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stronghold. Now, supposing it to commemorate the struggle made by the indi- 
genous race under able leadership to resist the invasions of Saxons or of Picts and 
to stem the tide of barbarism which set in after the Romans had departed, it is 
easy to understand how in its onward passage local legends which had reference 
only to some local hero—some village Hampden—would become absorbed in the 
larger romance. Thus Arthur (and I am told that Arthrws in Welsh means only 
a strong, heroic man), would become, not merely like Mrs. Malaprop’s Cerberus 
‘three gentlemen at once,” but the embodiment of a hundred valiant chieftains, 
of whose doughty deeds the bards of a hundred districts had sung. Now there is 
every reason to believe that Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was born about the year 
1100, was familiar with the Breton romance in which the Roman wars of Arthur 
are described and numbers of foreign places named which would be unknown to 
the Kymry of Wales, and we may also take it for granted that he was familiar 
with the legends preserved by Gildas and the so-called Nennius. What can be 
more likely, then, that when he viewed the relics of past grandeur at Caerleon and 
heard the traditions there current of its glorious past, he should connect these 
with the reign of Arthur, and for the first time make that place the scene of his 
hero’s exploits? I say ‘‘for the first time” because so it seems to be. The 
Hengwyst Romance of St. Greal fixes the palace of Arthur at Camelot, in 
Cornwall: later Mabinogion, at Gelliwig, in the same county, and it is only inthe 
post Norman stories—whose date is betrayed by their reference to the system of 
knight errantry—that the name of Caerleon is introduced. While therefore we 
maintain that Arthur was a veritable hero—or more than one—who lived and loved, 
fought and died in that dim period which succeeded the departure of the Romans, 
we must cease to claim him as one of the Cymry of Wales, we must give up as hope- 
less the attempt to fix the date of his existence or to determine his identity, and 
rest contented with being unable to reconcile his exploits with probability or his 
wanderings with geography. But we have lingered too long in ‘‘old Caerleon,” 
and your President has been tempted to forget that his own antiquarian studies 
may be distasteful to those members of our club who tread the steeper paths of 
science. 
Our second meeting was held on the 15th of June, at Symonds’ Yat, under 
circumstances even less favourable for out-door enjoyment than we had experienced 
at Caerleon. The fair prospect on which we had hoped to gaze was partly hidden 
by gathering clouds, the contents of which were discharged upon our heads as we 
passed through the outskirts of the Forest of Dean on our road to Monmouth. But 
in spite of all obstacles and discouragements the programme was duly carried 
out and a fair number of Woolhopians, more or less drenched, mustered at the 
Buckstone. Amongst these your President was not included. Whether prudence 
dictated to him a more rapid march upon Monmouth, or whether he feared to 
submit himself to the ordeal of other Druidical rites which the rocking stone would 
suggest, is immaterial. But perhaps those who, like himself, were absent from the 
spot, may be interested in learning what the Buckstone—the main object of the 
day’s excursion—really is. It is a mass of conglomerate silicious grit, irregular— 
x 
