Overview

THIS is a book full of learning and full of interest; but the views put forward in it are not likely to receive general acceptance, nor are they in my judgment put forward in a manner best calculated to win it. It is impossible in this review to discuss at adequate length work which deals with mythology much more than with history. Still mythology itself-the history of the beliefs of a people at any time-does claim a place in history in the strictest sense of the word: in many cases it is of more value to the historian than the record of actual events. If the Arthurian legend were as closely connected as Professor Rhys believes it to be with the lost mythology of the Celtic folk, it would be really of greater importance to us on that score than on account of any stray records which it might preserve of the historic Arthur. Before, however, I say anything of the mythologic parts of the book (ninety-nine hundredths of it), I will speak of, in order to dismiss, those pages which treat of the historic Arthur. That there was an historic Arthur Mr. Rhys admits. He makes the acute observation that the title which Arthur preserves in Welsh literature, yr amherawdyr Arthur, the emperor Arthur-not gwledig, prince-points to his having held the office of comes Britanniae or the equivalent thereof. The comes Britanniae was the superior officer alike of the dux Britanniarum, who had charge of the forces in the north and especially on the wall, and the comes littoris Saxonici, the defender of the Saxon or south-east coast. It will be in the memory of those who have read the same writer's 'Celtic Britain' that he discusses which of the two titles comes Britanniae or dux Britanniarum may be considered the prototype of the obscure English title bretwealda. As the successors of the duces Britanniae and the comites littoris Saxonici were called in Welsh gwledigs, it is reasonable to infer that the Roman title imperator (as it was preserved in the Welsh form amherawdyr) was preserved in order to be applied to the successor of the comes Britanniae. This, at any rate, is Professor Rhys's theory, though it admits of very obvious objections, as that the title imperator was far too important a one in history ever to have dropped out of a language in which it had once found a place, whether it did or did not continue to be applied to any known official in Britain. If the theory were accepted it would be an argument-so far as it went-against the attempts of Mr. Skene and Mr. Stuart Glennie to refer the origin of the Arthurian legend to the district between the walls. Mr. Rhys takes no notice of this attempt; nor, in fact, has he anything further of importance to say concerning the historic Arthur, excepting that the death of the mythic Arthur at the hands of Medrod (Modred) is probably a reminiscence of the death of the historic Arthur at the hands of his nephew Maelgwyn. Maelgwyn is an historic personage mentioned by Gildas (who, as everybody knows, has nothing to say of Arthur) as having slain his uncle (unnamed). It has been before suggested that this Maelgwyn is the prototype of the mythic Modred. Professor Rhys thinks that it could not have belonged of right to the history of the mythic Arthur that he should be slain, and that this incident, therefore, in Arthur's career is a reflexion from history. We now come to the mythic Arthur-not the Arthur of Nennius, but the Arthur of the true Arthurian legend, the proper subject of this volume. Now, at the outset let me say that the ideal fashion of dealing with mythological subjects remains yet to be discovered. The foundations of this study are so much matters in dispute that, unless we are furnished with some criterion for judging a writer's method, it is impossible to guess how far his assertions are based upon mere assumption... -An excerpt of a review in The English Historical Re