This seems strange, but it comes about in this way.  Part of France is called Brittany, as you know.  Now, long long ago, before the Romans came to Britain, some of the people who lived in that part of France sailed across the sea and settled in Britain.  These may have been the ancient Britons whom Caesar fought when he first came to our shore.

Later, when the Romans left our island and the Picts and Scots oppressed the Britons, many of them fled back over the sea to Brittany or Armorica, as it used to be called.  Later still, when the Saxons came, the Britons were driven by degrees into the mountains of Wales and the wilds of Cornwall, while others fled again across the sea to Brittany.  These took with them the stories which their minstrels told, and told them in their new home.  So it came about that the stories which were told in Wales and in Cornwall were told in Brittany also.

And how were these stories brought back again to England?

Another part of France is called Normandy.  The Normans and the Bretons were very different peoples, as different as the Britons and the English.  But the Normans conquered part of Brittany, and a close relationship grew up between the two peoples.  Conan, Duke of Brittany, and William, Duke of Normandy, were related to each other, and in a manner the Bretons owned the Duke of Normandy as overlord.

Now you know that in 1066 the great Duke William came sailing over the sea to conquer England, and with him came more soldiers from Brittany than from any other land.  Perhaps the songs of the minstrels had kept alive in the hearts of the Bretons a memory of their island home.  Perhaps that made them glad to come to help to drive out the hated Saxons.  At any rate come they did, and brought with them their minstrel tales.

And soon through all the land the Norman power spread.  And whether they first heard them in Armorica or in wild Wales, the Norman minstrels took the old Welsh stories and made them their own.  And the best of all the tales were told of Arthur and his knights.

Doubtless the Normans added much to these stories.  For although they were not good at inventing anything, they were very good at taking what others had invented and making it better.  And the English, too, as Norman power grew, clung more and more to the memory of the past.  They forgot the difference between British and English, and in their thoughts Arthur grew to be a national hero, a hero who had loved his country, and who was not Norman.

The Normans, then, brought tales of Arthur with them when they came to England.  They heard there still other tales and improved them, and Arthur thus began to grow into a great hero.  I will now go on to show how he became still greater.

In the reign of Henry I. (the third Norman king who ruled our land) there lived a monk called Geoffrey of Monmouth.  He was filled with the love of his land, and he made up his mind to write a history of the kings of Britain.