Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore / (Chiefly Lancashire and the North of England:) Their Affinity to Others in Widely-Distributed Localities; Their Eastern Origin and Mythical Significance.

by Charles Hardwick

A correspondent of the Irish Times, in a recent paper on "Legends of the Tichborne Family," says,—"The preservation of the Round Table, or what was shown as such by Henry VIII. to Charles of France, is due to them. This table is, I believe, shown in what are the remains of the ancient chapel or church of St. Stephen, Winchester. It is now riddled with Cromwell's bullets, having been unsuccessfully defended against him by one of the Tichbornes and Lord Ogle. Whether at such a table ever sat

The faultless king,
That passionate perfection,

matters little. Who would not now say with the bard,

I know the Round Table, my friend of old.

We know it through its offsprings, 'Elaine,' 'Enid,' 'Guinevere,' and a host of others. The table, with its twenty-four names, is the origin of our romance of romances—la creme de la creme—of legends!"

Mr. Timbs, in "Historic Ninepins," says, "the existing representative Round Table is of wood, and is preserved at Winchester, and hangs upon the interior eastern wall of the County Hall. The decorations of the table indicate a date not later nor much earlier than the reign of Henry VIII., and the figure of Arthur has been repainted within the time of living memory." King Edward III. founded an order in commemoration of the British warrior, and in 1344 entertained the knights at Windsor Castle at a Round Table two hundred feet in diameter.

Several circular mounds in various parts of England, including a remarkable one near Penrith, are by traditionary wisdom each honoured with the name of "King Arthur's Round Table." Bishop Percy tells us that the term "round table" is not a speciality of the King Arthur legends, but that it is common to all the ages of chivalry. In support of this he refers to Dugdale's description of a grand tournament given by Roger de Mortimer, at Kenilworth, in the reign of Edward the First. Dugdale says,—"Then began the Round Table, so called by reason that the place wherein they practised those feats was environed with a strong wall made in a round form." This is confirmed by an expression common with Matthew Paris, when describing jousts and tournaments. He styles them "Hastiludia Mensæ Rotundæ." Wace makes mention of the Round Table of Arthur in his metrical romance, but Geoffrey of Monmouth has no reference to it, either in his pretended "History," or in his "Life of Merlin." Nevertheless in the romance, the "Morte Darthur," it is expressly stated that Merlin made it "in token of the roundness of the world." It is evidently, like other circular forms, a sun type, or phallic symbol. Ellis, in his "Specimens of the Early English Romances," on the authority of the metrical one of which Merlin is the hero, says,—"The Round Table was intended to assemble the best knights in the world. High birth, great strength, activity and skill, fearless valour, and firm fidelity to their suzerain were indispensably requisite for an admission into this order. They were bound by oath to assist each other at the hazard of their own lives; to attempt singly the most perilous adventures; to lead, when necessary, a life of monastic solitude; to fly to arms on the first summons; and never to retire from battle till they had defeated the enemy, unless when night interfered and separated the combatants." The number of knights belonging to the order appears to have varied at different times; but one hundred or upwards is most generally referred to. The table was originally constructed by the magician Merlin for Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father. It passed from him to Leodigan, King of Carmalide, the father of Guenevere, the wife of Arthur. The famous round table formed part of the dower of the queen on her marriage with the popular hero.

The manner in which traditions sometimes become interwoven with legends of more modern date is aptly illustrated by the fact recorded in the "Vetus Ceremoniale" MS., and endorsed by Du Cange, "that the chivalrous order of the Knights of the Round Table was instituted by King Arthur and the Duke of Lancaster." If Arthur ever lived at all, he lived in the fifth and sixth centuries. Geoffrey of Monmouth says, after being mortally wounded, "he gave up the crown of Britain to his kinsman, Constantine, the son of Cader, Duke of Cornwall, in the five hundred and forty-second year of our Lord's incarnation." Roger de Poictou, the first Earl of Lancaster, flourished in the twelfth; and Henry, the first Duke, about a couple of centuries afterwards! But dates are little regarded by those who traffic in the "mythic lore" of the mysterious "olden time."

The Rev. G. W. Cox successfully shows that the principal materials of the Arthurian legends are identical with those which underlie the Hindoo, Grecian, Teutonic, and other Aryan myths. He contends that Arthur is another phase of Achilleus, or Sigurd, or Perseus. He says,—"Round him are other brave knights, and these not less than himself must have their adventures; and thus Arthur and Balin answer respectively to Achilleus and Odysseus in the Achaian hosts. A new element is brought into the story with the Round Table, which forms part of the dowery of Guinevere." This dowery he regards as the equivalent of, and as fatal to him as the treasures of the Argive Helen were to Menelaus. Referring to the "San Græal," he says,—"This mystic vessel is at once a storehouse of food as inexhaustible as the table of the Ethiopians, and a talismanic test as effectual as the goblets of Oberon and Tristram. The good Joseph of Arimathea, who had gathered up in it the drops of blood which fell from the side of Jesus when pierced by the centurion's spear, was nourished by it alone through his weary imprisonment of two and forty years; and when, at length, having either been brought by him to Britain, or preserved in heaven, it was carried by angels to the pure Titurel, and shrined in a magnificent temple, it supplied to its worshippers the most delicious food, and preserved them in perpetual youth. As such it differs in no way from the horn of Amaltheia, or any other of the oval vessels which can be traced back to the emblem of the Hindu Sacti." He afterwards adds,—"The myth which corrupted the worshippers of Tammuz in the Jewish temple has supplied the beautiful picture of unselfish devotion which sheds a marvellous glory on the career of the pure Sir Galahad."

The Arthur of romance is in fact the creation of writers of a later age, or later ages, than the conquest of Britain by the Angles and Saxons, and not of contemporary bardic historians. The British chieftain, who fought against Ida and his Angles in the North of England, and whose territory is believed to have extended from the Clyde to the Ribble, with a varying boundary on the east, is named Urien. He is the great hero of the bard Taliesin. Amongst his other great qualities, the poet enumerates the following:—"Protector of the land, usual with thee is headlong activity and the drinking of ale, and ale for drinking, and fair dwelling and beautiful raiment." Llywarch Hen, or the old, another Keltic poet, born about the year 490, incidentally mentions Arthur as chief of the Cymry of the south, or, as Professor Morley puts it, "what Urien was in the north, Arthur was in the south." Llywarch Hen was present at the bloody battle in which his lord Geraint (one of the knights introduced into the succeeding romances), and a whole host of British warriors perished. The said bard likewise brought away the head of Urien in his mantle, after his decapitation by the sword of an assassin.