Ebook King Arthur in History and Legend

Clear and summary a form as possible, the origin and growth of King Arthur's historical and literary renown, and follows, largely, the lines of a chapter contributed by me to the first volume of The Cambridge History of English Literature. Although I have had, necessarily, to refer to much literary matter which is purely mythological, I have not sought to give any account of the specula tions of those who in our own time have endeavoured to reconstruct and interpret the myths and beliefs of pre-historic Celtic heathendom. Nor have I made more than the briefest allusion to the subsidiary legends which, mainly through the agency of French romantic scribes, came to be associated with Arthur's name, and 'to be included in the matter of Britain as it emerged out of the age of high romance. The book deals, all but exclusively, with King Arthur himself, as he is known to chroniclers, romancers and poets.