PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 21 



older dialect high headland. On the Wye and in York- 

 shire we have caves respectively known as King Arthur's 

 Hall, and in Westmoreland a round evidently used for 

 some ancient games is known as King Arthur's Round 

 Table. At Edinburgh is "Caer Arthur" — high camp: 

 not "Arthur's Seat." Now the Welsh "Bwr" meant a 

 bank or round scat or camp. We have it in the 

 name of the next Roman station after Isca — in 

 Burricum or Usk, and in Bourton, Gloucestershire, as, 

 well as in the Cornish word Burrows for the spoil banks 

 of mines. "Arth" was the name for a bear, so that 

 Bur Arth would be the " Bear Pitt." That this was really 

 the name of the Roman amphitheatre at Caerleon is 

 confirmed by that of the field on the opposite side of the 

 Roman street. The latter is still called the Bear-House 

 field. It is evident that the people of the district who 

 were accustomed on certain high-days and hohdays to 

 witness the Roman games, continued to keep up these 

 games after the legions had withdrawn from Britain. 

 Thus at Wareham, cock-fights, etc., were kept up in the 

 Roman amphitheatre under the north wall, till the last 

 century, or, beginning of the present one. But the sound 

 of " Bwr Arth" is so near that of " Bwrdd Arth" as to 

 be easily confused with it — and while the first means 

 "Bear Pit" the second signifies "Arthur's Table"! 



The fact of several centuries having elapsed after the 

 death of King Arthur before any historian hints at the 

 story of the round table, should of itself make us more 

 cautious in accepting the story as more than a myth : and 

 here we have the clue to the myth. Well may Wendall 

 Holmes say that all things are in all things — and Emerson 

 declare that nothing is wholly new, but must also contain 

 some thread that is old. 



Vespasian's founding of Gloucester, and the conquest 

 by Julius Frontinus, of the Silures, brought Alfred 

 Tennvson to Caerleon to compose his " Idylls of the 



