Amongst the kings and lords who attended Arthur's first feast at "Carlion," in Wales, was, according to Sir Thomas Malory's "Morte Darthur," "King Uriens of Gore, with four hundred knights with him."
The earliest of the written Arthurian romances are to be found in the History of the Britons ascribed to Nennius, but who he was, or when the work was compiled, is not known. Some ascribe it to the end of the eighth, others to the end of the tenth century. Geoffrey of Monmouth published his historical romance in the twelfth century. He, however, in his dedicatory epistle to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, acknowledges, somewhat regretfully, that he "found nothing said" about Arthur and several other of his mythical Kings in either Gildas or Bede. William of Malmesbury, in the first part of his history, speaks of this semi-mythic warrior in the following terms: "That Arthur, about whom the idle tales of the Bretons (nugæ Britonum) craze to this day, one worthy not to have misleading fables dreamed about him, but to be celebrated in true history, since he sustained for a long time his tottering country, and sharpened for war the broken spirits of his people." This was most probably written a few years before the appearance of Geoffrey's work. About forty years afterwards, his countryman, Gerald, condemned Geoffrey's history as spurious. He had arrived at this conclusion in the following singular manner. One Melerius, a Welshman of Caerleon, had "an extraordinary familiarity with unclean spirits," and he was enabled, by "their assistance, to fortel future events.... He knew when anyone spoke falsely in his presence, for he saw the devil; as it were, leaping and exulting on the tongue of the liar.... If the evil spirits oppressed him too much the Gospel of St. John was placed on his bosom, when, like birds, they immediately vanished; but when that book was removed, and the History of the Britons by Geoffry Arthur was substituted in its place, they instantly reappeared in great numbers, and remained a longer time than usual on his body and on the book!!" William of Newbury, too, some half a century after the publication of Geoffrey's work, repudiated it in the following emphatic manner:—"A certain writer has come up in our times to wipe out the blots on the Britons, weaving together ridiculous figments about them, and raising them with impudent vanity high above the virtue of the Macedonians and the Romans. This man is named Geoffrey, and has the by-name of Arturus, because he cloaked with the honest name of History, coloured in Latin phrase, the fables about Arthur, taken from the old tales of the Bretons, with increase of his own.... Moreover, in his book, that he calls the History of the Britons, how saucily and how shamelessly he lies almost throughout, no one, unless ignorant of the old histories, when he falls upon that book, can doubt." William concludes with the following emphatic sentence: "Therefore, as in all things we trust Bede, whose wisdom and sincerity are beyond doubt, so that fabler with his fables shall be straightway spat out by us all." Geoffrey's work was, as Professor Morley observes, "a natural issue of its time, and is, indeed, the source of one of the purest streams of English poetry." It was afterwards abridged, translated, versified, and paraphrased. New fancies were added, sometimes from Breton traditions, and sometimes from the fertile brains of more modern poets and writers of romance. The "Mort Artus," "The Quest of the Sangreal," and the "Lancelot of the Lake" stories were written by Archdean Walter Map, the friend of Gerald de Barri, commonly called Giraldus Cambrensis. Map flourished during the latter portion of the twelfth century. In 1485, Caxton printed a complete collection of the Arthur legends, "after a copy," as he says, "unto me delivered, which copy Sir Thomas Malorye did take out of certain books of French and reduced it into English." It is entitled, "A Book of the noble Hystoryes of King Arthur, and of certen of his Knyghtes, which book was reduced in to Englysshe by Sir Thomas Malory, Knight."
Some other giant traditions yet hold their ground in Lancashire and the neighbourhood. One at Worsley, near Manchester, the seat of the Earl of Ellesmere, appears to be but a duplication of the Tarquin legend. Perhaps the immense tunneling, and the miles of underground canal in connection with the Bridgewater Trust collieries, and other results of Brindley's engineering skill, may have influenced the relatively modern vulgar mind in the transference of the locality of Tarquin's stronghold from Castlefield to Worsley. Or perhaps the second adventure of Sir Lancelot, when he encountered the "foul churl" and his giant masters, may have fastened itself upon this locality.
Dorning Rasbotham, 1787, visited the township of Turton, in Lancashire, for the purpose of inspecting what he described as the "Hanging or Giant's Stone." He says:—
"The tradition of the common people is that it was thrown by a certain giant, upon a certain occasion (the nature of which they do not specify), from Winter Hill, on the opposite range, to this place; and they whimsically fancy that certain little hollows in the stone are the impression made by the giant's hand at the time he threw it; but I own I could not find out the resemblance which was noticed to me. It appears, however, to have long excited attention; for, though it is a hard grey moor-stone, a rude mark of a cross, of about seven inches by six, hath, apparently, at a very distant period of time, been cut upon the top of it. It is elevated upon another piece of rock; and its greatest length is fourteen feet, its depth in the thickest part five feet eight inches, and its greatest breadth upon the top, which is nearly flat, about nine feet. A thorough-going antiquarian would call this a Druidical remain."
Traditions of this class are very common, especially in districts were huge rocks lay apparently unconnected with the general mountain masses. As I have previously observed, striated boulders, brought from a great distance by what geologists term the "glacial drift," are especially regarded as débris resulting from giant warfare or amusement. Many rocks of this class lying to the south of Pendle Hill, near Great Harwood, I am informed, are still looked upon by the vulgar as stones which have been hurled by giants from the surrounding hills. If we regard them as the "frost giants" of the Scandinavian myths, it is by no means an inapt personification of the gigantic force exhibited by iceberg or glacier action.
A tradition in the neighbourhood of Stockport yet asserts that on the site of a ruined building, with the remains of a moat, called "Arden or Hardon Hall," on the southern bank of the river Tame, an ancient castle once existed. John O'Gaunt is said to have slept in it. The tradition, moreover, further informs us that at some very remote period a huge giant occupied the same fortress, and that he and a colossal rival, on the Rother or Mersey at Stockport, carried on a long desultory warfare by throwing stones and shooting arrows at each other. The Arden monster, at length becoming disgusted at the tediousness of this ineffectual style of combat, assembled his retainers, attacked the Stockport giant in his stronghold, slew him, and utterly exterminated his followers.
May not this tradition have some remote connection with the struggles between the Christian Northumbrians and the Mercian pagans in the seventh century? The Mersey formed then the boundary line between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, as it now separates Lancashire from Cheshire. Or, as John O'Gaunt is mixed up in some way with it, may not an old legend have become confounded with events attendant upon some of the insurrectionary movements of the early Norman barons, or of the Wars of the Roses? Stockport was once a strongly fortified position, and is yet considered one of the "keys of the county of Lancaster."
The giant and the ogre seem to have eventually passed into the tyrant lord, who imprisoned in the dungeons of his strong castle captive knights who succumbed to his prowess, and fair maidens whom he had abducted. The magical or sorcery element, likewise, is still to be found clinging to similar modern stories; and, notwithstanding the more polished manners and elegant costume in which they are presented, they quite as much partake of the character of the nursery tales about champions and ogres of the "Jack, the Giant-killer" type, as modern gentlemen do of their savage aboriginal ancestry. Hallam, referring to the plundering barons of the "middle ages," and the legends engrafted upon their ferocious deeds, says:—"Germany appears to have been, upon the whole, the country where downright robbery was most unscrupulously practised by the great. Their castles, erected on almost inaccessible heights among the woods, became the secure receptacles of predatory bands, who spread terror over the country. From these barbarian lords of the dark ages, as from a living model, the romances are said to have drawn their giants and other disloyal enemies of true chivalry."
The giants, as I have shown, are evidently of an age much earlier than the mediæval barons, but they and their doings may have furnished nuclei around which the older myths may be said to have re-crystallised themselves. Hallam, again, when discussing the question of chivalry, refers to the connection of the relatively modern romances and the older traditions. He says:—