which removes the relic, natural or artificial, to North Wales; but Anglesey also claims that what others call a Roman camp overlooking Redwharf Bay is the “Burdd Arthur,” or Arthur’s Round Table. Leland’s Itinerary contains the announcement that near Denbigh “there is, in the Paroch of Llansannen in the Side of a Stony Hille, a Place wher there be twenty-four Holes or Places in a Roundel for Men to sitte in, but sum lesse, and some bigger, cutte out of the mayne Rock by Mannes Hand; and there Children and Young Men cumming to seke their Catelle use to sitte and play. Sum caulle it the Rounde Table. Kiddes use their communely to play and skip from Sete to Sete.” No conclusion can be drawn, and no satisfaction can be gained, from this medley of conflicting claims: we learn only that the tradition was widely diffused and that either in a spirit of contention to claim possession of the relic, or with the desire to ensure the survival of the recollection by symbols, the name came to be indiscriminately bestowed upon artificial imitations or natural resemblances of the original. George Borrow, however, favoured the Welsh localities as truly Arthurian.
If we turn to the question of the number of the knights supposed to range themselves at the Table Round we find similar diversity both of record and opinion, and equal preposterousness in rival claims. The Table at Winchester had “sieges” for twenty-five, including the king. The Table mentioned by Malory had “sieges” for one hundred and fifty: one hundred were sent by Leodegraunce, Merlin found twenty-eight more, King Arthur chose Sir Gawaine and Sir Tor, and the remaining twenty were left for those who proved themselves worthy. Yet the old frontispiece to Malory’s History showed only thirty knights seated at the Table; Scott, in his Triermain, mentions only sixteen; and the old ballad on Arthur specifies the number of “good and able knights” as fifty. To leave such details, let it suffice to learn from Malory that “by the noble fellowship of the Table Round was King Arthur borne up”; or let us agree with Drayton, for the sake of poetical justice, that Arthur’s and Charlemagne’s knights were of exactly the same number—
“Who bear the bow were knights in Arthur’s reign,
Twelve they, and twelve the knights of Charlemagne.”
Among the many remarkable traditions concerning the Round Table is that which survives in Wales that Arthur assembled his followers on the heights of the Brecknockshire Beacons, and there made known his design to establish a knighthood and to found a Table Round. On the summit of Pen-y-Van may yet be seen huge stones and rock fragments which the superstitious regard as the broken relics of the Table, to the real existence of which far more attention has been given than to its allegorical significance. The Round Table is, in fact, purely symbolical throughout the romance, an idea conveyed by the customary means of a simple figure, a parable. It is illustrative of the equality and the unity of the order of chivalry, and of the singleness of purpose and ambition of the Arthurian warriors and adventure-seekers. The breaking up of the Table Round is the sign of the falling away in allegiance of the knights and of the approaching disintegration of Arthur’s kingdom. When the fellowship of the knights is strongest and the complement is complete, the king is at the height of his power; when there are vacant seats at the Table, there are indications of a decline; when only a remnant of the knights meets once more at the monarch’s call, the kingdom is half-lost; when the fellowship is broken and the Round Table has disappeared, the end of Arthur’s reign is come, and his power is shattered for ever. “We all understand,” said Sir Lancelot, “in this realm will be now no quiet, but ever strife and debate, now the fellowship of the Round Table is broken; for by the noble fellowship of the Round Table was King Arthur upborne, and by their nobleness the King and all his realm was in quiet and in rest.”
By the deftness of the chroniclers the symbolism of the Round Table becomes slightly intermixed with the symbolism of the Grail quest, Sir Galahad, the perfect knight who could sit in the Siege Perilous, being the only knight who could be blessed with the vision of the Holy Grail. It was those alone of the fellowship of the Round Table who entered upon the quest, and it was the one pure hero, the man of most worship, who achieved that quest. Two seats in the Round Table were left vacant by Merlin. One was filled by King Pellinore when he had proved his worthiness; “but in the Siege Perilous,” said Merlin, “there shall no man sit therein but one, and if there be any so hardy to do it he shall be destroyed, and he that shall sit there shall have no fellow.” The double prophecy was fulfilled. The unworthy knight who attempted to occupy the siege was carried away in a flame that burst forth instantaneously, and Merlin’s own fate is by some ascribed to his inadvertence in sitting in that mysterious chair, strangely carven and lettered. But for Galahad there was no such fear. Long did the Siege Perilous remain vacant, for while Arthur and his knights were building up the kingdom Lancelot’s son was unborn. But at the assembling of the fellowship one Whitsuntide a hermit predicted to the king that that same year one should be born who would sit in the Siege Perilous and win the Sangreal. Henceforth the two ideas are found constantly united. At Camelot all the seats at the Table were found newly written with gold letters, and upon the Siege Perilous were the mystic words: “Four hundred winters and fifty-four accomplished after the passion of our Lord Jesu Christ ought this Siege to be fulfilled.” The knights were filled with wonderment, and they awaited the coming of the worshipful man who could sit there and not be harmed. Only miracles were wrought that day; the air and sky were full of omens, and Lancelot said: “I will that ye wit that this same day will the adventures of the Sangreal begin.” “A good old man, and an ancient,” clothed in white, entered the palace, bringing with him a young knight without arms. No one knew whence they came, but they listened in awe to the reverend stranger, who declared that the youth by his side was the long-expected knight, of the king’s lineage, of the kindred of Saint Joseph, destined to sit in the Siege Perilous and to achieve the Grail quest. It was Galahad, Sir Lancelot’s own son, having for his mother Elaine, the daughter of King Pelles, who was “cousin nigh unto Joseph of Arimathie,” and the possessor of the Holy Vessel. In the mysterious seat the young knight sat unfearing, and the knights beholding this whispered to each other, “This is he by whom the Sangreal shall be achieved.” It was the virgin knight who could alone draw out the sword from the stone, and who again proved himself the greatest, after which he began with religious ardour his appointed task.
Galahad’s story was a late addendum to the Arthurian legend, and it is very difficult to suppose that he was an historic figure. Yet his prototype is said to have existed in the person of Catwg the wise (Cadog), the second principal of Llancarfan College, where he was the successor of the renowned Bishop Dubois. In his youth Catwg had been a soldier, later he joined the Christian Church, and the neophyte had the advantage of receiving personal instruction from the aged master, the foremost divine of Arthur’s time. But the suggestion that Cadog was Galahad is scarcely open to serious consideration, and Walter Map, the first to relate the history of the virgin knight, was not likely to have had any such prototype in his mind. His conception seems to have been mainly poetic. The story is crowded with mysteries, superstitions, and idealisms. Galahad is scarcely human in any of his attributes, and he is so invested with marvels that we may safely set him down as an imaginary type or the most shadowy of traditional figures.
In discussing the real Arthur, as distinct from the Arthur of romance, we have to bear in mind that he was primarily the warrior, the representative of a cause which necessitated the constant display of his power in battle. As such he was first celebrated by the bards, and it was around the warrior and chief that the romance grew. From being simply a military leader, he became a type of hero about whom gathered many legends, and in course of time he was made the central figure in all the stories of marvellous adventure current in the early days. That there was an Arthur leading a forlorn hope, chief of a people slow to yield and hard to subdue, need scarcely be questioned. He is the original hero, the last and greatest of a conquered race; he is the giant-figure standing behind the mythical Arthur of fable and romance. Born when his land was attacked by the invader and his people were fearing extinction, he valorously met the foe, and for a while stemmed the victorious current of the Saxon and the Roman arms. Defeated at last, he became, as was inevitable, a type of hero—a later Odin, a demi-god—and in the romances and songs we read rather of aims than accomplishments, of desires than of deeds. More and more as time cast its glamour about him, King Arthur became the embodiment of a national aspiration, and the vanquished race revenged its defeat in songs of defiance, songs which vaunted of victory and were matched to triumphant strains, songs which relieved the thought of present disaster and recalled only the olden triumphs or prompted dreams of future glory. These songs took their rise in prophecies and sprang forth into golden promise of power and success. Speedily the ideal replaced the real. Poet after poet, chronicler after chronicler, added attributes to the hero; and ultimately from one strong man waging desperate war against outnumbering foes, the Arthur of romance was evolved, the Arthur whose conquests were an unbroken series and whose territory was limitless, the Arthur with his invincible knighthood, the Arthur who could never die, but who, in Merlin’s words, “like the dawn will arise from his mysterious retreat.” The legends supply one more proof that a nation with a voice, with the power of utterance, is invincible in spirit; captive and conquered though it may be, it remains unsubdued and free in impulse and thought. We can conceive how bold and defiant the spirit of the Cymri remained when in the eyes of the race the defeated king was still visible as the master of all kings, and the vanquished people could boast that he who fell under the Roman yoke—
“Swept the dust of ruin’d Rome