[264] Hennessy, in Rev. Celt., i. 52.
[265] Chief general reference: Sir John Rhŷs, Arthurian Legend (Oxford, 1891). Chief sources: Nennius, Historia Britonum (circa 800); Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae (circa 1136); Wace, Le Roman de Brut (circa 1155); Layamon’s Brut (circa 1200); Marie de France, Lais (twelfth-thirteenth century); The Four Ancient Books of Wales (twelfth-fifteenth century), edited by W. F. Skene; The Mabinogion (based on the Red Book of Hergest, a fourteenth-century manuscript), edited by Lady Charlotte Guest, Sir John Rhŷs and J. G. Evans, and Professor J. Loth; Malory, Le Morte D’Arthur (1470); The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, collected out of ancient manuscripts (Denbigh, 1870); Iolo Manuscripts, a selection of ancient Welsh manuscripts (Llandovery, 1848).
[266] In a Welsh poem of the twelfth century (see W. F. Skene, Four Ancient Books, Edinburgh, 1868, ii. 37, 38) wherein the war feats of Prince Geraint are described, his men, who lived and fought a long time after the period assigned to Arthur, are called the men of Arthur; and, as Sir John Rhŷs thinks, this is good evidence that the genuine Arthur was a mythical figure, one might almost be permitted to say a god, who overshadows and directs his warrior votaries, but who, never descending into the battle, is in this respect comparable with the Irish war-goddess the Badb (cf. Rhŷs, Celtic Britain, London, 1904, p. 236).
[267] Cf. Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., chap. 1.
[268] Cf. Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., pp. 24, 48. Sir John Rhŷs sees good reasons for regarding Arthur as a culture hero, because of Arthur’s traditional relation with agriculture, which most culture heroes, like Osiris, have taught their people (ib., pp. 41-3).
[269] Cf. G. Maspero, Contes populaires de l’Égypte Ancienne3 (Paris, 1906), Intro., p. 57.
[270] Sommer’s Malory’s Morte D’Arthur, iii. 1.
[271] Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., p. 9.
[272] I am indebted to Professor J. Loth for help with this etymology.
[273] Cf. Rhŷs, Arth. Leg., p. 22.