When, after the fifteenth century, Irish literature began to decline, Irish poems were recast in the native Scotch dialect, thus giving rise to what is known as Gaelic literature, which continued to flourish until the Reformation.  Samples of this old Gaelic or Erse poetry were discovered by James Macpherson in the Highlands, taken down from recitation, and used for the English compilation known as the Poems of Ossian.  Lacking sufficient talent and learning to remodel these fragments so as to produce a real masterpiece, Macpherson—­who erroneously termed his work a translation—­not only incurred the sharpest criticism, but was branded as a plagiarist.

The Welsh, a poetic race too, boast of four great poets,—­Taliessin, Aneurin, Llywarch Hen, and Myrden (Merlin).  These composed poems possessing epic qualities, wherein mention is made of some of the characters of the Arthurian Cycle.  One of the five Welsh MSS., which seem of sufficient antiquity and importance to deserve attention, is the Book of Taliessin, written probably during the fourteenth century.  The Welsh also possess tales in verse, either historical or romantic, which probably antedated the extant prose versions of the same tales.  Eleven of these were translated by Lady Charlotte Guest, and entitled Mabinogion (Tales for Children), although only four out of the eleven deserve that name.  But some of these tales are connected with the great Arthurian cycle, as Arthur is the hero par excellence of Southern Wales, where many places are identified with him or his court.

Although almost as little is known of the historical Arthur as of the historical Roland, both are heroes of important epic cycles.  Leader probably of a small band of warriors, Arthur gradually became, in the epics, first general-in-chief, then king, and finally emperor of all Britain.  It is conjectured that the Arthurian legends must have passed from South Wales into Cornwall, and thence into Armorica, “where it is probable the Round Table was invented.”  Enriched by new accretions from time to time, the Arthurian cycle finally included the legend of the Holy Grail, which must have originated in Provence and have been carried into Brittany by jongleurs or travelling minstrels.

It has been ascertained that the legend of Arthur was familiar among the Normans before Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his books, and it certainly had an incalculable formative influence on European literature, much of which can be “traced back directly or indirectly to these legends.”  It was also a vehicle for that element which we call chivalry, which the church infused into it to fashion and mould the rude soldiers of feudal times into Christian knights, and, as it “expanded the imagination and incited the minds of men to inquiry beyond the conventional notions of things,” it materially assisted in creating modern society.