“Britones vero Armorici quum venerint in regno isto, suscipi debent et in regno protegi sicut probi cives de corpore regni hujus; exierunt quondam de sanguine Britonum regni hujus.”—­Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Saxonicae, p. 206.]and above all when we see one of the most essential episodes of the Arthurian cycle, that of the Forest of Broceliande, placed in the same country.  A large number of facts collected by M. de la Villemarrque [Footnote:  “Les Romans de la Table-Ronde et les contes des anciens Bretons” (Paris, 1859), pp. 20 et seq.  In the “Contes populaires des anciens Bretons,” of which the above may be considered as a new edition, the learned author had somewhat exaggerated the influence of French Brittany.  In the present article, when first published, I had, on the other hand, depreciated it too much.] prove, on the other hand, that these same traditions produced a true poetic cycle in Brittany, and even that at certain epochs they must have recrossed the Channel, as though to give new life to the mother country’s memories.  The fact that Gauthier Calenius, Archdeacon of Oxford, brought back from Brittany to England (about 1125) the very text of the legends which were translated into Latin ten years afterwards by Geoffrey of Monmouth is here decisive.  I know that to readers of the Mabinogion such an opinion will appear surprising at a first glance, All is Welsh in these fables, the places, the genealogies, the customs; in them Armorica is only represented by Hoel, an important personage no doubt, but one who has not achieved the fame of the other heroes of Arthur’s court.  Again, if Armorica saw the birth of the Arthurian cycle, how is it that we fail to find there any traces of that brilliant nativity? [Footnote:  M. de la Villemarque makes appeal to the popular songs still extant in Brittany, in which Arthur’s deeds are celebrated.  In fact, in his Chants populaires de la Bretagne two poems are to be found in which that hero’s name figures.]

These objections, I avow, long barred my way, but I no longer find them insoluble.  And first of all there is a class of Mabinogion, including those of Owen, Geraint, and Peredur, stories which possess no very precise geographical localisation.  In the second place, national written literature being less successfully defended in Brittany than in Wales against the invasion of foreign culture, it may be conceived that the memory of the old epics should be there more obliterated.  The literary share of the two countries thus remains sufficiently distinct.  The glory of French Brittany is in her popular songs; but it is only in Wales that the genius of the Breton people has succeeded in establishing itself in authentic books and achieved creations.

IV.