100 PAPERS, ETC. 
in that part of Cornwall, in very early times, is 
evident from the military works which still exist 
there,—what could be more likely, than that the 
great champion of christianity should be brought to 
the great christian church at Glastonbury, and there 
interred among the first preachers of that religion, 
in defence of which he had fought so gallantly ? 
The legend, that his famous sword, Excalibur, was 
received by an arm that rose out of the river, and 
that he himself was carried by Morgana, or the 
Lady ofthe Lake, or water, to Avalon, if translated 
into simple prose, may mean no more than this, — 
that the great warrior Arthur being killed in battle 
at Camelford, was embarked on the river, and trans- 
ported to Glastonbury by sea, instead of being car- 
ried by land through Devonshire, and the western 
part of Somerset, at that time occupied by the 
hostile Saxons. Of the discovery and exhuma- 
tion of his remains, in the reign of Henıy II, 
Camden, on the authority of Giraldüs Cambrensis, 
who professes to have been an eye witness of 
what he describes, gives the following account. 
«When Henry the second, king of England, took 
knowledge out of the songs of British bards or 
rythmers, how Arthur, that most noble worthy of 
the Britons, who by his martial power had many a 
time daunted the fury of the English Saxons, lay 
buried here, between two pyramids or sharp headed 
pillars, —he caused the body to be searched for; 
and scarcely had they digged seven foot deep into 
