ARTHUR, KING

(VI. cent.), Brit. king, the actual facts of whose life are eeeapet lost in legend. He is said to have een the s. of Uther Pendragon by Igerna, wife of Gorlois, king of Cornwall. He was probably half-Roman, and chosen by the Christian Britons as “sale (about 520 A.D.) against the axons, whom he defeated; afterwards he fought the heathen Britons, and was betrayed and slain. Arthur i an Legend.—After his death A. became a hero of Celtic legend in Cornwall, Wales, and Cumber land. About 850 Nennius mentions him and his battles against the Saxons, and the treachery of his nephew Mordred. In Welsh poetry of the XI. and XII. cent., he is spoken of as half-man, half-wizard, and the names of his allies, Kay, Bedivere, and Geraint, are given. The Welsh legends were carried to Britt any and France, whence the Romans brought them to England. About 1120 Geoffrey of Mon mouth introduced Arthur into his History of the British Kings, dwelling on his miraculous birth and death, his conquests and the chivalrous side of the legend. This book was put into verse by Wace, a Norman, and Layamon, an English man (about 1150), each adding legendary touches, such as that of Excalibur, Arthur’s sword. In France the legend became mixed with other legends, such as those of the Holy Grail, Percival, Lance lot and Tristram, and the idea of the ‘Round Table’ arose. The chief Fr. poets of Arthur i an legend are France. In Germany the legend was further amplified by Wolfram von Eschenbach. In the prose romances of the XIII. and XIV. cent. (notably those of Walter Map) the story of Lance lot and Guinevere (A.’s_ wife) was evolved. Later on, most of the Arthur i an cycle was collected by Sir Thomas Malory in his Morte d’ Arthur (1470). In late Eng. literature the legend has been dealt with by Spenser in his Faery Queen, Tennyson in his Tdylls of the King, and Swinburne in