Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut | Page 7

distinguished leader. Layamon's version so closely parallels early Celtic stories of banquet fights, and has so barbaric a tone, as to make it evident that he is here recounting a folk-tale of pure Celtic origin, which must have been connected with Arthur before his time, and probably before that of Wace; for this story was undoubtedly one of those "many fables" which Wace says the Britons told about the Round Table, but which he does not incorporate into his narrative.
[See A.C.L. Brown, _The Round Table before Wace in Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature_, VII. (Boston, 1900), 183 ff.; L.F. Mott, _Publications of the Modern Language Association of America_, XX, 231 ff.; J.L. Weston, as above (p. xv.), pp. 883 ft.]
EXCURSUS III.--THE HOPE OF BRITAIN
(Wace, _Brut_, 13681 ff.; Layamon, 23080 ff., 28610 ff.)
The belief that Arthur would return to earth, which was firmly established among the Britons by the beginning of the twelfth century, does not in early records appear clothed in any definite narrative form. In later sources it assumes several phases, the most common of which is that recorded by Layamon that Arthur had been taken by fays from his final battle-field to Avalon, the Celtic otherworld, whence after the healing of his mortal wound he would return to earth. Layamon's story conforms essentially to an early type of Celtic fairy-mistress story, according to which a valorous hero, in response to the summons of a fay who has set her love upon him, under the guidance of a fairy messenger sails over seas to the otherworld, where he remains for an indefinite time in happiness, oblivious of earth. It is easy to see that the belief that Arthur was still living, though not in this world, might gradually take shape in such a form as this, and that his absence from his country might be interpreted as his prolonged sojourn in the distant land of a fairy queen, who was proffering him, not the delights of her love, but healing for his wounds, in order that when he was made whole again he might return "to help the Britons." Historic, mythical, and romantic tradition have combined to produce the version that Layamon records. Geoffrey of Monmouth (xi. 2), writing in the mock role of serious historian and with a tendency to rationalisation, says not a word of the wounded king's possible return to earth. Wace, with characteristic caution, affirms that he will not commit himself as to whether the Britons, who say that Arthur is still in Avalon, speak the truth or not. Here, as in the story of the Round Table, it is Layamon who has preserved for us what was undoubtedly the form that the belief had already assumed in Celtic story, through whatever medium it may have passed before it reached his hands.
In the _Vita Merlini_,[21] a Latin poem attributed by some scholars to Geoffrey of Monmouth, a curious version of Arthur's stay in Avalon is given. The wounded king is taken after the battle of Camlan to the Isle of Apples (for such was understood to be the meaning of the name _Avalon_), which is the domain of a supernatural maiden, wise and beautiful, Morgen by name, who understands the healing art, and who promises the king that he shall be made whole again if he abides long with her. This is the first mention in literature of Morgan la Fee, the most powerful fay of French romance, and regularly the traditional healer of Arthur's wounds in Avalon.
The Argante of Layamon's version is doubtless the same being as Morgana, for whose name, which in any of its current spellings had the appearance of a masculine proper name, Layamon either may have substituted a more familiar Welsh name, Argante, as I have already shown he might easily have done (_Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance_, Boston, 1903, pp. 26-28), or, as Professor J.L. Bruce, with equal plausibility, has recently suggested, he may have used a corruption of one form of the fay's name, Morgant (_Modern Language Notes_, March, 1911, pp. 65-68).
[I have discussed the various versions of Arthur's stay in Avalon in _Studies in Fairy Mythology_, chapter III. On Avalon, see _id._, p. 40, note 2. On the early belief in Arthur's return to earth, see Geoffrey of Monmouth (_Everyman's Library_), Introduction, p. 10.]
NOTES:
[1] i.e., Paris, in the Ile de France. Vs. 10440 ff.
[2] Vs. 16530 ff.
[3] _Roman de Rou_, vs. 6415 ff.
[4] _Roman de Brut_, vs. 10038 ff.
[5] _Id._, vs. 7733 ff.
[6] _Id._, vs. 11472 ff. Cf. for other examples: Arthur's?conquest of Denmark, _Historia_, ix. 11; _Brut_, vs. 10123 ff.; Arthur's return to Britain from France, _Historia_, ix. 11; _Brut_, vs. 10427 ff.; Arthur's coronation, _Historia_, ix. 12 ff.; _Brut_, vs. 10610 ff.
[7] Vs. 13149 ff.
[8] See _Excursus II_.
[9] Vs. 11048