Thus the hero returned to his own land.

Note.—­There is no book of Ossian specially edited for children.  Later they may like to read the Century Edition of Macpherson’s Ossian, edited by William Sharpe.  Stories about Ossian will be found among the many books of Celtic tales now published.

Chapter VI ABOUT SOME OLD WELSH STORIES AND STORY-TELLERS

You remember that the Celtic family was divided into two branches, the Gaelic and the Cymric.  So far we have only spoken about the Gaels, but the Cymry had their poets and historians too.  The Cymry, however, do not claim such great age for their first known poets as do the Gaels.  Ossian, you remember, was supposed to live in the third century, but the oldest Cymric poets whose names we know were supposed to live in the sixth century.  As, however, the oldest Welsh manuscripts are of the twelfth century, it is again very difficult to prove that any of the poems were really written by those old poets.

But this is very certain, that the Cymry, like the Gaels, had their bards and minstrels who sang of the famous deeds of heroes in the halls of the chieftains, or in the market-places for the people.

From the time that the Romans left Britain to the time when the Saxons or English were at length firmly settled in the land, many fierce struggles, many stirring events must have taken place.  That time must have been full of brave deeds such as the minstrels loved to sing.  But that part of our history is very dark.  Much that is written of it is little more than a fairy tale, for it was not until long afterwards that anything about this time was written down.

The great hero of the struggle between the Britons and the Saxons was King Arthur, but it was not until many many years after the time in which he lived that all the splendid stories of his knights, of his Round Table, and of his great conquests began to take the form in which we know them.  Indeed, in the earliest Welsh tales the name of Arthur is hardly known at all.  When he is mentioned it is merely as a warrior among other warriors equally great, and not as the mighty emperor that we know.  The Arthur that we love is the Arthur of literature, not the Arthur of history.  And I think you may like to follow the story of the Arthur of literature, and see how, from very little, it has grown so great that now it is known all the world over.  I should like you to remember, too, that the Arthur story is not the only one which repeats itself again and again throughout our Literature.  There are others which have caught the fancy of great masters and have been told by them in varying ways throughout the ages.  But of them all, the Arthur story is perhaps the best example.

Of the old Welsh poets it may, perhaps, be interesting to remember two.  These are Taliesin, or “Shining Forehead,” and Merlin.