Legendary Yorkshire

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Legendary Yorkshire, by Frederick Ross
Of this book 500 copies have been printed, and this is
No. ...

Who is there that has not heard of the famous and redoubtable hero of history and romance, Arthur, King of the British, who so valiantly defended his country against the pagan Anglo-Saxon invaders of the island? Who has not heard of the lovely but frail Guenevera, his Queen, and the galaxy of female beauty that constituted her Court at Caerleon? Who has not heard of his companions-in-arms—the brave and chivalrous Knights of the Round Table, who went forth as knights-errant to succour the weaker sex, deliver the oppressed, liberate those who had fallen into the clutches of enchanters, giants, or malicious dwarfs, and especially in quest of the Holy Graal, that mystic chalice, in which were caught the last drops of blood of the expiring Saviour, and which, in consequence, became possessed of wondrous properties and marvellous virtue of a miraculous character?
If such there be, let him lose no time in perusing Sir John Mallory's La Morte d'Arthur, the Chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Mabinogian of the Welsh, or the more recent Idylls of the King, of Tennyson. According to Nennius, after vanquishing the Saxons in many battles, he crossed the sea, and carried his victorious arms into Scotland, Ireland, and Gaul, in which latter country he obtained a decisive victory over a Roman army. Moreover, that during his absence Mordred, his nephew, had seduced his queen and usurped his government, and that in a battle with the usurper, in 542, at Camlan, in Cornwall, he was mortally wounded; was conveyed to Avalon (Glastonbury), where he died of his wound, and was buried there. It is also stated that in the reign of Henry II. his reputed tomb was opened, when his bones and his magical sword Excaliber were found. This is given on the authority of Giraldus Cambrensis, who informs us that he was present on the occasion. But the popular belief in the West of England was that he did not die as represented, his soul having entered the body of a raven, which it will inhabit until he reappears to deliver England in some great extremity of peril.