BATH 231 



XXXIX 



The story of Bath goes back some two tliousaud 

 years, and has its origin in the myths of ages, in 

 which Bladud figures variously as discoverer and 

 creator of the healing springs. Serious historians are 

 wont to exclude Bladud, and his descent from Brute 

 the Trojan, and Lud Hudibras, the British King, from 

 their pages, for the reason that Geoffrey of Monmouth, 

 the monkish chronicler, who first narrates these stories 

 in his history of Britain, was apt sometimes to con- 

 found chronicling with romancing. When, therefore, 

 he tells how Prince Bladud was an adept in magic, 

 and placed a cunning stone in the springs of this 

 valley so that it made the water hot and healed 

 the sick who resorted to them, he is looked upon 

 with a suspicion that is deepened when he goes on to 

 say that Bladud successfully attempted to fly with 

 wino-s of his own invention from Bath to London, 

 and only came to grief when London was reached, 

 through the strings breaking, so that he fell and was 

 dashed to pieces on the roof of the Temple of Apollo ! 



Nor is the better known legend of Prince Bladud, 

 the leper, exiled from his father's Court, universally 

 accepted. According to that story, the Prince wan- 

 dered to where Keynsham now stands, where he 

 became a swineherd, and infected the pigs with his 

 disease. Coming, however, into this valley, the 

 porkers rolled themselves into the hot mud, which then 

 occupied the site of Bath Abbey and the Baths, and 

 were cured. Bladud perceiving this, applied the 



