with so many fables, indicate very clearly who his antagonists were. Medraut or Modred was the son of that Llew to whom Arthur is said to have given Lothian, and who, as Lothus, King of the Picts, is invariably connected with that part of Scotland. His forces were Saxons, Picts, and Scots, the very races Arthur is said to have conquered in his Scotch campaigns. If it is to be viewed as a real battle at all; it assumes the appearance of an insurrection of the population of these conquered districts, under Medraut, the son of that Llew to whom one of them was given, and we must look for its site there. On the south bank of the Carron, in the very heart of these districts, are remains which have always been regarded as those of an important Roman town, and to this the name of Camelon has long been attached. It has stronger claims than any other to be regarded as the Camlan where Arthur encountered Medraut, with his Picts, Scots, and Saxons, and perished; and its claims are strengthened by the former existence of another ancient building on the opposite side of the river-that singular monument, mentioned as far back as 1293 by the name of "Furnus Arthuri,” and subsequently known by that of Arthur's O'on.

In thus endeavouring to identify the localities of these events connected with the names of Cunedda and of Arthur, I do not mean to say that it is all to be accepted as literal history, but as a legendary account of events which had assumed that shape as early as the seventh century, when the text of the Historia Britonum was first put together, and which are commemorated in local tradition.

CHAPTER V.

STATE OF BRITAIN IN A.D. 560 WHEN GILDAS WROTE, AND KINGS OF THE LINE OF DYFI.

GILDAS, in his epistle, written probably from Armorica, draws a dark picture of the state of Britain. The colours may be overcharged and the lines deepened; but, exaggerated though it may be by a Christian zeal, which may have driven him from the country, his language, if there is any reality in it at all, implies a great departure from the Christian faith, and a deep corruption of manners. The expressions which he employs regarding the state of the princes of Wales are but an echo of what is used by other writers regarding the more northern Cymry. In the oldest life of Saint Kentigern, Llew, or Lothus as he is there called, whose daughter was his mother, is described as "vir semipaganus;" and Joceline, who used older documents, calls him "secta paganissimi," and describes the infant church, which had been founded shortly before at Glasgow by Kentigern, as being oppressed by "quidam tyrannus vocabulo Morken," that he "viri Dei vitam atque doctrinam sprevit atque despexit," and that after his death his "Cognati" obliged him to take refuge in Wales, where, under Caswallawn law Hir, the father of Maelgun, Kentigern founded the mon

astery of Llanelwy, or St. Asaph's. He also says of the Picts, "Picti vero prius per Sanctum Ninianum ex magna parte; postea per Sanctos Kentegernum et Columbam fidem susceperunt; dein in apostasiam lapsi, iterum per predicationem Sancti Kentegerni, non solum Picti, sed et Scoti, et populi innumeri in diversis finibus Britanniæ constituti, ad fidem conversi vel in fide confirmati sunt." There is here indicated a wide-spread apostasy from the Christian church founded by Ninian, which drove Kentigern from Glasgow, and which, on his return from Wales, he was mainly instrumental in healing. His expulsion from Glasgow must have taken place between 540 and 560, as he was a considerable time in Wales and returned in 573. It therefore closely followed the battle of Camlan. Arthur was pre-eminently a Christian leader. The legends connected with the battle in which he carried the image of Saint Mary on his shield, and the cross he obtained from Jerusalem, indicate this. Medraut was the son of that "vir semipaganus" Llew or Loth, and his insurrection with his Pictish and Saxon allies seems like the outburst of a Pagan party. The arrival in 547, no long time after, of Ida, the Anglic king, and the consolidation of the Saxon settlements on the eastern sea-board of the north into the Anglic kingdom of Bernicia, stretching first from the southern wall to the Tweed, with Bamborough for its capital, and pushing its way north until it eventually reached the Firth of Forth, must have strengthened the increasing Paganism, both by the direct sub

jugation of British and Pictish population by a Pagan king, but also by the insensible influence of the vicinity of a Pagan power. A struggle seems to have taken place between the Christian and Pagan elements in the country, in which the latter at first prevailed, but which terminated in the triumph of the Christian party, and the consolidation of the various petty states into regular kingdoms under its leaders.

Gildas, in his Epistle, addresses five kings by name, and of these he sufficiently indicates the locality of three. The first is Constantine, whom he terms "The tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Damnonia (immundæ lænæ Damnoniæ tyrannicus catulus), and who must have reigned in Devon and Cornwall. The second is Aurelius Conanus, whom he addresses as "Thou lion's whelp" (Catule leonine). His title of Aurelius is equivalent to Guledig. The third was Vortipore, whom he calls "Thou foolish tyrant of the Demetians" (tyrannus Demetarum), and who must have ruled over Dyfed and the regions in South Wales rescued from the Scots by Cunedda and his sons. The fourth was Cuneglase, whom he addresses as "Thou bear, thou rider and ruler of many, and guider of the chariot which is the receptacle of the bear" (urse multorum sessor aurigaque currus receptaculi ursi); and the fifth was Maglocunus, whom he calls "Thou dragon of the island" (insularis draco). This was Maelgun, who, we learn from the Genealogia, ruled in Gwynedd, and was called the Island Dragon, from Mona or Anglesea, from which his father Caswallawn law Hir had expelled the Gwyd

dyl. The two kings, whose possessions are not indicated, probably possessed the two eastern kingdoms of Powys and Gwent, and Conan, the former, as the genealogies attached to Nennius call Brochwail Powys, who fought in 613, son of Cynan or Conanus.

It is plain, from the language of Gildas, that Maglocunus was one who swayed between Christianity and Paganism, and was rapidly rising into power over the other kings. He describes him as having "deprived many tyrants as well of their kingdoms as of their lives," as "exceeding many in power," and "strong in arms," and that the King of kings had made him, as well in kingdom as in stature of body, higher than almost all the other chiefs of Britain. He also describes him as in the beginning of his youth oppressing with sword, spear, and fire, the king his uncle; then repenting "and vowing himself before God a monk," and taking refuge "in the cells where saints repose;" and then being seduced by a crafty wolf out of the fold, and returning to evil, slaying his brother's son and marrying his widow; and he concludes by an urgent appeal to him again to repent and be converted.

There is a curious legend preserved in the old Welsh Laws. It is as follows:

After the taking of the crown and sceptre of London from the nation of the Cymry, and their expulsion from Lloegyr, they instituted an inquiry to see who of them should be supreme king. The place they appointed was on Traeth Maelgwn at Aber Dyvi, and thereto came the men of Gwynedd, the men of Powys, the men of South Wales, of Reinwg, Morganwg, and of Seissyllwg. And there Maeldav the elder, son of Unhwch Unachen, chief of