[8] See a poem entitled ‘Gereint, Son of Erbin,’ in The Black Book of Carmarthen, and several passages in the Mabinogion,—especially in ‘The Dream of Rhonabwy,’—which are referred to later on.
[9] It is worth noting, by the way, that the “Saeson,” or Saxons, against whom he is presumed to have fought most of his battles, are not even mentioned in the Welsh Arthurian romances.
[10] The name Artoria occurs is Tacitus, Annals, xv. 71; Artorius in Juvenal, Sat., iii. 29. It was common enough in Rome.
[11] Rhys, Arthurian Legend, p. 48. In Chap. I. of the same work Rhys puts and answers the main question suggested in these pages as follows: “How did Arthur become famous above other (Welsh, or British) heroes, and how came he to be the subject of so much story and romance? The answer, in short, which one has to give to this hard question must be to the effect, that besides a historic Arthur there was a Brythonic divinity named Arthur, after whom the man may have been called, or with whose name his, in case it was of a different origin, may have become identical in sound owing to an accident of speech” (A. L., p. 8).
[12] The chief authorities on Nennius are Mommsen (see his edition of the Historia, and of Gildas, in Mon. Germ. Hist., Berlin, 1898), and Zimmer (Nennius Vindicatus, Berlin, 1893). See, also, Fletcher (The Arthurian Matter in the Chronicles, Boston, 1906) and M. R. James (Camb. Hist. of Eng. Lit., Vol. I. Ch. 5). Thurneysen (Zeitschr. f. Deutsche Philologie, 1897) fixes 827 as the date of the completion of the History.
[13] This date must be accepted if we are to believe Nennius’s statement that he was a disciple of Elbodugus, or Elfodd, bishop of Gwynedd.
[14] Chap. 56.
[15] ipse dux erat bellorum.
[16] This is simply the Welsh (modern, cad coed) for “the battle of Celidon Wood.”