[Note 4.] Page 105.
"Evanthes (a writer among the Greekes of good account and authority) reporteth that he found among the records of the Arcadians, that in Arcadia there was a certain house and race of the Antœi, out of which one evermore must needs be transformed into a wolf: and when they of that family have cast lots who it shall be, they vie to accompany the party upon whom the lot is falne to a certain meere or poole in that country. When he is thither come, they turn him naked out of all his clothes, which they hang upon an oak thereby: then he swimmeth over the said lake to the other side; and being entered into the wildernesse, is presently transfigured and turned into a wolfe, and so keepeth company with his like of that kind for nine yeeres space; during which time (if he forbeare all the while to eat man's flesh) he returneth again to the same poole or pond; and being swomme over it, receiveth his former shape of a man, save only that he shall look nine yeeres older than before. Fabius addeth one thing more, and saith that he findeth again the same apparel that was hung up in the oak aforesaid.
"A wonder is it to see to what passe these Greekes are come in their credulity; there is not so shamelesse a lye but it findeth one or other of them to uphold and to maintaine it."—Holland's Pliny.
[Note 5.] Page 105.
Cervantes is fond of this legend. He refers to it in his Don Quixote, chap. 5. I never heard that such a superstition ever existed in England; but Sharon Turner, speaking of King Arthur, says: "So greatly were the people of Bretagne interested in his fame, that Alanus de Insulis tells us that even in his time (the twelfth century) they would not believe that their favourite was dead. If you do not believe me, go into Bretagne, and mention in the streets and villages that Arthur is really dead like other men, you will not escape with impunity; you will be either hooted with the curses of your hearers, or be stoned to death."
Trouveurs (continues Turner), troubadours, and monkish versifiers combine to express the same idea. We find the same in the traditions of the old Welsh bards, "who believed that King Arthur was not dead, but conveyed away by the fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remaine for a time, and then return again, and reign in as great authority as ever."—Holinshed, b. 5. c. 14.
"Some men yet say, in many parts of England, that King Arthur is not dead; but by the will of our Lord Jesu Christ, into another place; and men say that he will come again, and he shall win the holy cross. I will not say that it shall be so; but rather I will say, that here, in this world, he changed his life. But many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse:—
"'Hic jacet Arthurus rex quondam, rex futuris.'"
Mort d'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Maleor, or Malory, Knight.
BOOK II.
[Note 4.] Page 212.