"And said these words Uther the Good: 'Pascent, thou shalt abide; here cometh Uther riding!' He smote him upon the head, so that he fell down, and the sword put in his mouth—such meat to him was strange—so that the point of the sword went in the earth. Then said Uther, 'Pascent, lie now there; now thou hast Britain all won to thy hand! So is now hap to thee; therein thou art dead; dwell ye shall here, thou, and Gillomar thy companion, and possess well Britain! For now I deliver it to you in hand, so that ye may presently dwell with us here; ye need not ever dread who you shall feed.'" [14]
Arthur leads his men close to the hosts of Colgrim, the leader of the
Saxon invaders:—
"Thus said Arthur, noblest of kings: 'See ye, my Britons, here beside us, our full foes—Christ destroy them!—Colgrim the strong, out of Saxonland? His kin in this land killed our ancestors; but now is the day come, that the Lord hath appointed that he shall lose the life, and lose his friends, or else we shall be dead; we may not see him alive! … ' Up caught Arthur his shield, before his breast, and he gan to rush as the howling wolf, when he cometh from the wood, behung with snow, and thinketh to bite such beasts as he liketh. Arthur then called to his dear knights: 'Advance we quickly, brave thanes! all together towards them; we all shall do well, and they forth fly, as the high wood, when the furious wind heaveth it with strength.' Flew over the [fields] thirty thousand shields, and smote on Colgrim's knights, so that the earth shook again. Brake the broad spears, shivered shields; the Saxish men fell to the ground. … Some they gan wander as the wild crane doth in the moor-fen, when his flight is impaired, and swift hawks pursue after him, and hounds with mischief meet him in the reeds; then is neither good to him nor the land nor the flood; the hawks him smite, the hounds him bite, then is the royal fowl at his death-time." [15]
Layamon lets his imagination display itself not merely in the dramatic speeches that he puts into the mouths of his actors; he occasionally composes a long incident, as in the story of the coronation of Constans,[16] of the announcement to Arthur of Mordred's treachery,[17] and in the very striking account of Arthur's election to the throne of Britain and his reception of the messengers who come for him. "Arthur sate full still; one while he was wan, and in hue exceeding pale; one while he was red, and was moved in heart. When it all brake forth, it was good that he spake; thus said he then, forthright, Arthur, the noble knight: 'Lord Christ, God's Son, be to us now in aid, that I may in life hold God's laws.'" [18] But in general Layamon's expansions of Wace are merely slight additions or modifications, sufficient in number, however, to go far in doubling the size of the volume. His great change is that which I have already mentioned, the spirit in which the story is conceived, and this is best illustrated, perhaps, in the person of Arthur himself. For Arthur is no knight-errant, but a grim, stern, ferocious Saxon warrior, loved by his subjects, yet dreaded by them as well as by his foes. "Was never ere such king, so doughty through all things." He stands in the cold glare of monarchy and conquest, and save in the story of his birth and of his final battle he is seldom, if ever, seen through the softer light of romance. But Layamon is the only source for the story of which we hear nothing in the later romances, and which is generally attributed to a Teutonic origin, that elves came to Arthur's cradle and gave him good gifts—to be the best of knights, a rich king, long lived, abounding in "virtues most good." Layamon, too, gives a truly Celtic version of Arthur's disappearance from earth. Two fairy maidens bear the wounded king in a boat from the battle-field over the sea to Argante, the queen of Avalon, who will make him whole again. "And the Britons ever expect when Arthur shall return." This story, and also Layamon's very important account of the establishment of the Round Table, which is vastly more complete than Wace's, bear unmistakable marks of a Celtic origin. Layamon, in fact, living as he did near the Welsh border, naturally shows familiarity with current Welsh tradition. His work has a high value in the vexed question of the origin and growth of Arthurian romance; for it proves the existence of genuine Welsh tradition about Arthur, and makes untenable the position of those critics who maintain that the Arthurian legend had an independent development only on the continent.
Layamon's contributions to our knowledge of the Arthurian material are, however, comparatively small, since he augmented his original in the main by passages inspired by his own imagination.[19] His additions may be called poetic rather than legendary. Partly because of its Saxon character his Brut never attained wide popularity, and it had little effect upon the cycle; but it remains one of the most truly great literary achievements in the field of both Arthurian chronicle and romance.
Our three most important Arthurian chroniclers, Geoffrey, Wace, and Layamon, were all men of marked individuality and ability; each lives for us with as distinct a personality as if we had far more than our very imperfect knowledge of the details of his life. Geoffrey, a clever combiner, a highly gifted narrator and scholar, born at a happy hour, gave the Arthurian legend a definite literary form, brought permanently together independent elements of tradition, and contributed enormously to the popularity of the cycle. Wace, the professional author, the scrupulous antiquarian and naďve poet, carefully refined the material of Geoffrey, and dressed it in the French costume of courtly life. Layamon, the intense and imaginative English priest, transformed it by the Saxon spirit, and divesting it of its courtly elegance, filled it with greater simplicity and force.
EXCURSUS I.—ARTHUR'S MAGIC POSSESSIONS
Arthur's magic possessions form a prominent element in Welsh tradition, and their appearance in the early chronicles is an important testimony to the diffusion of Welsh legend. Kilhwch and Olwen contains a list of his belongings, all of which there is reason to believe, from record or from logical inference, were of otherworld origin. Each has its significant proper name, which in most cases conveys the idea of brilliant whiteness, a characteristic of Celtic fairy objects. His ship, for example, is named White Form, his shield "Night Gainsayer," his dagger "White Haft." The Dream of Rhonabwy [20] describes his carpet (or mantle), "White," which had the property of retaining no colour but its own, and of making whoever was on it (or wrapped in it) invisible, and also his sword, "Hard-breacher," graven with two serpents from whose jaws two flames of fire seemed to burst when it was unsheathed, "and then so wonderful was the sword that it was hard for any one to look upon it." This sword (Caletvwlch, Caliburn, Excalibur) is a Pan-Celtic marvellous object, and is one of Arthur's most famous possessions. The deadly blows attributed by Nennius to him in the Battle of Mount Badon without doubt traditionally were dealt by Caliburn. Geoffrey of Monmouth recognised it as a fairy sword, and says that it was made in Avalon, namely, the Celtic otherworld. We may also feel confident that the full panoply of armour with which Geoffrey equips Arthur (ix. 4) consisted of magic objects, although Geoffrey, who in general, as an historian, rationalises the supernatural, merely describes them as amazingly efficacious. The shield he calls by the name of Arthur's ship in Welsh sources, Pridwen (evidently a fairy boat, limitless in capacity), either from some confusion in tradition, or because, being enchanted, Pridwen might, of course, serve as either ship or shield.
Layamon adds further information about Arthur's weapons. His burny, he says (vs. 21133–34) "was named Wygar" (Anglo-Saxon wigheard), "Battle-hard," "which Witeze wrought," Witeze being a corrupted form for Widia, the Anglo-Saxon name of the son of Weland, the Teutonic Vulcan, a famous maker of magic weapons in romance, with whom his son might easily become identified in legend.
This is the explanation given by Professor G.L. Kittredge of the above lines, as a correction of Sir Frederic Madden's translation: "he [namely, the smith who made the burny] was named Wygar, the witty wight." Layamon says (v. 21147) that Arthur's helmet was called Goswhit, a name that is evidently a translation of some Welsh term meaning "goosewhite," which at once classes the helmet with Arthur's dazzlingly bright fairy belongings. Moreover, Layamon says (vs. 21158, 23779 ff.) that his spear Ron (a Welsh common noun, meaning "spear") was made by a smith called Griffin, whose name may be the result of an English substitution of the familiar word griffin for the unfamiliar Gofan, the name of the Celtic smith-god.