I presume that Llongborth is a place elsewhere spoken of as Longporth, and believed to be Portsmouth; and the battle referred to, one between Arthur and Cerdric.
The same manuscript gives a poem entitled ‘The Verses of the Graves.’ Many graves are mentioned which are not to the present purpose; that of Arthur is referred to as unknown in the following line:—
A mystery to the world the grave of Arthur.
Taliessin was a Welsh bard who, among others, is assigned to the sixth century. He refers to Arthur frequently as the Guledig—a term, according to Skene, equivalent to Ruler or Imperator. That Arthur was not Imperator of all Britain will presently appear; that he held some position of supremacy in the west may well be believed. Taliessin refers to Arthur frequently, once as ‘Arthur the blessed’:—
on the face of battle,
Upon him a restless activity.
The same poet describes with much repetition a certain expedition, of which one stanza may serve as a sufficient sample:—
And when we went with Arthur, a splendid labour,
Except seven none returned from Caer Vedwyd.
The same poet alludes to ‘the steed of Arthur’ in a poem which enumerates memorable horses. In the ‘Book of Aneurin,’ a Welsh poet who belonged, as it is thought, to the sixth century, Arthur is made use of as a standard of comparison. A certain warrior is thus referred to:—
He was an Arthur
In the midst of the exhausting conflict.[8]
Further quotations from similar sources might be brought together, but enough have been adduced to show that the name of Arthur was so widely celebrated by the Welsh bards, and was so connected by them with place and circumstance, that it is not possible to doubt that the traditions had reference to a real person. Whether any of the bardic effusions which have come down to us are correctly assigned to the sixth century, as Welsh scholars believe, I am not competent to decide. Many of them are obviously of later date; but if we may accept what is generally believed, we must attribute some of these poetic remnants to a time when Arthur was a recent memory, and give credence to them as at least founded on fact. By the bards Arthur was represented as a military chief paramount in the country to which their knowledge extended; as a soldier of exceptional activity, and one who attracted the admiration of those who fought under him; as concerned in a variety of fights in a variety of places, most of which are not now to be exactly identified, but one of which was Kelliwic, a place of strength which will receive further notice; and as resembling another great leader in the invincible obscurity which shrouded his place of rest. ‘In the lost battle borne down by the flying,’ his sepulchre may have been the maws of kites.