KIMG AHTlIUll's ItEMAINS. 129 



■ SO prominent a place, are to me otherwise perfectly unin- 

 telligible and unaccountable. It is, moreover, worthy 

 of note that tlie mythological fictions which have given 

 rise to tbe doubts and the disbelief as to the reallty of this 

 great personage had tbeir origin, er at least their main 

 development, on the Continent and not in Britain. In the 

 earliest poetical literature of the Cymri, Arthur is repre- 

 sented only as a great and distlnguished mllitary chief. His 

 cotemporary, Llywai'ch Hen, speaks of him as such, in the 

 battle of Llongborth.* The Welsh Triads in like manner 

 preserve the same historical character, and more than thirty 

 of them refer to this distinguished British king. 



The fondness for the marvellous which possessed the 

 monasteries was the origin of some of the extravagant 

 additions which gradually accumulated around his name. 

 Though we may, and I believe must, reject a great part of 

 the marvellous narratives associated with King Arthur, 

 yet that does not involve nor require the rejection of the 

 leading facts which underlie the whole complicated struc- 

 ture of fiction which has been raised thereon. 



As this subject opens a very wide field of historical 

 criticism, I shall confine myself to the reputed discovery of 

 the great monarch's remains in the cemetery of the Abbey 

 which will be visited by us this day. 



The existence of the tradition anterior to the reputed 

 discovery of his remains in the reign of Henry II — that 

 Arthur the king had been interred at Glastonbury — is 

 clearly established by the Chronich of Tysilio, and the 

 History of Gruffyth ah Arthur, more commonly known as 

 Geoffrcy of Monmoutli. Though only a vague tradition, it 

 is sufficient to prove that it was not invented to give a 



* See Proceedings of Somersetshire Archctological Society, vol. IV., p. 45. 

 VOL. IX., 1859, PART 11. B 



