the table of the stars
Arthur’s slow wain his course doth roll,
In utter darkness round the pole;
The Northern Bear lowers black and grim…
…
Walter Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel
The Bear of Heaven
Cosmology underpins much of Arthurian myth and legend. From the comet interpreted by Merlin in the Historia Regum Brittania as announcing the coming of the Great King to the growing and waning of Gawain’s strength with the rising and setting of the sun to the landscape zodiacs proposed in recent times at Glastonbury and Kingston-upon-Thames, we can see how Arthur’s legend was itself influenced by cosmology and how it in turn influenced the lore and legends of the stars.
In Wales various constellations have borne names associated with Arthur at least since the sixteenth century and possibly earlier. The area of the heavens occupied by Ursa Major was designated Arthur’s Round Table, while Lyra is Arthur’s Harp (Telyn Idris), the Great Bear (Ursa Major) is known as Arthur’s Plough-tail, the Littler Bear (Ursa Minor) is the Little Plough-tail, Navis is known as Arthur’s ship, Orion becomes Arthur’s Wain (or Yard), and the zodiac itself is sometimes referred to as Caer Siddi or the Revolving Castle, a title borrowed from Celtic lore and referred to in the Prieddeu Annwfn.56
That there was, at one time, a highly developed set of cosmological myths among the Celtic peoples is hard to doubt, though only fragments of this lore still exist, particularly in the poetry of the sixth-century bard and seer Taliesin and the early Irish Saltair na Rann, which preserved older traditions of the creation of the cosmos.
…the course of the seven Stars
from the firmament to the earth,
Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars,
Sol, Venus, the very great moon (…)
Twelve miles, bright boundary,
with ten times five hundred miles,
splendid the star-run course, separately
from the firmament to the earth.
The measure of the space
from the earth to the firmament,
it is the measure of the difference
from the firmament to heaven.
Twenty-four miles
with thirty hundred miles
is the distance to heaven,
besides the firmament.
The measure of the whole space
from the earth to the Kingly abode,
is equal to that from the rigid earth
down to the depths of hell.57
As we have seen, Merlin made the famous Round Table at which Arthur and his knights sat “in the likeness of the world” and invited the greatest knights of the time to sit there in a circle wherein all were equal, harking back in all probability to the oldest tribal meetings of our more distant ancestors.
The Round Table also represented, in a certain sense, the land over which Arthur ruled. The knights most often began their journeys from there and afterwards returned to tell of their adventures, while in the Didot Perceval58 Merlin himself talks of Camelot’s Round Table as the last of three tables, beginning with the one at which Christ celebrated the Last Supper, and a second table made in the likeness of the first, at which the family of Joseph of Arimathea sat during their journey with the Grail from the Holy Land to Britain.
Merlin cannot have been unaware of the significance of starry correlatives between earth and heaven. The importance of the circle itself was present from a very early time, as witnessed by the huge number of stone monoliths erected in circles throughout Britain and the European mainland. Merlin himself is attributed with the building of Stonehenge, using stones brought from Ireland to create a memorial for Arthur’s grandfather, Ambrosius. Of course the great monument is a great deal older than any reference to Arthur or Merlin, but the mere fact that Merlin is pictured bringing the mighty stones known as the Giant’s Dance from Ireland to Salisbury Plain and to their erection through his elemental magic shows how the idea of a circular temple was associated with the great magician. Later, according to the poet Edmund Spencer in his epic poem The Faery Queen, Merlin built a wall of brass around the whole of Britain, earning it the title “Merlin’s Enclosure.”59
In the twelfth-century Vita Merlini60 we saw Merlin studying the heavens from an observatory with seventy windows and discussing the creation of the world with Taliesin—and although Geoffrey of Monmouth derived much of his cosmological detail from the writings of Isidore of Seville (AD 560–636)—who was, intriguingly, a close contemporary to one of the historical Arthurs—it is not unreasonable to suppose that a native cosmology existed in a time before this.
Merlin certainly studied the stars, as we can see in this quotation from the Vita:
The prophet was watching the stars in their courses from a high hill…He was out in the open, talking to himself and saying: “What means this ray from Mars? Does its new ruddy glow mean a king dead and another king to be…? Highest Venus, you sail along within your prescribed bounds in company with the sun in his path beneath the zodiac: what now of your twin ray cutting through the ether? Does its division foretell the parting of my love? Such is the ray that speaks of love divided.”61
One of the great precepts in all magical work is the adage “As above, so below,” found carved on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. These words have been interpreted in many ways over the centuries, but the essential meaning dates back to the earliest understanding of the connection between the heavens and the earth. Our ancestors, for as long as we have derived knowledge, recognized that the patterns they observed in the heavens were reflected on the earth. Stonehenge in Britain, the pyramids of Egypt, and the Mayan temples of South America all acknowledge this, and there are countless artificially created landscape features that trace our fascination with star lore and its reflection in the earth.
This is no less apparent within the Arthurian mysteries, though it tends to be hidden. The coming of Arthur himself was, as we have heard, predicted by the appearance of a comet, as described in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannia, or History of the Kings of Britain:
There appeared a star of wonderful magnitude and brightness, darting forth a ray, at the end of which was a globe of fire in form of a dragon, out of whose mouth issued forth two rays; one of which seemed to stretch out itself beyond the extent of Gaul, the other towards the Irish Sea, and ended in seven lesser rays.62
When called upon to interpret this portent, Merlin tells Uther—not yet king himself, though soon to be so—that
the star, and the fiery dragon under it, signifies yourself, and the ray extending towards the Gallic coast, portends that you shall have a most potent son, to whose power all those kingdoms shall be subject over which the ray reaches…63
We should not be surprised to find Arthur making an appearance here. As Britain’s greatest hero, it would be more surprising if he did not. In fact, there are some very interesting hints that point towards a significant role for the once and future king in the heavens, as we shall see.
Merlin’s prophesies, which Geoffrey of Monmouth included in his Historia, are filled with references to the stars and their influence on earthly matters. Towards the end of the seer’s first great outpouring on Dinas Emrys comes the following passage, redolent with starry references:
The helmet of Mars shall make a shadow; and the rage of Mercury pass his bounds. Iron Orion shall unsheathe his sword: the marine Phoebus shall torment the clouds; Jupiter shall go out of his lawful paths; and Venus forsake her stated lines. The malignity of the star Saturn shall fall down in rain, and slay mankind with a crooked sickle. The twelve houses of the stars shall lament the irregular excursions of their guests; and Gemini omit their usual embraces, and call the urn to the fountains. The scales of Libra shall hang obliquely, till Aries put his crooked horns under them. The tail of Scorpio shall produce lightning, and Cancer quarrel with the Sun. Virgo shall mount upon the back of Sagittarius, and darken her virgin flowers. The chariot of the Moon shall disorder the zodiac, and the Pleiades break forth into weeping. No offices of Janus shall hereafter return, but his gate being shut shall lie hid in the chinks of Ariadne. The seas shall rise up in the twinkling of an eye, and the dust of the ancients shall be restored. The winds shall fight together with a dreadful blast, and their sound shall reach the stars.64
R. J. Stewart has ably interpreted this in his book The Prophetic Vision of Merlin65 and we shall not go into it here, but such passages are filled with deep levels of magic and reward protracted study by those who hear the call of Arthur. Other later associations of Arthur with the star lore of the west look both forward and back in time, with references that are as intriguing as they are enlightening.
Arthur and Arcturus: The Crown of Stars
References to Arthur’s connection with the star Arcturus seem to go back into the distant past, but it was only in the sixteenth century that something like a true myth resurfaced. Though it was not written until 1578, it almost certainly derives from a much earlier period.66
The text in question was written by the great English magician Dr. John Dee, himself very much a Merlin-like figure. It was called The Limits of the British Empire, and in it Dee argued that because King Arthur had once extended his kingdom to include Ireland, Greenland, Iceland, and parts of the North Pole, so too might Queen Elizabeth I, whom he served in much the same way as Merlin served Arthur. He argued also that England should garner new lands through colonization and that this vision could become reality by way of maritime supremacy.67
The book’s premise was simple—it offered evidence that supported the idea that Her Majesty could lay legitimate claim not only to Britain, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, but also Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, possibly the continent of America, and regions even further north—as far, in fact, as the North Polar ice itself. To prove his point, Dee told a story about Arthur that appears nowhere else and is very startling indeed. (Note: The Arthuri Gestis, or Gestae Arthuri, is a now-lost book that told the story of Arthur’s deeds; Dee possessed or had seen a copy.)
In northern Norway (which is also called dark Norway [because] it is dark three months on end, the sun never rising above the horizon) there is sometimes a sort of dawn…The passage to North Norway is not easy because of the fast flowing seas which flow past Greenland…This North Norway stretches to those mountains which surround the North Pole in a circular course. These are the mountains of which it is written that they were among them certain cities, as you can find mentioned in the Arthuri Gestis, and over against them dwell people of small stature, mentioned in the same work. These things, and more besides, concerning the northern regions can be found at the beginning of the Arthuri Gestis. Long ago the islands lying in the North were called the Ciliae, now the Septentrionals, and among them were North Norway and many small rivers which are called the Indrawing Seas because their waters are pulled towards the North with a great constant force, such that no wind can drive a ship against them. And in this attitude there are very high mountains reaching to the clouds, and in this attitude the air is very often murky and dark. In the 78th degree of latitude (like a crown or circlet) there stand around the North Pole immensely high mountains over most of the land, but in some places there are reports that these Indrawing Seas, (are) in some places up to 50, 60, or 100 leagues across (some broader but others narrower) which everywhere pull to the North. One group of Arthur’s knights sailed thus far when he was conquering the Northern Isles and making them all subject to him.
And in the writings of the ancients it is stated that these Indrawing seas snatched from Arthur some 4000 men who never returned, but (that), in 1364 eight of the descendants of these men returned to the King of Norway, and among them were two priests, one of whom had an astrolabe, and he was descended by five generations from (a man named) Bruxellensis, who…was in one of the first ships to penetrate those northern regions. This noble man, who had been one of Arthur’s followers had, in the year 530, spent a whole winter in the northern half of Scotland, and one of his fleet had crossed over to Iceland on 3rd May in that year. At that time there returned from the North four of the ships whose captains warned Arthur about the strong currents in the straits; and therefore Arthur did not leave the place where he was. Nonetheless he settled his people on all the islands between Scotland and Greenland and in Greenland itself.68
This is already startling, but as Dee continues to expound his knowledge—all of it, we must assume, from the now-lost Gestae Arthuri—a very powerful story emerges.
When those four ships had come back, there were sailors who asserted that…there were magnetic rocks under the water, and that eight ships had foundered because of their iron nails. So Arthur again fitted out a fleet of 12 ships, containing no iron, and embarked 1800 men and about 400 women. These set sail for the North on 5 May in the year after the earlier ships and set out. (At a guess 522) And of these 12 ships, five were driven on to the rocks by storms, but the rest penetrated the high rocks on 18th of June on the 44th day after they had weighed anchor. (Perhaps they had penetrated some narrow passage).69
Five out of the twelve ships make seven, and that, as we shall see, is an important number. Dee concludes:
The priest who had the astrolabe told the King of Norway that there had come to the Northern Isles in 1360 an English Minorite from Oxford, who was a good astronomer. He, leaving the others who had come to these islands, set off further throughout all the northern regions and described all the wonders of those islands, and he gave a book to the King of England (that is, Edward III) which he called Inventio Fortunata. This book begins from the furthest clime, from 54°, and continues all the way to the Poles. This Franciscan reported that these mountains surround the Pole without a break except in those places where the Indrawing seas break through.70
This is astonishing. Here is Arthur sending an expedition not only through the lands of Norway, Greenland, and Iceland, but to the North Pole—where, apparently, a number of cities are established. Dee was not certain whether these were founded by Arthur himself or were already there. However, there is a possible explanation for this, which will lead us even further north into the mysterious starry regions of the Septentrionals.
Unfortunately, the Inventio Fortunata is another of the many books that vanished from Dee’s library following his death in 1608/9.71 However, we do know a little about its possible author and his curious (and possibly fictitious) voyage. The English Minorite (a monk in Minor Orders) is believed to have been one Nicholas of Lynne, a Franciscan friar, mathematician, and astronomer who did indeed attend Merton College in Oxford and was alive sometime around 1360. (Another possibility is the remarkable proto-scientist Bishop Robert Grossteste, 1175–1253, who wrote the first treatise on the properties of light.)
The earliest mention of the Inventio Fortunata is on a map drawn by the Dutch cartographer Johannes Ruysch (1460–1533) in 1508, where a high magnetic rock under the Arctic Pole is described. This may, in fact, be a mountain in the vicinity of Thule in Greenland that was well known to the mediaeval Icelanders, who had, by the fourteenth century, noticed the deviation of the compass the further north they travelled. The great explorer and mapmaker Richard Hakluyt (1553–1616) says this friar wrote the Inventio Fortunata after a voyage he made in 1360. Travelling in company with others to the most northern islands of the world, he is said to have left his fellows and travelled on alone.
The record of his travels, the Inventio, he presented to King Edward III of England. This same friar “for sundry purposes after that did five times pass from England thither, and home again.” Dee himself was convinced that this friar was another Minorite, Hugo of Ireland, a traveller who flourished and wrote circa 1360. It is only in recent years, however, that Nicholas of Lynne has acquired a considerable reputation as an early English explorer of the Arctic, in spite of the somewhat unlikely statement that he travelled alone to the pole and later made five further Arctic expeditions. Thomas Blundeville, a seventeenth-century collector of maps, wrote in his “A briefe description of universall mapes and cardes…” (London, 1622) that he did not believe that the friar had made a voyage to the Arctic himself “unlesse he had some colde Devill out of the middle Region of the aire to be his guide.”72
However, the Inventio Fortunata was, as far as we can tell, a trustworthy description of Greenland and the Canadian archipelago, as far as the mediaeval Icelanders of Greenland had traversed these lands. Moreover, the book had a large circulation in Europe and may have been used by Columbus. Its author, whether Nicholas of Lynne or not, almost unquestionably received his information, not firsthand by travelling through the Arctic, but from a priest named Ivar Bárdarson, who travelled widely and acquired, directly or indirectly, much information about the eastern Canadian Arctic. Bárdarson was back in Norway between circa 1361 and 1364, and there the Oxford friar may have met him personally and compiled the Inventio Fortunata from his accounts. In any case, the excerpts from the Inventio found in later works point conclusively to an Icelandic-Greenlandic source.
Within the Arthurian texts there are several mentions of the “Septentrional regions,” referring both to a region of the North Polar ice and the pattern of stars above it. These stars include a constellation that is of particular importance: Bootes, one of a group that circle the Pole Star and that includes the star Arcturus. This star, which is one of the brightest in the heavens, was considered so important at the time that the whole constellation was regularly called by its name.
The classical myth of Arcturus concerns the nymph Callisto, who is raped by Zeus and eventually gives birth to a child named Arcas. The goddess Hera, always jealous of Zeus’s conquests, turns Callisto into a bear. Years later, in one of those wonderful Freudian turns so often found in myth, Arcas, now king of Arcadia, unknowingly hunts down and almost kills his own mother! However, Zeus intervenes at the last moment and places them in the heavens together. Callisto becomes the constellation Ursa Major (The Great Bear), or Arktos in Greek. Arcas is the brilliant star Arktouros, which in Latin becomes Arcturus—the “Bear Guardian” who is set to watch over his mother, who is seen as the guardian of the northern hemisphere and of the Arctic pole in particular.73
The Starry King
Given these names and the association with bears, it is perhaps no surprise that Arcturus has been associated with King Arthur for a long time. As so often in these stories, it begins with the name. The star Arcturus was regularly used to describe the whole of the constellation of Bootes, and, from at least the eleventh century onwards, it was regularly spelled Arturus, Arthurus, Artur, and even (once) Arthur.
This was, of course, at a time when there were no exact rules for spelling, and names in particular changed dramatically from text to text, but what is more interesting here is the fact that this also happened in reverse—the name Arthur is regularly spelled Arcturus in a number of medieval manuscripts.
All of this may originate in the Latin interpretation of the Greek words for bear, “arth,” and guardian, “uthar”—the understood meanings of the star names. Uthar is, of course, not too far from the name Uther, a name associated with Arthur’s father from the earliest records.
Arth can also be translated as bear-man—or, according to one writer, as arth-uthyr (pronounced arth-uir or arth-ur), meaning great or wondrous bear.74 The connection between Arthur and the North Pole may go back even further. It is entirely possible that it stems from the name of the region itself—Arctic. This comes from the Latin ar(c)ticus, which in turn comes from the Greek arktikos, meaning either “of the bear” or sometimes, more simply, “northern.”
From earliest times the Arctic was perceived as not only the northernmost part of the earth, but also a wholly mysterious place that became, for northern peoples especially, associated with the land of the dead. In the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, Arthur himself was known as Ursus Horabulus, “the horrible bear,” which is often seen as a term applied to him because he raided church property to fund his warlike activities. In fact, it probably refers back to the starry associations of Arthur with Arcturus, since the rising and setting of the constellation was associated with savage and tempestuous weather.
We know that Arthur was associated with a great bear as far back as the tenth century. We find the constellation listed in the writings of Isidore of Seville and John of Sacrabosco, under various spellings, mostly with the letter “c” dropped, so that we end up with the same spellings: Arthurus, Arturus, and Arthus—all of which were used of Arthur during the mediaeval period. In the mythology of the Great Bear, Arcas became king of Arcadia and brought agriculture to the area, for which he was immortalized among the stars as Bootes, inventor of the “wagon,” which is the other name for the constellation of the Great Bear. It is perhaps no accident that legend has Arthur often represented as sleeping in a cave with his knights around him or that the seven most important stars of the Bear-Wagon (the Big Dipper) are associated with the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, heroes (including Arthur) who are expected to return one day.
Given Arthur’s status as a mythical or proto-historic king of increasing importance, it’s not surprising if his connection with the stars grew with the telling. Only a hero as important as Arthur could be named after a star!
The Raid on the Otherworld
Dee’s account of Arthur’s northern voyage has a ring of magic and myth about it, and it is curiously familiar. A voyage undertaken by Arthur through wild waters to a strange and frozen land echoes the poem attributed to Taliesin, which we have already had occasion to notice. Prieddeu Annwfn was copied down in the ninth century but has been shown to date from as much as 300 years earlier to the sixth century, when at least one of the historical Arthurs is believed to have lived.75 The poem describes a voyage undertaken by Arthur and his heroes in search of a sacred vessel that prefigures the later quest for the Grail. Two verses in particular are relevant here.
Is not my song fit recital for kings,
In the four-square Caer, in the Island of the Strong Door,
Where noon and night make half-light,
Where bright wine is brought before the host?
Three ship burdens of Prydwen took to sea:
Except seven none returned from Caer Rigor.
I sing not for those whose shield-arms droop,
Who know not the day nor the hour nor the cause
When the glorious Son of Light was born…
They know not who is the brindled, harnessed ox
With seven score links upon his collar.
When we went with Arthur on difficult errand;
Except seven none returned from Caer Fandwy.76
If we set this beside Dee’s findings about Arthur’s northern voyage, something very like a fully-fledged mythic story emerges.
Caer Rigor, one of seven cities mentioned in the poem, can be read to mean “the Frozen Castle,” which suggests Arthur was heading for an Arctic region. On the way he encounters a whirlpool that nearly sucks his ship under the water, though it manages to escape. This has been suggested to be the Corry Vrecken, which lies off the west coast of Scotland at a place where waters rush between several islands, forming a whirlpool.77 Could this be another reference to the “Indrawing Seas,” mentioned by Dee and his sources, and which apparently plagued Arthur’s ships? We may note that out of the twelve ships he sent to the Arctic region, only seven returned. Only seven…
It is also interesting that hell, for much of the Middle Ages, was described not as a place of heat and fire but of cold and ice. Surely this points directly to a frozen Arctic region—an icy hell and a version of the underworld to which Arthur sails! Even the half-light mentioned in the poem seems to refer to the dim light found in the Arctic regions for the greater part of the year.
Dee’s translation of the account from the lost Gestae Arthuri tells us that “there are mountains (around the North Pole) of which it is written that there were among them certain cities…” There is an implication, as we saw, that Arthur himself may have founded the cities or that he conquered them. So are the caers in the poem the cities of the northern polar circle? Remember that this is a mythic interpretation, not a geographic one, though the two may well come together in this account. If there is even a remote possibility of such an interpretation, this leads to an interesting scenario:
Arthur sails with his men to the far north, conquering everything in his path. He reaches the polar ice, where he either builds a series of cities or finds them already there and conquers them. There, perhaps, he learns of an ancient king who was once a hunter and who bears a very similar name—Arktos.78
The memory of an earlier account of this mythic voyage could certainly have been remembered by Taliesin and then expanded upon by later writers, beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth, who had heard that Arthur made many northern conquests. Subsequent chroniclers followed this and the now-lost Gestae Arthuri, possibly describing a more detailed version of the story and listing all of Arthur’s conquests in the North, adding to Dee’s idea of Arthur in the north. Elizabethan explorers such as Cnoyen, Hakluyt, and others discovered this book and drew their own conclusions, including Arthur’s northern kingdoms on their maps. Dee found these and made them part of his “proof” that not only had Arthur existed, but that Elizabeth I was descended from him and had inherited the right to rule not only over the whole of England, but also over much of Scandinavia!
There is also the enigmatic reference in the Prieddeu Annwfn to the mysterious beast with seven-score starry links in his collar. Might this refer to a constellation? Not Bootes, unfortunately, as there are less than seven stars in the constellation, but this could be either a mistake or a misreading of an older source. Since there are references to the birth of a heroic child also in the Prieddeu Annwfn, might it be stretching the point too far to suggest that all of this relates back to an ancient cosmological myth in which Arthur is born among the stars?
Since there is a definite indication that the original form of Arthur’s name was either Arktos or Arcturus, there is little doubt that he was actually named after the star, which would explain many of the attributes he later displayed in the myths.
It is also very interesting to note that whenever the version of Arthur’s name is given the spelling of Arcturus, it is always in connection with his mythic attributes, his departure for Avalon, and his promise to return. No matter what other spellings are used, this one is consistently applied to that otherworldly connection. Nor should we forget that stars rise and set in the heavens, vanishing during the day and reappearing at night, and of course that the stars also traversed the skies over the period of a year.
Arthur’s undying nature and his connection with the stars was celebrated in John Lidgate’s poem the Fall of Princes (circa 1430), which may have been known to Dee. There, after the last Battle of Camlan, in which Arthur is fatally wounded, like many heroes before him, he is taken up into the night sky to the constellation of Bootes!
Where he sits crowned in heavenly manner
Amid the palace of stones crystalline
Told among Christians first of the worthy nine.79
All of this points to the idea that behind John Dee’s mythologizing in the name of his queen may lie a kernel of mythic truth that points to the real reason why he looked to the north in search of Arthur’s furthest and most mysterious conquest.
Practice
This is just a small part of the starry mysteries of Arthur; much more remains to be explored and understood. Work associated with this will be found in chapter 12. The exercises there are designed to open the ways between this world and the inner reality of the Arthurian kingdom, both the earthly and its starry counterpart. It invites us to be part of the greater fellowship of the Round Table and to take our own place amongst those who meet there. We also focus on the part played by Merlin in establishing a Round Table amongst the stars.
56. Matthews, C. and J. King Arthur’s Raid on the Underworld (Gothic Image Publications
57. Saltair na Rann, trans. W. Stokes in Ancient Irish Tales, Cross, T. P. and C. H. Slover (Figgis, Dublin,1936).
58. Didot Perceval: The Romance of Perceval in Prose, trans. D. Skeels (U of Washington Press, 1966).
59. Spenser, E. The Faery Queene (Penguin Books, 2003).
60. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Vita Merlini, trans. J. J. Parry (University of Illinois, 1925).
61. Ibid.
62. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britannia, or History of the Kings of Britain.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. Stewart, R. J. The Prophetic Vision of Merlin (Arkana, 1986).
66. I would like to thank Dr. Caitlin Green for drawing my attention to this text. Cf. her essay, “John Dee, King Arthur, and the Conquest of the Arctic” on Academia.edu.
67. Dee, J. Limits of the British Empire, ed. and trans. K. MacMillan and J. Abeles (Westport: Praeger, 2004).
68. Ibid., italics by JM.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. DaCosta, B. F. “Inventio Fortunata: Arctic Exploration, with an account of Nicholas of Lynn,” in The Bulletin of the American Geographic Society (New York, 1881).
72. quoted in DaCosta.
73. Anderson, G. King Arthur in Antiquity (Routledge, 2004) and Lampeter, The Earliest Arthurian Texts (Edwin Mellen Press, 2007).
74. Anderson, F. Ancient Secret: In Search of the Holy Grail (Gollancz, 1955).
75. Matthews, C. and J. King Arthur’s Raid on the Underworld (Gothic Image Publications, 2008).
76. Ibid., trans. CM.
77. Ibid.
78. Anderson, G. King Arthur in Antiquity (Routledge, 2004).
79. Lydgate, J. The Fall of Princes (EEBO Editions, ProQuest, 2010).