On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire. Charles Hardwick
felt and gracefully wrought "Idylls of the King," by the laureate of the Victorian age, Alfred Tennyson. The last named says—
Lancelot spoke
And answered him at full, as having been
With Arthur in the fight which all day long
Rang by the white mouth of the violent Glem:
And in the four wild battles by the shore
Of Douglas.
(Idylls, p. 162.)
Referring to the parentage of the Arthurian legends, in the essay prefixed to his "Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances," Mr. George Ellis says—"Although Geoffrey's 'British Chronicle' is justly regarded as one of the corner-stones of romantic fiction, yet its principal, if not sole effect, was to stamp the names of Arthur, Merlin, Kay, and Gawain with the character of historical veracity; and thus to authorise a collection of all the fables already current respecting these fanciful heroes and their companions. For not one word is to be found in that compilation concerning Sir Lancelot and his brothers; Sir Tristram; Sir Ywain; Joseph of Arimathea and the Sangrael; the round table with its perilous seat; and the various quests and adventures which fill so many folio volumes. These were subsequent additions, but additions apparently derived from the same source. The names, the manners of the heroes, and the scenes of their adventures, were still British; and, the taste for these strange traditions continuing to gain ground for at least two centuries, the whole literature of Europe was ultimately inundated by the nursery-tales of Wales and Armorica, as it had formerly been by the mythology of Greece and Egypt."
Of course there sometimes is, and there oftener is not, recognisable historical or biographical fact at the basis of so-called historical novels, poems, or plays, but the difficulty of separating the one from the other is generally insurmountable, and the labour bestowed thereon often profitless. This is especially the case where quasi-history has become inextricably interwoven with faded nature-myths and more modern artistic inventions. Mr. Fiske, in the work previously quoted, has the following very pertinent remarks on this subject:—
"I do not suppose that the struggle between light and darkness was Homer's subject in the 'Iliad' any more than it was Shakespeare's subject in 'Hamlet.' Homer's subject was the wrath of the Greek hero, as Shakespeare's subject was the vengeance of the Danish prince. Nevertheless, the story of 'Hamlet,' when traced back to its Norse original, is unmistakably the quarrel between summer and winter; and the moody prince is as much a solar hero as Odin himself. (See Simrock, Die Quellen des Shakespeare, I., 127–133.) Of course Shakespeare knew nothing of this, as Homer knew nothing of the origin of Achilleus. The two stories are therefore not to be taken as sun-myths in their present form. They are the offspring of other stories which were sun-myths. They are stories which conform to the sun-myth type. … The sun and the clouds, the light and the darkness, were once supposed to be actuated by wills analagous to the human will; they were personified and worshipped or propitiated by sacrifice; and their doings were described in language which applied so well to the deeds of human or quasi-human beings, that in course of time its primitive import faded from recollection. No competent scholar now doubts that the myths of the Veda and the Edda originated in this way, for philology itself shows that the names employed in them are the names of the great phenomena of nature. And when once a few striking stories had thus arisen—when once it had been told how Indra smote the Panis, and how Sigurd rescued Brynhild, and how Odysseus blinded the Kyklops—then certain mythic or dramatic types hadd been called into existence; and to these types, preserved in the popular imagination, future stories would inevitably conform. … In this view I am upheld by a most sagacious and accurate scholar, Mr. E. A. Freeman, who finds in Carlovingian romance an excellent illustration of the problem before us."
The Carlovingian romance thus cited is, indeed, almost an exact counterpart of the Arthurian one, with the certainly very important exception that we can appeal to reliable history in the former case to prove our position, while the mythical gloom of legend and tradition obscures so much of the probable historical facts in connection with the latter that our path is beset with difficulties which cannot be solved otherwise than by analogical inference. History informs us of the acts and deeds of Karl der Gross, a German by birth, name, race, and language. This warrior, who conquered nearly the whole of Europe and founded one of the most important dynastic houses in mediæval times, was born about the year 742, in the castle of Silzburg, in Bavaria, and died in 814 at Aachen, now called Aix-la-Chapelle. On the other hand, as Mr. Fiske says, "the Charlemagne of romance is a mythical personage. He is supposed to be a Frenchman at a time when neither the French nation nor the French language can properly be said to have existed; and he is represented as a doughty crusader, although crusading was not thought of until long after the Karolingian era. He is a myth, and what is more he is a solar myth—an avatar, or at least a representative of Odin in his solar capacity. If in his case legend were not controlled by history, he would be for us as unreal as Agamemnon. … To the historic Karl corresponds in many particulars the mythical Charlemagne. The legend has preserved the fact, which without the information supplied by history we might perhaps set down as a fiction, that there was a time when Germany, Gaul, Italy, and part of Spain formed a single empire. And as Mr. Freeman has well observed, the mythical crusades of Charlemagne are good evidence that there were crusades, although the real Karl had nothing whatever to do with one."
In the old ballad legend of Sir Guy, of Warwick, this chronological confusion is equally apparent. One of the earlier stanzas says—
Nine hundred twenty yeere and odde
After our Saviour Christ his birth,
When King Athelstone wore the crowne,
I lived heere upon the earth.
And yet this same legendary hero slays Saracens and other "heathen pagans" during the crusades some three centuries afterwards. The "Scop" or Geeman's song, and others, exhibit similar instances of this confusion of personages and dates.
Saxo Grammaticus, the Danish historian, has, like Geoffrey of Monmouth, mingled so much legendary and irrelevant matter with his genuine material, that it is often difficult and sometimes impossible to distinguish one from the other. Mr. H. H. Howorth, in the work previously quoted, referring to Harald Hildetand, "the most prominent figure in Scandinavian history at the close of the heroic period," says—"Although Saxo's notice of him is long, it will be found to contain scarcely anything about him. It is filled up with parenthetical stories about other people, referring doubtless to other times altogether, while the stories it contains about his exploits in Aquitania, and Britain, and Northumbria, show very clearly, as Müller has pointed out, that he has confused his doings with those of another, and much later, Harald, probably Harald Blaatand (Op. Cit. 366, note 3). It is only when we come to the close of his reign that we have a more detailed and valuable story. This is the account of the famous fight at Bravalla, of which we have two recensions, one in Saxo and the other in the Sogubrot, and which have preserved for us one of the most romantic epical stories in the history of the north. The story was recorded in verse by the famous champion Starkadr, whom Saxo quotes as his authority, and whom he seems closely to follow. Dahlman has, I think, argued very forcibly that the form and matter of this saga as told by Saxo is more ancient, and preserves more of the local colour of the original than that of the Sogubrot (Forsch, etc., 307–308). And yet the story as it stands is very incongruous, and makes it impossible for us to believe that it was written by a contemporary at all. How can we understand Icelanders fighting in a battle a hundred years before Iceland was discovered, and what are we to make of such champions as Orm the Englishman, Brat the Hibernian, etc., among the followers of Harald? It would seem that on such points the story has been somewhat sophisticated, perhaps, as in the Roll of Battle Abbey, names have been added to flatter later heroes."
It is a recognised element in popular tradition or folk-lore, that the deeds of one historic or mythological hero are sure, when he is forgotten, to be attributed to some other man of mark, who, for the time being, fills the popular fancy. I am, therefore, inclined to think that the imaginary victories of Arthur on the continent of Europe in the sixth century, as recorded in Geoffrey's tenth book, owe their origin mainly to the real ones of Karl der Gross in the