Cornish folk and their kindred of Somerset Beyond 

 and Devon believe there is not a rood of the Blue 

 ground between Camelot and Tintagel where 

 the great King has not dwelt or passed. 

 Wales calls him her son, and his chivalry her 

 children, and the Cymric poets of a thousand 

 mabinogion have sung his heroic fame. Clydes- 

 dale, that more ancient home of the Cymri, 

 has dim memories older than what Taliesin 

 sang : Arthur's Seat hangs above Edinburgh, 

 a city so old that a thousand years ago its 

 earlier name was forgotten; and from the 

 Sidlaw to the Ochil, from blue Demy at to grey 

 Schiehallion, old names and broken tradition 

 preserve the obscure trails of a memory fallen 

 into oblivion, but not so fallen that the names 

 of Arthur and Queen Guinevere and wild-eyed 

 Merlin of the AVoods have ceased to stir the 

 minds of the few who still care for the things 

 that moved our fathers from generation to 

 generation. The snow of the Grampians have 

 not stayed the wandering tale : and there are 

 still a few old people who recall at times, in 

 the winter story-telling before farm-kitchen 

 fires, how the fierce Modred, King of the 

 North, made Queen Gwannole his own, and 

 how later, in a savage revenge, Arthur con- 

 demned her to be torn asunder by wild horses. 

 Lancelot passes from the tale before it crosses 



315 



