown he will find things
strangely altered here.... It is certain that when he reigned here
all was harmony and joy. The browsing herds passed from vale to vale,
the swains sang from the bluebell-teeming groves, and nymphs, with
eglantine and roses in their neatly braided hair, went hand in hand to
the flowery meads to weave garlands for their lambkins. If by chance
some rude uncivil fellow dared to molest them, or attempted to throw
thorns in their path, there was sure to be a knight-errant not far off
ready to rush forward in their defence. But alas, in these degenerate
days it is not so. Shall a harmless cottage-maid wander out of the
highway to pluck a primrose or two in the neighbouring field, the
haughty owner sternly bids her retire; and if a pitying swain hasten
to escort her back, he is perhaps seized by the gaunt house-dog ere he
reach her.”
[6] By some Lyonnesse is identified with Léonnois in Brittany, but as
Mr. Aldis Wright has pointed out, the continuous references in the
romance to “riding” from Lyonnesse to other parts of Cornwall shows
that Lyonnesse and Cornwall were on the same land.
[7] A. J. C. Hare’s _North-Western France_.
[8] “Il est donc constant que la chevalerie prit naissance en
Bretagne,” says Emile Souvestre, “et y brilla de tout son éclat; que
les premiers poémes chevaleresques furent écrits en langue celtique.
Les monuments, les traditions, _les noms_, les indications des plus
anciens auteurs s’accordent pour faire de la Bretagne la patrie de
tout ce monde chevaleresque et féerique dont, plus tard, le Tasse et
l’Arioste tirèrent tant de parti.”
[9] Bamborough Castle, says Professor Burrows, was the centre of the
Kingdom of Bryneck, or Bernicia. “In founding it the Angles encountered
a determined opposition at the hands of a British chief named Arthur.
Whether he is the same as the Arthur of South-Western Britain, or
whether the exploits of one have been transferred by legend to the
other, is still under dispute.”
[10] According to Villemarqué the name of Lancelot is a translation of
that of the Welsh hero Maël, who exhibits the fullest analogy with the
Lancelot of the French romances.
[11] “Arthur’s seat” may be but an adaptation of the Gaelic
Ard-na-said, or “the height of the arrows.”
[12] Arthur’s career has been thus conveniently summarised: “At the
age of fifteen he succeeded his father as King of Damnonium. He was
born in 452, had three wives, of whom Guinevere was the second, and
was betrayed by the third during his absence in Armorica. Mordred
concluded a league with Arthur’s great foe, Cedric the Saxon; and at
the age of ninety, after seven years’ continual war, the famous king
was defeated at Camelford in 543.” Fuller compares him to Hercules in
(1) his illegitimate birth, (2) his arduous life, and (3) his twelve
battles. Joseph Ritson, whose antiquarian researches are noted for
their fullness and originality, came to the conclusion that though
there were “fable and fabrication” in the hero, a real Arthur lies
behind the legendary hero. He appeared when the affairs of the Britons
were at their worst after Vortigern’s death, checked the ravages of
the Romans, and kept the pillaging Saxons at bay. Professor Montagu
Burrows, in his commentaries on the history of England, argues that
the Cymry of Arthur’s time were a band of Romano-Britons who produced
leaders like Cunedda to take command of the native forces left by the
departing Romans. They remained more British than Gaelic, but were
gradually driven, with their faces to the foe, into Wales and the Welsh
borderland. “The Arthurian legends,” he continues, “embody a whole
world of facts which have been lost to history in the lapse of time,
and form a poetry far from wholly fictitious.” Renan declares that few
heroes owe less to reality than Arthur. “Neither Gildas nor Aneurin,
his contemporaries, speaks of him; Bede did not know his name; Taliesin
and Llwarc’h Hên gave him only a secondary place. In Nennius, on the
other hand, who lived about 850, the legend has been fully unfolded.
Arthur is already the exterminator of the Saxons; he has never
experienced defeat; he is the suzerain of an army of kings. Finally, in
Geoffrey of Monmouth, the epic creation culminates.”
[13] Ashmole, in his _History of the Order of the Garter_, declares
that, in addition to the dragon, King Arthur placed the picture of St.
George on his banner.
[14] Mr. Glennie thinks the scene is in Carnarvonshire, to the south
of Snowdon, overlooking the lower end of Llyn y Dinas. Here is Dinas
Emrys, a singular isolated rock, clothed on all sides with wood,
containing on the summit some faint remains of a building defended by
ramparts. It was of this place Drayton wrote--
“And from the top of Brith, so high and wondrous steep
Where Dinas Emris stood, showed where the serpents fought,
The White that tore the Red; from whence the prophet wrought
The Briton’s sad decay then shortly to ensue.”
On the south of Carnarvon Bay is Nant Gwrtheryn, the Hollow of
Vortigern, a precipitous ravine by the sea, said to be the last
resting-place of the usurper, when he fled to escape the rage of his
subjects on finding themselves betrayed to the Saxons.
[15] The Cornish language was spoken until 1768. In that year Daines
Barrington met the old fish-wife Dolly Pentreath, whose name has become
memorable as that of the last person to speak Cornish. The last sermon
in Cornish was preached in 1678 in Landewednack Church. The slackening
of the Saxon advance at the Tamar enabled the Cornish to preserve their
tongue, closely allied to that of Wales and Brittany, and described as
“naughty Englysshe” in the reign of the eighth Henry.
[16] The following curious little item from R. Hunt’s volume ought not
to be lost sight of:--“I shall offer a conjecture, touching the name of
Tintagel, which I will not say is right but only probable. _Tin_ is the
same as _Din_, _Dinas_, and _Dixeth_, deceit; so that Tindixel, turned
for easier pronunciation to Tintagel, Dundagel, etc., signifies Castle
of Deceit, which name might be aptly given to it from the famous deceit
practised here by Uther Pendragon by the help of Merlin’s enchantment.”
George Borrow says: “Tintagel does not mean the Castle of Guile, but
the house in the gill of the hill, a term admirably descriptive” (_Wild
Wales_, cap. cvii.).
[17] It is difficult to understand how a writer like the late Mrs.
Craik could ever have fallen into this error. In her _Unsentimental
Journey through Cornwall_ she makes every effort to prove that the
building on the mainland was the castle of Terabyl, and she insists
that there were (and are) two castles at Tintagel. “One sits in the
sea, and the other is upon the opposite heights of the mainland, with
communication by a narrow causeway. This seems to confirm the legend,
how Igraine’s husband shut himself and his wife in two castles, he
being slain in the one, and she married to the victorious king Uther
in the other.” It is obvious that the writer of these lines was
unacquainted with Malory.
[18] Silchester, originally a Celtic fortress, and a city of the
size of London, is also reported to have been the scene of Arthur’s
coronation at the age of fifteen by Dubritius. Modern excavations
have proved the importance of the city as a great centre of life and
industry, in Roman and British times, with its Forum, Basilica, and
rows of shops and houses; and if the _Calleva Attrebatum_ were really
Arthur’s crowning place, its fitness and worth for so imposing an event
cannot be disputed. Although Silchester is not directly referred to in
the Romances, Arthur’s Hampshire connections are numerous. They centre
in Winchester, where his predecessor and foster-father, Ambrosius
Aurelianus, died in the year 508. It was at Silchester also that the
chief men of the provinces met after Uther Pendragon’s death and
petitioned Dubritius, Archbishop of Caerleon, to consecrate Arthur the
successor to the dead king.
[19] Of this wooden bridge G. W. Manby in his _Guide_ (published 1802)
gives an illustration, and says: “As numerous coins have been found
where the piles of the bridge are now placed, there is no doubt of its
being the original pass. To a person unaccustomed to such a bridge, the
rattling noise whenever any weight is going over naturally occasions
some apprehensions.... The accounts of the tide rising so high as to
cover the bridge are erroneous; it never has been known yet; but that
assertion has given rise to the idea of the bridge being purposely
loose to prevent its being carried away in such cases. The amazing
floods to which the river is subject would render it not surprising if
accidents did happen.” Tennyson, who obtained from the _genius loci_
both inspiration and enlightment, refers in _Geraint and Enid_ to the
rapidity of the turn of the tidal waters of the Usk:--
“Scarce longer time
Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk,
Before the time to fall seaward again,
Pauses.”
Modern Caerleon, however, with its commonplace railway station, its
porters shouting “Car--lion,” its new bridge, its spoilt Norman
church, and its street of small dwelling-houses, is likely at first to
disappoint the pilgrim, who only by searching and waiting can hope to
find the links with the city’s historic past.
[20] Frere’s poem was caustic, but it had a certain value in showing
the unromantic side of Arthurian times. The following verses, than
which far less delicate ones could be found in the poem, may be taken
as a specimen:--
“And certainly they say, for fine behaving
King Arthur’s Court has never had its match;
True point of honour, without pride or braving,
Strict etiquette for ever on the watch;
There manners were refined and perfect--saving
Some modern graces which they could not catch,
As spitting through the teeth, and driving stages,
Accomplishments reserved for distant ages.
They looked a manly, generous generation;
Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick;
Their accents firm and loud in conversation,
Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick,
Showed them prepared on proper provocation,
To give the lie, pull noses, stab, and kick;
And for that very reason it is said,
They were so very courteous and well bred.”
When we come to consider probabilities, aided by such unsparing lines
as these, we may even accept as truth the old folk-song which tells
that when King Arthur ruled the land he “ruled it like a swine.” The
American poet, the late Mr. Eugene Field, in his “Lay of Camelot,” has
also shown the humorous aspect of the Arthurian Court. While all this
may be legitimate enough, and provide opportunities for the wit of the
authors, it is not the aspect which we prefer to contemplate for any
length of time, or one which has any continuous pleasure for the mind.
[21] The names of, and the leading incidents in, the twelve “glorious
wars,” are enumerated with accuracy by Tennyson in _Lancelot and
Elaine_, the recital coming from Lancelot’s lips, and having for its
purpose the proof that at the time “there lived no greater leader.”
Joseph Ritson’s curious little volume on King Arthur likewise treats
this subject fully.
[22] Gildas Badonicus, as we have seen in the first chapter, is also a
reputed native of Bath.
[23] Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson, in the _Academy_ (1896), advanced a number
of very strong and learned arguments in favour of the original idea
that Mons Badonicus was Bath.
[24] Sandwich is mentioned several times in the romance, but the
references are unimportant. Ancient as the place is, there is no reason
to connect it with British occupation. At the time the chronicles were
written, however, it was too important a seaport to escape mention.
[25] Lytton, agreeing with Southey that Gawaine’s character suffered
at the caprice of the poets and that he was “shamefully calumniated,”
speaks of
“Frank Gawaine,
Whom mirth for ever, like a fairy child,
Lock’d from the cares of life.”
William Morris, in _The Defence of Guenevere_, makes Gawaine the
accuser of the queen, and he is denounced for treachery.
[26] As a matter of history it is worth noting that Winchester, in
Hampshire, passed to the Saxons in the year 515, after which time
Cardic held it. King Arthur was then only twenty-three years old, and
could not have extended his territory as far as Hampshire.
[27] “Compare Guinevere or Iseult with those Scandinavian furies Gudrun
and Chrimhilde, and you will avow that woman such as chivalry conceived
her, an ideal of sweetness and loveliness set up as the supreme end of
life, is a creation in reality Celtic.”--_Renan._
[28] The ancient ballad, discovered, annotated, and to a slight extent
supplemented, by Dr. Percy, follows very exactly the story of Arthur’s
last days as given in the romances except that it ascribes to Sir Lucan
the acts usually credited to Sir Bedivere. Not a detail is omitted,
not a point is missed. On the morning of Trinity Monday the ghost of
Sir Gawaine is said to have appeared to the king and warned him not to
fight if he prized his life, but to wait until Sir Lancelot returned
from France. The parley which followed between Arthur and Mordred is
next described, but just as a month’s league had been decided upon
the adder’s sting brought about the “woeful chance As ever was in
Christentie.” When the wounded knight drew his sword the two hosts
immediately “joined battayle,” and fought until only three men were
left alive.
[29] It is interesting to compare Tennyson’s lines with Longfellow’s
in _The Spanish Student_, the similarity of phrasing being so marked.
Victorian, the student, observes that it is in vain he throws unto
oblivion’s sea the sword [of love] that pierces him--
“For like Excalibur,
With gemmed and flashing hilt it will not sink.
There rises from below a hand that grasps it,
And waves it in the air: and wailing voices
Are heard along the shore.”
[30] Glastonbury occupies a former site of Druidical worship, and
Professor Rhys believes the name to be a corruption of the British
word _glasten_, an oak, the Druids cultivating both the oak and the
apple as foster parents of their sacred mistletoe. Glestenaburh, says
Canon Taylor, was assimilated by the Saxons to their gentile form
Glestinga-burh or Glæsting-burh, which being supposed by a false
etymology to mean the “shining” or “glassy” town was mistranslated by
the Welsh as Ynys-Widrin, the Island of Glass.
[31] William Morris slightly varied the story in his _King Arthur’s
Tomb_, when he represents Lancelot journeying to “where the Glastonbury
glided towers shine” and relates that
“Presently
He rode on giddy still, until he reach’d
A place of apple-trees, by the Thorn-Tree
Wherefrom St. Joseph in the past days preach’d.”
[32] The Holy Grail is pointed out in particular at Genoa Cathedral.
“It was brought from Cæsarea in 1101, is a hexagonal dish of two palms’
width, and was long supposed to be of real emerald, which it resembles
in colour and brilliancy.”
[33] Some historians, perhaps with better reason, declare that he was
born in 405 at Kilpatrick, Dumbarton, a little town at the junction of
the Levin and Clyde. He is variously reported to have died in 493 and
507, some placing his age at 88, and others at 120.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation remain as in the original unless
noted below.
Page 134, single quotation mark changed to double after “the flower of
all the world.”
Page 159, double quotation mark changed to single before “Largesse!
Largesse!”
Page 159, single quotation mark added after “Chevaliers très-hardies!”
Page 249, period added after “Henry VIII.”
Ads section, period added after “account of the Cathedral’s history.”
Footnote 28, “and to, a slight extent” changed to “and to a slight
extent.”
Original images of this book can be found here:
https://archive.org/details/lostlandofkingar00waltuoft.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Lost Land of King Arthur, by J. Cuming Walters