title="[Pg 39]"/> valley of the Tay, now known as Barry Hill, is designated by tradition as Mordred’s Castle, not the only instance in which testimony of this nature has been found to throw light upon Arthurian history.

It is impossible to dissociate the place of Arthur’s death from that of his supposed burial. According to the well-known story which we owe to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the king was desperately wounded on the Camel, and thence conveyed to Glastonbury, where we must suppose he died; for there, in confirmation of Geoffrey’s account, was his grave found, or said to have been found, after the lapse of 647 years. The circumstantial report of the finding and identification of the grave on the spot indicated by the story gives verisimilitude to the legend, and demands for it serious criticism. In the first place, there is reason to believe, as I have shown, that though there was a great battle on the Camel, Arthur was not in it, and though he died in battle, it was not on the Camel. If Arthur concluded his career, not on the Camel but the Forth, the question of sepulture at Glastonbury may be dismissed as a fabrication. On the other hand, if the burial in this place can be maintained, then we must abandon the Scottish localisation of the last battle, and may accept the statement of the unveracious Geoffrey that it was fought on the Cornish river. It behoves us, therefore, to examine the Glastonbury story as one upon which much turns. The tradition that Arthur, mortally wounded on the Camel, was conveyed alive to Glastonbury may be at once discarded. Such a transporting of a desperately wounded man must be regarded as impracticable. He was within easy reach of his Cliff Castle at Tintagel and of his fortified camp of Kelliwick (assuming this to have been Kelly Rounds), and would probably, if moved at all, have been deposited in one or the other. On the other hand, if he was killed outright the removal of the body to Glastonbury by way of the Camel and the sea would be neither impossible nor unlikely.

Glastonbury was one of the earliest seats of Christianity in this island, and no doubt was reverenced as such in the time of Arthur. The tumulus and the churchyard were at this time competing as receptacles for the dead—the tumulus as a heathen, the churchyard as a Christian place of rest. A tumulus was raised over a Saxon chief in the time, and with the permission, of Ambrosius. Christian burial was probably practised at Glastonbury at as early a date. Giraldus Cambrensis, together with a monk of Glastonbury quoted by Leland, professed themselves to have been witnesses of the opening of Arthur’s grave. There are two accounts as to the finding of this—one that it was sought for by order of Henry II., who had learned from the British Bards that Arthur was buried between two pyramids at Glastonbury; the other that it was found accidentally in this situation in digging to bury a monk who had selected this spot for his interment. The pyramids undoubtedly existed before the alleged discovery of Arthur’s grave; for they were described by William of Malmesbury in the reign of Henry I. They displayed some inscription, apparently Saxon, and an ecclesiastical effigy, but no mention of Arthur.

So circumstantial is the statement of Giraldus, who represents himself as an eye-witness of the exploration, that if in any essential respect he departed from the truth, whether by way of addition or otherwise, we can scarcely suppose that the falsehood was unintentional. Though there are differences, as I shall presently show, relating to the date of the alleged exploration, preponderating evidence places it in the time of Henry II., in whose interest it has been suspected that a fraud was devised to gratify the king and serve a political purpose. Henry as a Norman might, it has been thought, desire to rehabilitate Arthur as, like himself, an enemy of the Saxons. Priests were deceivers ever: here they may have had both the motive and the means for deception. But it must be allowed that if the ecclesiastical explorers lied they lied so much like truth that if any exception be taken to their report it is only that it comes up too exactly to what might have been expected. The story, as told by Giraldus, is as follows. On digging between the pyramids in the monks’ cemetery a leaden cross was found at a depth of seven feet, which bore this inscription in rude letters:

HIC JACET SEPULTUS INCLYTUS REX ARTHURIUS IN
INSULA AVALLONIA, CUM WENNEVEREIA UXORE
SUA SECUNDA

Camden gives what professes to be a facsimile of the inscription, which ‘was formerly written and preserved in the monastery of Glastonbury.’ The lettering has the appearance of great antiquity, but suspicion attaches to the mention of the name of the place in connection with the interment. Avallonia, or Avalon, is of course Glastonbury—probably in Arthur’s time an island in a swamp. As to its place, the body speaks for itself. It may be necessary to say whose it is; it is not necessary to say where it is; nor is it usual on tombstones or coffins to give their address.

At a depth of nine feet, or two feet below the cross, was found a coffin, consisting of a hollowed oak, in which were the bones of a man and a woman. The man was represented as of great stature. I am indebted to the scholarship of Mr. T. Holmes for as exact a translation of the words of Giraldus as the Latin of that author allows. Speaking of the male occupant of the coffin, Giraldus says: ‘His tibia placed beside that of the tallest man in the place (whom the Abbot pointed out to me), and fixed into the earth by the side of his foot, extended fully three fingers’ breadth above the man’s knee. His skull bone also was capacious and large enough for a prodigy or a show—so much so that the interval between the eyelids and the space between the eyes might contain the size of a man’s palm fully. And in this were seen ten or more wounds, all of which, except one larger than the others and which had made a great gash, and which alone seemed to have caused death, had joined into a firm cicatrix.’

The body of the woman found in the same receptacle presented yellow hair nicely braided, a lock of which on being handled by a monk crumbled into dust. Here we have all we could expect—almost more. Strength and valour, together with as much of female charm as could survive six centuries. Hair will last and retain its colour for an indefinite time. With regard to the male skeleton, the large recent wound on the head corresponds with the manner of Arthur’s death and the wounds of earlier infliction with the manner of his life. In the length of the tibiæ there is nothing impossible. But with regard to the skull the dimensions possible to humanity are so much exceeded that it is difficult to suppose that we are reading the honest report of an eye-witness. The palm between the eyes savours more of imagination than observation. The space between the orbits in an ordinary skull on a level with the eyelids, where the distance is greatest, is at most 1½ inch. One of the largest human skeletons known is that of the Irish Giant at the College of Surgeons, which measures 7 feet 7 inches in height. The distance between the orbits in a level with the place of the eyelids is 2 inches. The palm between the eyes is impossible even to procerity. Thus doubts gather round the grave: if the king desired that this should be found attempts not wholly ingenuous might have been made to gratify him. Apart from the inscription and the skull, the completeness of the alleged discovery, the appropriately wounded skeleton and the fascinating queen, are suggestive of invention.

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