not been able to trace the legend beyond a Beyond 

 modern Slavonic ballad) among the Carpathian 

 Highlands is a nameless ancient tomb lost in a 

 pine-forest, where at mid-winter a bear has 

 been seen to rise, walking erect like a man, 

 crowned with a crown of iron and gold holding 

 a single shining stone magnificent as the Pole 

 Star, and crying in a deep voice, * / am Arthur 

 of the West, who shall yet be king of the World: 



Strange indeed, for here among the debris 

 of the lost history of Arthur, that vast 

 shadowy kingly figure whose only kingdom 

 may have been the soul of primitive races, and 

 whose sword may have been none other than 

 the imagination that is for ever on its beautiful 

 and perilous quest, here among that de'bris of 

 legend scattered backward from the realms of 

 the north across Europe is one, remote as it is, 

 which brings us back to the early astro- 

 nomical myth which identifies the great Celtic 

 champion with the chief constellation of the 

 north. 



But as I have heard this fragment of our 

 old lost mythology related in a way I have 

 not seen in any book, I will give it here altered 

 but slightly if at all from one of the countless 

 legends told to me in my childhood. 



At sunset the young son of the great King 

 317 



