destroys. "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ" in your love," and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." Keep love pure and bright, and train it to sacrifice, and the very joy and glory of God are within reach of your hand. But let it grow selfish and wanton, teach it to riot in the frenzy of passion, or to feed on the garbage of lust, and there is no limit to the course of degradation which it opens before you, as it sinks you down, down, to the lowest depths of the pit. THE HOLY GRAIL AND THE GLASTONBURY LEGEND. BY MRS. ANDREW Crosse. (Continued from page 142.) N Tennyson's description of the approach to the Castle of Car I bonek, there is a passage which touches upon an interesting and recently discovered antiquarian fact. He says: Quite recently a very remarkable discovery has been made in the moors near Glastonbury. In digging the peat, which exists largely in this district, they have found at six or eight feet below the surface several miles of causeway, extending in different directions, which evidently owe their origin to very remote times. They are quite unlike any constructions within the historic period, and seem to have been the work of a very primitive people. The road or causeway is formed of the stems of stout hazel trees, cut into lengths of about six feet, which are laid in regular and close contiguity, horizontally and transversely across. They are bound with wattles, and are pegged down by pieces of forked stick-bits of hazel wood, to some of which are still attached bunches of the nuts. The whole work is perfectly visible beneath the wet peat, which is highly antiseptic, and wonderfully preserves all relics of the past. These cause ways have never been found at less than six, and never more than nine, feet below the surface. They are found in various parts of the moor, but all seem to lead to the "Great Avalon." Though only lately noticed by archeologists, these sunken roads have been long known to the peatmen, and are locally called "The Abbot's Way." In this neighbourhood everything strange and ancient is attributed to the Abbey of Glastonbury, which for so many centuries dominated the country round. There cannot be a moment's doubt that these constructions are far anterior to the time of the abbots. The marsh itself is full of interesting relics of the Romano-British times. Specimens have been found of the gwaen-helw, or hunting spear; the bwyell-arv, or battle-axe of the British; also pins and brooches of that people.* All these are of British brass, and have been well preserved in the peat. Paddles have also been found which are the same in form as those used by the Welsh in the present day for their coracles. In the parish of Woolavington there existed till very recently a specimen of a large canoe. It was embedded in the peat, but in dry seasons appeared above the surface. The country people called it " Squire Phippen's big ship," but unfortunately being deficient in fire-wood, and also in antiquarian reverence, they bethought themselves of breaking up the poor old "ship” one fine day. Who shall say what Arthurian heroes it may not have conveyed over the Avalonian lake? In ancient days, from this spot to the Isle of Avalon, it was an inland mere. Tennyson says:— This is an exact seen. "On one side lay the ocean, and on one Lay a great water." description of the Glastonbury landscape as then Even as late as Henry VIII. there was a lake belonging to the Abbey, called "The Meare pool, in circuite fyve miles, and one mile and half brode." It is to be found marked in the old maps of the county. On the borders of the spot where this lake used to be, there still exists a most unique bit of domestic architecture belonging to the middle ages. It is called "The Fish House," and belonged to the Abbots of Glastonbury. Mr. Parker, our great authority on * See Somersetshire Archæological Proceedings, 1851: Stradling's Paper on "The Turbaries." medieval domestic architecture, attributes it to the reign of Edward III. It is perhaps the only instance that we have of a cottage of such an early date. Camelot, the renowned castle of King Arthur, supposed to be built by Merlin, is traditionally identified with a place a few miles from Glastonbury. The tourist will find this picturesque spot called Cadbury Camp, and may view it from the railway which passes from Yeovil to Castle Cary. Leland calls it "Camallate or Camalat, sometime a famous town or castle, upon a very torre or hill, won"Four ditches and as many derfully enstrengthened of nature.” † walls surrounded a central space of about thirty acres, where foundations and remains of walls might be seen, and whence Roman pavements, urns, coins, and other relics have been found up to the present time. I find it called the Castle of Camellek in maps of the dates 1575 and 1610, and in that of 1727, edition of Camden's Magna Britannica, the text of which says, The inhabitants call it King Arthur's Palace;' but soon after that date a learned antiquary, John Strachey, writes that the name had been superseded by that of Cadbury Castle, which trilingual appellation may seem to indicate the Roman, British, and Saxon possessors, by whom it was probably held in succession." The neighbouring villages are still called Queen Camel and East and West Camel. 6 In the third song of Drayton's "Polyolbion," he says, in describing the river Ivel, in Somersetshire, that it is "The nearest neighbouring flood to Arthur's ancient seat, Which made the Britaine's name thro' all the world so great. Like Camelot what place was ever yet renown'd? Where, as at Caerleon, oft he kept the Table Round; Most famous for the sports at Pentacost so long, From whence all knightly deeds and brave achievements sprong." Merlin, the great magician, is supposed to have built this wondrous castle for Arthur. Tennyson adopts the legend, and Sir Percivale's sister speaks of it :— "O brother, had you known our mighty hall, Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago! For all the sacred mount of Camelot, * Itinerary, ii. pp. 38, 39, Hearne, 1711. + The Globe edition of Morte Darthur, Introduction, p. xii, And all the dim rich city, roof by roof, By grove and garden, lawn and rushing brook, Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built." The fulfilment of the gloomy prophecy of Merlin, that the seeds of death would spring up to mar the fair promise of chivalry, and the glory of Arthur's Round Table, is told in the concluding portion of Malory's book. The guilty love of Queen Guinevere for Sir Launcelot brings about a civil war, and Sir Mordred, the king's nephew, heads the opposing party. In the last desperate encounter Arthur himself is mortally wounded. Nothing can exceed the beauty of Tennyson's lines in which he treats this part of the story. In the last scene, the poet describes that after Sir Bedivere has unwillingly thrown the magic sword Excalibur into the lake, the king enters a dusky barge :— "All the decks were dense with stately forms, Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream; by these Three queens with crowns of gold; and from them rose The king, after giving utterance to that magnificent passage, in which he consoles Sir Bedivere that the whole Round Table is dissolved, because "The old order changeth, yielding place to new," "I am going a long way With these thou seest-if indeed I go- Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, In the foregoing Tennyson adheres pretty closely to Malory's version; but the tradition preserved by the Welsh bards, and long believed by the people, was that Arthur was not dead, only conveyed away by fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remain for a time, and then return again in as great authority as ever, "for certes this is the prophecy of Merlin." Exactly the same superstition exists all over Germany respecting Frederick Barbarossa, who is supposed to be held in a magic sleep in a cave of the Untersburg, near Salzburg,—so unwilling is mankind to part utterly from their beloved heroes: in the classic days they were translated to Olympus, and still ruled the destinies of men. So much that is incredible and fabulous surrounds the name and fame of Arthur, that there are many persons who doubt his historical existence altogether. But there appears to be no reason to doubt that the British really had a military chief of superior intelligence, a good and wise ruler, who left his mark upon the times, and whose memory dwelt in the remembrance of the people. In examining the question dispassionately, we find, first, the universality of the traditional belief in Arthur, and moreover in the earliest literature of the Cymri he is spoken of as a great military chief.* "His cotemporary, Llywarch Hên, speaks of him as such in his description of the battle of Llongborth. The Welsh Triads in like manner preserve the same historical character, and more than thirty of them refer to this British king." In the Chronicle of Tysilio, which was compiled about A.D. 1000, and in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History, which was written about the middle of the twelfth century, the tradition is preserved that Arthur died at Glastonbury, and was buried there. Malory's romance leaves the matter in some mystery, for he describes that Sir Bedivere, after parting with the king, travelled through a forest, and eventually came to a hermitage beside Glastonbury, where he found a tomb new graven, and the hermit told him that "at midnight a number of ladies brought hither a dead corpse, and prayed him to bury him, and offered a hundred tapers and a hundred besaunt" (gold coins). Sir Bedivere exclaims: "That was my lord King Arthur, that here lieth buried in this chapel." Further on, in Malory's book, we hear that Guinevere the Queen is sick unto death at Amesbury, she having taken refuge in the convent there. Sir Launcelot, her lover, who had been abiding in deep contrition near Arthur's grave, went to the Queen, that when she died she might be brought to be buried with Arthur. Guinevere had prayed that "she might never again behold Launcelot with her worldly eyes;" and in accordance with this desire she died half an hour before he arrived at the convent. The descrip * «On the Reputed Discovery of King Arthur's Remains at Glastonbury, Somersetshire," Archæological Proceedings, vol. ix. p. 128. |