passages in common teach us is, that at a comparatively early date Arthurian names had begun to figure in the topography of Wales.
Attention is next claimed by some of the references to Arthur in Welsh literature, and here the Black Book of Carmarthen is entitled to the first place. The manuscript may be supposed to have been written in the reigns of Stephen, Henry II., and Richard.[1] One of the allusions to Arthur in this manuscript consists of a triplet occurring in the Stanzas of the Graves, apprising the reader of the futility of looking for Arthur’s grave, as follows[2]:—
Bet y march. bet y guythur.
bet y gugaun cletyfrut.
anoeth bid bet y arthur.
A grave for March, a grave for Gwythur,
A grave for Gwgawn of the ruddy Sword,
Not wise (the thought) a grave for Arthur.[3]
It might be objected that these lines are of no value here, as the idea suggested by them might have been derived from the romances which represent Arthur departing to the Isle of Avallon to be healed of his wounds, and not dying at all. But it may as reasonably be regarded as an expression of the native belief fixed in various localities, that Arthur and his knights were slumbering in a cave awaiting the destined hour of their return. This prevailed among Arthur’s countrymen from Cadbury to the Eildon Hills, and has never been more charmingly sung than by the poet Leyden, when he speaks of the enchanted sleep to be broken at length by somebody
“That bids the charmëd sleep of ages fly,
Rolls the long sound through Eildon’s caverns vast,
While each dark warrior rouses at the blast,
His horn, his falchion, grasps with mighty hand,
And peals proud Arthur’s march from Fairyland.”
The time likewise is not long past when the shepherds of North Wales used to entertain one another with stories describing one
- ↑ See Mr. J. G. Evans’ preface (p. xvi.) to his Autotype Facsimile of the Black Book, Oxford, 1888.
- ↑ Ibid. fol. 34a.
- ↑ I believe that such is the sense of the third line of the triplet, but I cannot attain to any certainty approaching the assurance with which Prof. Zimmer categorically declares that, “sie sagt bloss aus, dass man Arthur’s Grab nicht kenne”:—see the Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Litteratur, xij. 238.
