HISTORY, asked to determine how much of
veritable fact may underlie the imposing
structure of the Arthurian legend, can only
give a cold response. Most of that legend, whether
it comes to us in the pseudo-historic form of
Geoffrey's chronicle, or in the romantic form of the
Welsh stories, or in the hagiographic form of the
Vitae Sanctorum, can be no more than the play of
imagination about the meagre details furnished by
Harleian MS 3859. The documents contained in
that manuscript, whatever their origins, are of un-
certain and divided authorship. The earliest of them
cannot be relied upon as taking us beyond the ninth
century. And already they contain legendary ele-
ments in the shield of Guinnion and the mirabilia of
Buelt and Ercing. Stripped of these, they tell us
that Arthur fought against the Saxons, that he won
the battle of Badon, which Gildas records without
mention of him, that he won eleven other battles at
named places, that he fell with Medraut at Camlan,
that Badon was in 518 and Camlan in 539, and that
he had a son Anir, whom legend has forgotten or
perhaps confused with his own burial-place Licat
Anir into Lacheu. There is nothing of Guinevere, of
Kei and Bedwyr, or of Gawain, whom William of

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