DECEMBER 293 



of a later age ; ' because,' as Joceline remarks with a 

 smug complacency that would have made Kentigern 

 himself swear, ' they are stained throughout by an un- 

 cultivated diction, discoloured and obscured by an 

 inelegant style, and, what any discreet man would 

 abhor still more, something contrary to sound doctrine 

 and to the Catholic faith very evidently appeareth.' 

 In short, the saint's life has been handed down to us 

 garbled by narrow ecclesiastics and edited by prejudiced 

 pedants, working at a distance of 400 years from the 

 original. It is therefore irremediably shorn of its value 

 as the testimony of eye-witnesses to a primitive state of 

 the community. In this matter Joceline is the worse 

 offender of the two, shutting off all the light shed 

 upon those far-off days, save such rays as might pass 

 through the coloured glass of the Church of Rome. 



Joceline states that Thenew was the daughter of 

 Lothus, a pagan king reigning early in the sixth century 

 over some part of North Britain Lothian, according 

 to Bishop Herbert. This Lothus is the same as Llew or 

 Llewddyn Llueddog of Dinas Eiddyn that is Dunedin 

 or Edinburgh whose gests are told in the Welsh 

 Mabinogion, where Thenew appears as Dwynwen or 

 Denyw. Arthur of the Round Table is said to have 

 bestowed upon Lothus that district which thereby got 

 the name of Lothian. If Llew or Lothus was secta 

 paganissimus as Joceline avers, or even vir semi-paganus 

 as Bishop Herbert more mildly describes him, Christian 

 Arthur had to pay heavily for installing him in power ; 

 for it was Llew's son, Medraut or Modred, who seduced 

 Guinevere and slew Arthur at the battle of Camlan. 



