the neighborhood of Gloucester towards the end of the thirteenth century.  The episode of St. Brendan and the whale, moreover, was probably the ultimate source of one of Milton’s best known similes in his description of Satan.  Equally popular was the visit of Sir Owayn to the Purgatory of St. Patrick, which is also included in the same Middle English Legendary.  Ireland further contributed in some measure to the common stock of medieval stories which were used as illustrations by the preachers and in works of an edifying character.

When we turn to purely secular themes, we find ourselves on much less certain ground.  Though the discussion as to the origins of the “romance of Uther’s son”, Arthur, continues with unabated vigor, many scholars have come think that the Celtic background of these stories contains much that is derived from Hibernian sources.  Some writers in the past have argued in favor of an independent survival of common Celtic features, in Wales and Ireland, but now the tendency is to regard all such coincidences as borrowings on the part of Cymric craftsmen.  At the beginning of the twelfth century a new impulse seems to have been imparted to native minstrelsy in Wales under’the patronage of Gruffydd ap Cynan, a prince of Gwynedd, who had spent many years in exile at the court of Dublin.  Some of the Welsh rhapsodists apparently served a kind of apprenticeship with their Irish brethren, and many things Irish were assimilated at this time which, through this channel, were shortly to find their way into Anglo-French.  Thus it may now be regarded as certain that the name of the “fair sword” Excalibur, by Geoffrey called Caliburnus (Welsh caletfwlch), is taken from Caladbolg, the far-famed broadsword of Fergus macRoig.  It does not appear that the whole framework of the Irish sagas was taken over, but, as Windisch points out, episodes were borrowed as well as tricks of imagery.  So, to mention but one, the central incident of Syr Gawayn and the Grene Knyght is doubtless taken from the similar adventure of Cuchulainn in Bricriu’s Feast.  The share assigned to Irish influence in the matiere de Bretagne is likely to grow considerably with the progress of research.

The fairy lore of Great Britain undoubtedly owes much to Celtic phantasy.  Of this Chaucer, at any rate, had little doubt, as he writes: 

      In th’ olde dayes of the King Arthour,
      Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
      Al was this land fulfild of fayerye;
      The elf-queen, with hir joly companye,
      Daunced ful ofte in many a grene med.

And here again there is a reasonable probability that certain features were borrowed from the wealth of story current in the neighboring isle.  Otherwise it is difficult to understand why the queen of fayerye should bear an Irish name (Mab, from Irish Medb), and curiously enough the form of the name rathef suggests that it was borrowed through a written medium and not by oral tradition.  On the other hand it is incorrect to derive Puck from Irish puca, as the latter is undoubtedly borrowed from some form of Teutonic speech.