[57] See Preface to Dent’s Malory, where a translation of the whole poem is given, and its correspondences with Kulhwch and Olwen are pointed out.
[58] The Study of Celtic Literature. Rhys’s opinion that the primitive form, and substance, of this tale date from the tenth century has been already referred to. Dr Gwenogvryn Evans, in the Preface to his edition of The White Book ‘Mabinogion,’ without assigning to it so definite a date, holds that Kulhwch and Olwen “is the oldest in language, in matter, in simplicity of narrative, in primitive atmosphere,” of all the tales to which the general name ‘mabinogion’ is given. Mr Alfred Nutt, while holding that portions of Kulhwch and Olwen are of “pre-historic antiquity, far transcending in age any historic Arthur,” assigns the story in the form we have it to the twelfth century, on the strength, mainly, of its affinities to eleventh century Irish sagas.
[59] The Welsh name for “Excalibur.”
[60] Sir John Rhys does this in his Celtic Folklore (Vol. II. pp. 512 sqq.). See the whole of Chap. IX. in that work for a learned discussion of the significance of the names, both local and personal, in Kulhwch.
[61] Milton, Paradise Lost, ix. The prominence given to these descriptions in the tale is emphasised by its brief epilogue. “And this tale is called the Dream of Rhonabwy. And this is the reason that no one knows the dream without a book, neither bard nor gifted seer; because of the various colours that were upon the horses, and the many wondrous colours of the arms and of the panoply, and of the precious mantles and virtuous stones.”
[62] The Emperor (Lucius Hiberius, called in the Welsh narratives Llês) is said by Geoffrey (Hist. Reg. Brit., X. xi) to have been killed by “an unknown hand.”
[63] Rhys, Arthurian Legend, Ch. II.
[64] The most brilliant of these re-builders of “the Celtic Pantheon” is Sir John Rhys. See, especially, his Arthurian Legend and Celtic Heathendom.
[65] Spenser, Faerie Queene, Bk. I. Canto 9.
[66] Dickinson, King Arthur in Cornwall (Longmans), p. vi, where an interesting account is given of Arthur’s Cornish associations.